Recognition Portal (6): Fragility Is Not Weakness

The eye is the most delicate part of the face. Protected by the eyelid and surrounded by bone, it is endowed with tears to cleanse it, yet a single grain of dust is enough to cause it pain.

No one has claimed that the eye is weak. It is the organ of sight; even if it were made of stone, nothing could wound it, but it would see nothing.

Last week, I said that human fragility is not a label unique to others, but one that applies to us all. Whenever I have said this, some have understood it to mean: “We are all weak.” That is not what I mean. We confuse three words in our language, and in doing so, we do injustice to people.

Weakness is relative. No one is weak except in the face of something stronger—an adversary, a task, or a situation. The box carrier is stronger than the doctor when it comes to lifting heavy loads, and the doctor is stronger than the box carrier when it comes to treating illness.

Disability is a condition, often created by the environment rather than by the individual. A wheelchair user is blocked by stairs, while a ramp opens a path for them. Their legs have not changed; what has changed is the environment. This is why much disability is addressed by changing the environment, not by changing the person.

Fragility, on the other hand, is neither a hierarchy among people nor a temporary state. It means that a person can be wounded. It is universal among us, even if our exposure to it varies, because it is a condition of being alive—of being touched by the world and touching it in return.

If we label fragility as weakness, a subtle shift occurs: the fragile are placed on a lower rung, because weakness is a degree. What we offer them becomes a favor from the strong to the weak, and the goal of every program becomes to “strengthen” them until they no longer need us. If they do not become independent, it is counted as a failure on their part.

We measure the success of programs by how many participants emerge from them without needing anyone, as if the ideal human is one who needs no one. But such a person does not exist. Even the strongest among us need someone to give them water when they are ill.

We ourselves hide our fragility so as not to be counted among the weak. The manager does not admit to being tired, the doctor does not admit to being afraid, and the father does not cry in front of his children. Then we wonder why we cannot see the fragility of others, when we do not even dare to acknowledge our own. The strongest people I have known in this field were not the least fragile. There were mothers carrying children who could not walk, climbing stairs where there were no ramps. Their strength was no excuse for the unchanging stairs. Those who are healthy know they will remain fragile as long as they live, and they rise every morning. Their fragility was not the opposite of their strength; it was an open fragility, and they did not hide from it.

Therefore, it makes no sense to require a person to cease being fragile in order to be recognized. They can only stop being fragile by ceasing to be human. Fragility is not what diminishes a person; it is what enables them to be wounded, to love, and to see, just like the eye.