THE OTHER 4/2/07

Customer service is dead. There is vast evidence of its' demise on the internet. Examining the Blogger site in order to locate the "report abuse form" is daunting. So too is the policy behind it: Blogspot will not participate in the shutting down of sites which are defamatory in nature, yet will help the Indian government block objectionable content. The individual pales in comparison to the perceived importance of political entities.

Customer service is dead. Leaving electronica, one only has to visit physician discussion boards briefly to realize that what cannot be treated adequately [i.e. pain] is lumped into a vast world of blaming the patient [i.e. drug-seeking]. In my own life, one pain specialist refused to diagnose my numerous painful trigger points as fibromyalgia. "Fibromyalgia is a life style," he told me. He sent me off to aquatherapy where a physical therapist enlightened me on the play of words involved.

Then there is the attitude of many folks regarding disability. Physician discussion boards are a wonderful instrument of learning how patients who are disabled are viewed. Some won't fill out forms dealing with getting benefits for disability; others charge for them. A few will dump the patient [i.e. refer them to someone else; or passing the buck]. People in the generic population will also make comments. If ya don't "look" disabled, it is assumed that you can get and keep a job. Idle loafing, collecting the "free" money, living at or below poverty level are all great motivators [NOT].

Community is slowly dieing. One only has to briefly witness the antics of narcissistic or psychopathic bullies to understand this on a gut level. Whether the bully is a government or is found in the corporate boardroom, in academia, or on the world wide web, again we have become tainted with the fear of Otherness.

To a service provider, we all have become The Other. To the terminally healthy, anyone who is "different" is The Other. To the cowardly bully or the fundamentalist whose aim is to obliterate freedom of community and of self-determination, The Other is suspect. In a quest for sameness in an increasingly complex and diverse universe, xenophobia has become rampant. Internalizing these attitudes of The Other causes us to hate ourselves. That is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.

Customer service is dead. Community is slowly dieing. Shunning and pushing The Other away is certain death. Embracing The Other reminds us that our basic humanity can outweigh the brute force of shutting each other [and ourselves] out of the richness of intradependency.

radical sapphoq