I attended the 1st National Conference on Communication, Voice and Swallow Disorders in March this year. While one of the speakers there was giving a presentation, somebody sitting on a seat right beside me mumbled, "The disabled are the scum of the earth. It's worthless working on them"
It was an utterly ridiculous thing to say in a conference where majority of the people were working with mentally or physically challenged people. I'm just glad nobody else heard. So, even though I was a bit taken aback by the statement as I too wanted to work for the disabled too, I didn't pick up an arguement with this guy because to be honest I didn't have anything to say in order to invalidate his statement. I sort-of kind-of believed it deep down and knew that society at large held the very beliefs as the guy sitting next to me.
But I pondered over this that very day and now I believe its pretty unfair to call anybody scum. I'll try to prove why through this blogpost.
But before diving in let's define scum.
Scum: a worthless or contemptible person or group of people.
So, the disabled are assumed of as scum because they aren't thought of as useful members to our society- they are worthless and therefore contemptible. They are utterly dependent on the resources of a country which could otherwise be utilized towards something important like I don't know educational projects or infrastructure. Projects that could actually lead the country to some prosperity. However the problem with disability and especially mental disability is that sometimes all effort comes to no avail. Hence the scum label arose.
Others were once thought of as scum too. For instance women and blacks.
What does calling a vulnerable or apparently worthless group "scum" imply? It means that you wished they hadn't been born. That you're just tolerating them as part of your "mercy". And since they are so useless, so scummy, there really is no point in actually working for them.
Well, I certainly don't think Stephen Hawking or Temple Grandin were scum. Or Oprah Winfrey or Malala Yousufzai. Or Michael Jackson or Martin Luther King. These "scum" turned out to be more useful to our society then the typical non-scummy people horsing around the planet. They refuted the very definition of scum - they proved to be useful. So just because something seems like scum, it doesn't mean it has to turn out to be scum.
When we call something or somebody worthless we immediately have this paradigm formed which warps out thinking into believing that they'll never be of any use, what psychologists say is caused by an implicit stereotype or through unconcious bias. This has far reaching consequences on the stability of society. According to the article here: Adults and even children may hold implicit stereotypes of social categories in which they belong. Without intention, or even awareness, implicit stereotypes affect human behavior and judgments. This has wide-ranging implications for society, from discrimination, to personal career choices, and understanding others in everyday social interactions. If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, group members are likely to become anxious about their performance, which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level caused by the stereotype threat
What if the scum of the earth stereotype hadn't existed so negatively huh? What if we did all we could do to improve the disabled, try to integrate them and then make them not-scum. Surely we'd have more Hawkings, more Grandins, a better world.
Also if the scum should be left to deteriorate because they take too much time to get fixed then what happens when this attitude trickles down to other groups whose recovery or improvement was time consuming or even impossible.
Then cancer victims would be scum too. Since they'd die anyways it would be just sheer naivety to give them the medicine, chemotherapy or the Wish right?
Wrong. Somebody invested the time, effort and money. Had it not been for them treatments like chemotherapy wouldn't have existed. It would have not been possible to treat cancer in its earlier stages. They didn't throw in the towel and walked out of the lab muttering under their breath "Scum. Scum!" and a bunch of other profanities when they were unable to find the answer at the given moment. They persisted. That is how chickenpox, yellow fever and polio became curable. Which is why I believe the disabled too can be aided because if in the quest for a cure for cancer if we've gone from nada treatment to a modicum of it then so much is possible.
The elderly would be scum too. They get sick often. They don't have much time to live either. So don't give them pensions or old homes. Would you deny a home or healthcare to your own parents? I'm glad love exists and most people, actually care about the well being of others. And if the "love" arguement fails to move you then I think Malcolm Gladwell can be of assistance. In his 2008 Newyorker article titled "Late Bloomers" he argues that while some people showcase their talents early in life like all those child prodigies, violin virtuosos and ballet afficianados there is another type of person who becomes successful later like say at the age of 40 or 50 and in some cases 70. This Cracked article here proves how the elderly aren't scum.
And what about children? Child rearing is just so hard and expensive and the children so plain irritating. They're scum too. What'll happen then will we stop working on children too? I'm not even going to elaborate why that's a bad idea while living in a country like Pakistan because it is already what is happenning.This will.
I'm just trying to say here that if you treat someone like they're stipid they might live their entire lives believing that they're stupid so is the case with scum. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So if you want an earth sans scum you'd better start treating people like they're worth the care, the effort.
