To meet the special needs of people with disabilities, the China Disabled Persons' Federation has launched China's first single shoe sales service together with relevant platforms and brands. For the first time, you can buy only one shoe! I'm ashamed, when I first saw this news, I think it's not a bit of a fuss, isn't it a shoe, special needs as long as one, buy a pair of shoes, the other thrown away, specifically to meet the "needs of a shoe" How much does it cost? I soon felt ashamed of myself for thinking about it, guilty for wearing two shoes and not thinking about those who wore one shoe, and paid tribute to the China Disabled Persons' Federation, the platform and several major brands that jointly launched the plan.
You only need one, so why not buy a pair? This kind of thinking is purely to think about the problem from the perspective of "two shoes". From this news, we see the perspective of those "one shoe": Xiao Liu in Guizhou, after being amputated in a car accident at the age of 4, the problem of buying shoes has plagued her for 33 years. "Why can't you just buy one shoe?" I also thought about finding a joint venture with someone the size of my foot to buy shoes, but there are many people, where to find. Little Qiao of Sichuan, who lost his right leg in the 2008 earthquake, has thrown twenty or thirty right shoes over the years, and every time he asks the salesman if he can sell only one shoe, the answer is always: What about the one we have left? Guangxi girl Xiaogui lost her right leg when she was 7 years old, worked hard to win the national paralympic high jump championship, the shoe seller sold the shoes together, she would secretly take two left foot shoes, which has always been the "secret" in the heart of the champion.
Seeing this, people may no longer say a word of indifference, "Isn't it just a shoe, buy a pair of shoes is not enough." The barefoot is not afraid to wear shoes, it is said that the confrontation, the savage jungle, you live and die, the interests are irreconcilable. What is civilization? Civilization is that those who wear two shoes can think of those who wear one shoe. Among the 1.4 billion people, the people who have the need for "one shoe" are not individuals, but a group that cannot be ignored.
According to the data, the number of physically disabled people in China is as high as more than 24 million, and the number of amputees is about 2.2 million. They need barrier-free facilities, but also need to adapt to their commercial services, barrier-free commercial services, not only to meet their needs, but also to make them feel that "as a normal need" is respected by business, will not be "strange eyes" when visiting online stores to select goods, always remind themselves "different from others", so as to solidify a sense of exclusion and separation psychologically. One shoe, two shoes, the demand for shoes is not the same, and people are the same, behind them are two equal people, should be respected by the market equality. Don't underestimate this "little thing" and "detail", this is a deep market integration, as important as the accessibility of the city, this plan redefines "normal" from a human point of view, "one shoe" is the same as "two shoes", is a normal need.
Completely from the perspective of market and utilitarianism, the production and sales of "one shoe" seems to be very uneconomical to manufacturers and businessmen, which will increase a lot of costs, is anti-market, and meets the needs of most people to maximize benefits. This kind of thinking only has "commercial calculations" and no "commercial civilization". The progress of civilization is a process of power supremacy over utilitarianism, from "the weak eat the strong", "the winner eats all" and "survival of the fittest" social Darwinism to "the person who wears two shoes can think of wearing one shoe".
From Bentham's utilitarian perspective, the "One Shoe" program is indeed anti-utilitarian. In Justice, Sandel, an advocate of communitarianism, fiercely criticized Bentham, mocking the concept of natural human rights, calling them "nonsense on stilts", and utilitarian calculation is the foundation of human nature. What is a legitimate act? It is any act that maximizes utilitarianism maximizes happiness and makes happiness in general more than suffering. Based on this hedonistic algorithm, Bentham suggested driving beggars off the streets and placing them in almshouses, because such wandering the streets would cause disgust and reduce the sense of happiness and happiness in society. Although beggars are miserable when they are locked up in almshouses, the total amount of suffering endured by the public exceeds the sense of misfortune felt by beggars who are driven to almshouses. In order to reduce the suffering of the majority, he even suggested the implementation of this "suffering reduction combination": near each group that may have some kind of adverse effect, place a group that is immune to this adverse effect, for example, near a gibberish or an unruly person, a deaf-mute person. Those with severe deformities should be placed near blind people, who they can't see anyway.
The evolution of civilization is a process of constant triumph over utilitarian principles and a return to man himself. As Kant said, morality has nothing to do with external utilitarianism and the maximization of pleasures, but only with man himself, who should be respected as a man himself, and who is itself an end, not a tool, object, or means of other things. From this perspective of the supremacy of rights, the need for a shoe should itself be equally respected. They need a shoe, can not serve the purpose of "producing a shoe will increase costs" and "has nothing to do with the majority", but they need a comfortable shoe, do not have to buy extra shoes, do not have to withstand strange eyes, can not be regarded as "abnormal needs".
It is not out of pity to see "a shoe" that we feel empathy for seeing "a shoe", but that everyone's rights should be respected, and they are also part of "everyone", so we feel at ease as "part". I think of another news story, Yu Xiaodan, the Chinese translator of "Lolita", opened a special online store that specializes in designing underwear for women after breast cancer surgery. She has worked as a lingerie designer for several well-known brands. In 2019, she chose to start an online store from scratch. "Very few merchants are willing to make special designs for these women, who often wear very uncomfortable silicone prosthetic milk after surgery, resulting in inflammation of the wound." Yu Xiaodan said.
This brings me to the rare diseases, not to produce the medicines they need because they are rare; to think of many "minorities" outside the "majority", even like the transportation needs of remote places, where the needs of one or two people still have to set up a station, and the train stops for one or two people. The minority is a test strip for the rights and welfare of a society, the voice of the minority, the needs of the minority, the test at the very least, a society in which the minority can be respected, and everyone will be respected. Philosophers say that the people who invented the machine are probably physically weak, they are physically inferior to others, and with the machine, the physical advantage is not so important. Bill Gates came up with the name of the brand Microsoft because he wasn't tall. That's how civilization evolved.
Cao Lin Source: China Youth Daily (2021-11-05 05 edition)
Source: China Youth Daily