I wonder if anyone recalls the tale, by H G Wells, about a mountaineer who finds himself in a hidden valley where all the inhabitants inherited a disease that causes all new babies to be born blind. Now after several generations everyone is blind.
When this mountaineer arrives and tries to explain what sight means no one believes him. He realises that his sight gives him an advantage over the community and attempts to take control. He gets angry when the populace ignore his ideas. In fact they resent it and accuse him of having dangerous ideas and an unhealthy "obsession about sight" and a doctor suggests they remove his eyes that "are greatly distended".
Before this happens he manages to escape and climb his way back out of the valley.
But I wonder if the moral of the story (as I understand it) - that blindness is not just physical but a mental shortcoming as well; that those who don’t see the world as you do must be guilty of an obsessions or accepting "fake news" as the truth, can be accepted today?
Similarly those with disabilities, real or imagined, are usually considered "inferior" and not worthy to live in the community.
This seems to be quite a common refrain and not just in the social media "world" but in the political and business spheres as well.
Pity - but the old saying " there are none so blind as those who will not see" still holds true. Unfortunately.
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