The social model of disability leaves a lot to be desired

Utopia, I’ve always thought, would be a most ghastly place. Perfection and niceness everywhere. Life as a beige soup - nothing to chew on, laugh at or moan about, no grit, no flaws, no pratfalls or scandals, no opinions, no social and physical challenges to tackle.

Over the last 50 years, academics and activists have promulgated something called the social model of disability which floats the possibility of a world without disability. Yes, given a sufficient revolution in values, attitudes and political and economic structures, those Utopian gates will apparently spring open.

I’m not sure how many people, disabled or otherwise, are aware of the social model. It’s radical. It’s also, from my perspective, bonkers. It decrees that disability isn’t caused by the problems of an individual, by something wrong or broken in their body – that’s the traditional medical model. Instead, disability is caused by society.

Society disables people by oppressing, excluding and discriminating. As presently structured, society is created in completely the wrong way. Follow this magic thinking to its conclusion and, hey presto: a disabled person isn’t actually disabled, they’re someone with an impairment who is disabled by society.

The key proponent of all this was the late Mike Oliver, an Englishman who had broken his neck in an accident in 1962 and became the first professor of disability studies in the world. Social science faculties in Britain, America and Australia took up the theory. In the UK, where it has become orthodoxy, there are now degrees in disability studies at 14 universities.

In the last 20 years, the social model fitted perfectly with the growth in identity politics, inevitably extending to include people with intellectual disabilities, neurodiversity, and emotional, behavioural and mental health problems. And with it came the belief that no one should strive to adapt, rather the system should change to accommodate them.

Thus the concept that structural change in society is needed, rather than medical or psychological intervention with individuals or, God forbid, personal resilience, has leaked into healthcare, government, social services and education. And it’s one reason why UK disability benefits spending is set to rise by 49 per cent between 2023-24 and 2028-29.

According to Tom Shakespeare, a professor of disability research, very few disabled people openly back the social model concept, and many have actively disowned it. Shakespeare has dismissed it as a simplistic ideology which has gone too far and become the litmus test of disability correctness. He argues that it fails to correspond to the everyday experience of disabled people for whom personal struggles are far more disabling than social barriers.

As a point of principle, however, hardline disability activists reject the heresy that we are frail or incapable – or that we should strive to be healthier. For them this constitutes unacceptable tragedy theory, or victim-blaming; just attempting to get better is condemned as inspiration porn.

This is a nonsense that twists reality and demands our lives be retro-fitted. David Turner, a history professor at Swansea University, a specialist in disability history, has just published Disability: A History of Resistance. How fascinating the stories of disabled individuals surviving and thriving would be, had he not forced the narrative through a painfully woke mangle.

Thus people like Duncan Campbell, who could not hear or speak but became a celebrity seer towards the start of the 18th century, or Sarah Biffin, a famous mouth-painter born without arms or legs in 1784, are cast as activists for the social model of disability.

Liverpool’s Society of Ugly Faces in 1743 consisted of “men so sufficiently insulated by their gender, wealth and whiteness from being stigmatised for their appearance… they were free to indulge in the transgressive fun of openly mocking each other.” The Enlightenment helped to produce an ideology of perfectability and improvability “which laid the foundations for modern ableist ideas which insist that disability invariably produces misery and that imperfect bodies need to be ‘fixed’ to be accepted.”

While those Enlightenment gentlemen may have been privileged by their wealth and whiteness, basic evolution dictates that the world remains biased towards ‘fitness’. Almost everyone with acquired disability yearns to be able-bodied again. Because ideology cannot withstand harsh realpolitik, especially in a time of scant resources.

Whoever the prime minister is by the end of the year, the opposing forces of defence and welfare will shape their time in office. In a fractious, troubled world, reduction or redirection of the welfare budget is inevitable. The social model orthodoxy has helped to create a tragedy in which an upcoming generation of young people are, according to Alan Milburn’s recent report, stranded without education, employment or training (NEETs), with almost half of them reporting a “work-limiting” health condition.

The annual cost of nearly 1 million NEETs – a figure that Milburn’s report predicts could rise to more than 1.25m in five years - is £125bn, which is more than is spent on education every year. The proportion of disabled young people who are NEET and cite mental health as their primary condition has almost doubled since 2011 to 42.6 per cent last year. Some Utopia. Identity politics has instead become a kind of prison.

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Photograph Alamy