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Lasagna's avatar

Yep. One of the interesting phenomena here is the porous border between "cynically benefiting from a system by pretending to be X" and "believing you are X, which coincidentally brings you a benefit".

I remember a conversation my wife and I had with friends of ours who bullshitted a free ticket for their big-ass dog on a commercial flight by claiming they needed in for emotional support. They thought it was clever and funny at first; by the end of the conversation (which included no pushback from us at all) they were earnestly explaining to us that they really NEEDED the emotional support of their dumb dog.

They're two extremely confident, independent people (she's a surgeon, he's a something-that-would-identify-him-if-he-read-this). They don't have emotional issues that require support, except to the extent that we all have emotional issues that require support, which is also coterminous with the extent to which emotional support animals are permitted on planes, which makes it OK to bring their dog on the plane.

The circular logic and tautology of a lot of the expansion of the definitions of disability and victimization going on now is pretty obvious, right? How many people can you find who believe in the necessity and logic of emotional support peacocks? But it doesn't matter. When it comes down to it, many people are going to tick "multiracial" on that job application. After all, I AM both Irish AND Italian.

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Stephen Harrod Buhner's avatar

there is an underlying problem to the situation, that is, most meritocratic systems (of whatever sort) at this point have been gamed for personal profit, prestige, or power. Research journals are being gamed, scientific research is being gamed, the medical system is being gamed, education is being gamed, and civil rights are being gamed. It is no longer sensible to think that a certified person knows what they are talking about, nor a licensed professional, nor any particular system that has become an arbiter of what is true, or even factual. The system is overdue for correction and has been for some time. I have thousands of examples, here is one minor one: interferon gamma, which is extremely good for stopping the progression of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in essence curing it, is not legal for that use in the US; even it if were it would cost a person one million dollars per year. It is legal for that off label use in the EU/UK/Australia; the very same drug, under a different name costs 24k-30k per year there. In Russia it costs 12k per year. The drug company that holds the monopoly on it in the US says, and the FDA agrees, that OUR drugs are safer than their drugs (really? than the Germans' merely different brand name of the same chemical?) and that is why we can only use our overly expensive drug in the US. It is a lie, the system has been gamed, so that it is not possible to trust the meritocratic pronouncements being made. The rot has gone system wide, as it inevitably had to do, given the nature of people and their desires for control, money, fame, power, and prestige. The conflict is not so simple as mission creep of support animals. The entire meritocratic system is crumpling, as it needs to do so that something more robust and uncorrupt can take its place. It is not going to be an easy transition but a very messy one.

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