Writer defends the indefensible

By Stephen Pate, Disability Alert,  August 8, 2008

The opinions expressed in Paul Cudmore’s letters in the Guardian are not true in my opinion. They are one-sided and lack balance.

Cudmore holds that UPEI is a beacon of accessibility and disability tolerance while the rest of PEI is a wasteland. That is simply not true.

There are places on PEI that are accessible and others that aren’t. In some ways UPEI is accessible but the new parking rules are not accessible.

However, forcing people with a walking disability to walk further is not better for them: it’s worse.

Why does the Cudmore defend UPEI? Probably because he has become invested in the “group think” of UPEI and its Access-Able Committee. He believes they can do no wrong.

Is this because Cudmore is a power wheelchair user and cannot empathize with those who still walk? Perhaps, but I think the reasons may also include the need to conform his thinking to the Access-Able Committee.

There is no democracy in groups. Group psychology always favors the group thinking over individual thinking. The examples are range from the followers of Jim Jones, who committed murder to avoid disappointing the group, to the social groups that exclude those with non-conforming opinions.

People who express deviant views from the group will suffer sanctions and if they persist ejection from the group. Most committees are run along those lines: say your piece but vote with everyone else.

See Department of Educational Research Florida State University Cohesiveness II of Group Processes for a detailed discussion of how groups coerce members to accept the group beliefs.

The decision to exclude accessible parking did not come from the Access-Able Committee but from Gary Bradshaw VP of Finance and perhaps from Wade MacLaughlan, the president. We need to learn what their motivation is.