“The love of our neighbour in all its fullness simply means being able to say ‘what are you going through?'”

What Simone Weil touches on here in her 1951 text “Waiting for God” sounds simple and straight forward. Listen to each other, share, and through that develop understanding. So why is it all too often that the disabled body becomes allegorical in the able bodied world for the struggle through adversity rather than a source of exploration into the inherent inevitability of human diversity. The contemporary disabled body in popular culture is utilised as a narrative tool connecting the events of failure to success. Within this narrative structure disability is something with a beginning and an end.  Such able bodied representations of disability stop asking disabled people “what are you going through?” and instead declare “you inspire me to know that i can ‘overcome’ anything.” Such a clumsy half-hearted attempt at sympathy does not lend its ear to the experience of disability but rather asserts a genre referred to as inspiration porn. The inspiration porn narrative resultantly illuminates the altruistic failure of the able bodied. This portrayal of disability as something to be defeated consequently highlights the negligence of the able bodied world to simply ask “what are you going through?”

The common inspiration porn narrative unravels as such: the beginning being the disabled body as something that deviates from the “norm”  (the able body), which embarks on a journey to better replicate and reflect the able bodied notion of success by “overcoming” disability. Once the disabled body replicates the heterosexual, white, able bodied world they are celebrated as a symbol of success. The disabled individual within the narrative of inspiration porn becomes a one dimensional symbol.

This individual’s experience of disability as a struggle through adversity is an allegorical tool aimed at warming the hearts of the able bodied. This type of inspiration porn narrative fails to focus on the societal obstacles that people with disabilities face. It presents such obstacles as challenges to be overcome. Weil’s question at the beginning of this piece asks “what are you going through?” instead of “how did did you get through that?”

The able bodied narrative of disability as something to be overcome asserts to a young person with a disability that they are only of value when they reflect this end goal of success and in doing so inspire the able bodied. Does this not teach the disabled that they should not show weakness, emotional struggle or have trouble relating to others in a way that is only natural to navigating a world that is not accommodating of their bodies?

If you are reading this as someone with a disability how many times have you heard variations of the phrase “you inspire me to know that I can ‘overcome’ anything, the human body is amazing,” in reference to your story, body and situation? What does “overcome” mean in this instance? It suggests that individuals who are different might strive to absorb and reflect things that the white, heterosexual, able bodied world value in spite of their differences, and as such, “overcome” their disability by being accepted into the predominant culture.

The predominant culture I am making reference to here is the societal fetishisation of the ideal body as a norm. This is discussed further by Lenard J Davis in “Constructing Normalcy: The Bell Curve, the Novel, and the invention of the Disabled Body in the Nineteenth Century”. Davis talks about the societal construction of the norm throughout the nineteenth century as a statistical “mean” or average. This is opposed to the ancient Greek notion of the “ideal” body. The Greek ideal is exactly that, an embodied reflection of a deity unattainable by the average human and in no sense uniform. Throughout the nineteenth century as the study of statistics and the gathering of the average moved to the forefront this ancient Greek notion of an ideal metamorphosised into a norm. Such a norm implicates the disabled body as an outlier or deviation.

A real life example of this can be seen in eugenic sterilisation of disabled people throughout Japan in the 1960’s in a desire to create a societal uniformity in line with the statistical average. Or the eugenic sterilisation of people with disabilities in India during 1975 under the declaration of state of emergency due to overpopulation. These are extreme examples, however they illustrate the systemic fetishisation of the norm, or in the case of the western world, the fetishisation of the predominant white, heterosexual, able bodied world.

The predominant culture asserts its reflection as a symbol of success and consequently highlights any deviations or differences as failures. This predominant culture educates the disabled individual to strive to better reflect a “successful” life as being disabled is already coming from a state of failure. Such cultural values and assertions fall short on grasping the inherent nature of human diversity as all beings exist in bodies that are never twice the same. Accordingly the white, heterosexual, able-bodied, conception of success aims to interpolate the disabled bodies perceived failures rather than taking the time to explore how its differences might shape a better understanding of the inescapable variety of human experiences, all of which hold equal validity.

One strong example of this can be seen in how the disabled body experiences sexuality. While many people with disabilities engage in normative penetration, many disabled bodies with differences in terms of sensation and sexual function find new and creative ways of expressing sexuality through various modalities. One of which might be the stimulation of erogenous zones. As the disabled body at times does not accommodate “normative” penetration it gives insight into sexuality as a human experience of stimulation, fantasy, expression and creativity all applicable to all. It is here that the statistical “mean”, or average experience of the predominant, heteronormative culture is disrupted by the disabled body. This in turn allows insights into the limited rigidity of sexual expression within the predominant heteronormative world. In this example, the disabled body projects insight into the inescapable variety of human experiences, expression and intimacy. 

Simone Weil goes on to elaborate “nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.” The able bodied world no longer asks “what are you going through?” but rather frames the disabled body as a symbol to illicit the emotional response of inspiration. Weil unpacks key tropes of inspiration porn. “Warmth of heart”, “Pity” resulting in an “impulsive” response. Weil touches on the failure of inspiration porn to relate to disability by naming and bringing attention to the impulsiveness of the able bodies response.  Such impulsiveness is an emotional response to take action, synonymous with becoming inspired. Inspiration porn frames disabled bodies as tools to illicit such an emotional response.  This simply fails to grasp the fact that disability is not something to be overcome but rather navigated, understood, expressed and explored just as all other realms of human diversity.

Later Weil states in “Waiting on God”, “The first comer asks the guardian of the vessel, a king three-quarters paralysed by a wound ‘what are you going through?’ It is a recognition that the sufferer exists not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category labelled ‘unfortunate’, but as a man, exactly like we are, who was one day stamped with a special mark of affliction.”

Here Weil points toward a solution again, to simply listen and ask “what are you going through?”. This question opens up and explores the diversity of human experience from within and not from with out. Such a question asks for permission to be included and does not aim to place the subject within a “unit in a collection” or a “specimen from the social category labelled ‘unfortunate'”. The question Weil poses “what are you going through?” aims to integrate all realms of human experience. It is asking permission to be included, rather than the more common able body notions which result in questions like “what happened to you?”, “what’s wrong with you?”, “Oh I know ….. they were/are in a wheelchair have you heard of them?”, “be positive i know you will walk again”, “you’re too pretty to be in a wheelchair”, “do you need help”, “you’re too young to be in a wheelchair”, and “YOU’RE AN INSPIRATION”.

In light of Weil’s work I respond by suggesting that the able bodied community might seize this occasion to integrate the inevitability of human diversity into their dominant culture. The body is not a fixed structure, it is never twice the same. Therefore, every voice and experience contains insights into this inevitable difference which can only be understood from within. To the disabled community exposed to inspiration porn you are not a failure, you are not broken. The body is on a spectrum of capabilities which at all stages are of equal value. Rather than framing the body as something to be “overcome” i suggest we review the demands put upon the body and the call of the able bodied world.