Becasue nobody is actually scum.
It was an utterly ridiculous thing to say in a conference where majority of the people were working with mentally or physically challenged people. I'm just glad nobody else heard. So, even though I was a bit taken aback by the statement as I too wanted to work for the disabled too, I didn't pick up an arguement with this guy because to be honest I didn't have anything to say in order to invalidate his statement. I sort-of kind-of believed it deep down and knew that society at large held the very beliefs as the guy sitting next to me.
But I pondered over this that very day and now I believe its pretty unfair to call anybody scum. I'll try to prove why through this blogpost.
But before diving in let's define scum.
Scum: a worthless or contemptible person or group of people.
So, the disabled are assumed of as scum because they aren't thought of as useful members to our society- they are worthless and therefore contemptible. They are utterly dependent on the resources of a country which could otherwise be utilized towards something important like I don't know educational projects or infrastructure. Projects that could actually lead the country to some prosperity. However the problem with disability and especially mental disability is that sometimes all effort comes to no avail. Hence the scum label arose.
Others were once thought of as scum too. For instance women and blacks.
What does calling a vulnerable or apparently worthless group "scum" imply? It means that you wished they hadn't been born. That you're just tolerating them as part of your "mercy". And since they are so useless, so scummy, there really is no point in actually working for them.
Well, I certainly don't think Stephen Hawking or Temple Grandin were scum. Or Oprah Winfrey or Malala Yousufzai. Or Michael Jackson or Martin Luther King. These "scum" turned out to be more useful to our society then the typical non-scummy people horsing around the planet. They refuted the very definition of scum - they proved to be useful. So just because something seems like scum, it doesn't mean it has to turn out to be scum.
When we call something or somebody worthless we immediately have this paradigm formed which warps out thinking into believing that they'll never be of any use, what psychologists say is caused by an implicit stereotype or through unconcious bias. This has far reaching consequences on the stability of society. According to the article here: Adults and even children may hold implicit stereotypes of social categories in which they belong. Without intention, or even awareness, implicit stereotypes affect human behavior and judgments. This has wide-ranging implications for society, from discrimination, to personal career choices, and understanding others in everyday social interactions. If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, group members are likely to become anxious about their performance, which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level caused by the stereotype threat
What if the scum of the earth stereotype hadn't existed so negatively huh? What if we did all we could do to improve the disabled, try to integrate them and then make them not-scum. Surely we'd have more Hawkings, more Grandins, a better world.
Also if the scum should be left to deteriorate because they take too much time to get fixed then what happens when this attitude trickles down to other groups whose recovery or improvement was time consuming or even impossible.
Then cancer victims would be scum too. Since they'd die anyways it would be just sheer naivety to give them the medicine, chemotherapy or the Wish right?
Wrong. Somebody invested the time, effort and money. Had it not been for them treatments like chemotherapy wouldn't have existed. It would have not been possible to treat cancer in its earlier stages. They didn't throw in the towel and walked out of the lab muttering under their breath "Scum. Scum!" and a bunch of other profanities when they were unable to find the answer at the given moment. They persisted. That is how chickenpox, yellow fever and polio became curable. Which is why I believe the disabled too can be aided because if in the quest for a cure for cancer if we've gone from nada treatment to a modicum of it then so much is possible.
The elderly would be scum too. They get sick often. They don't have much time to live either. So don't give them pensions or old homes. Would you deny a home or healthcare to your own parents? I'm glad love exists and most people, actually care about the well being of others. And if the "love" arguement fails to move you then I think Malcolm Gladwell can be of assistance. In his 2008 Newyorker article titled "Late Bloomers" he argues that while some people showcase their talents early in life like all those child prodigies, violin virtuosos and ballet afficianados there is another type of person who becomes successful later like say at the age of 40 or 50 and in some cases 70. This Cracked article here proves how the elderly aren't scum.
And what about children? Child rearing is just so hard and expensive and the children so plain irritating. They're scum too. What'll happen then will we stop working on children too? I'm not even going to elaborate why that's a bad idea while living in a country like Pakistan because it is already what is happenning.This will.
I'm just trying to say here that if you treat someone like they're stipid they might live their entire lives believing that they're stupid so is the case with scum. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So if you want an earth sans scum you'd better start treating people like they're worth the care, the effort.
Becasue nobody is actually scum.
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