S T E L L I D I A N

We need a bit more shame. People used to avoid certain self-interested behaviors to avoid shame, private and public. Law and customs assumed this. Now, 38% of Stanford students claim to be disabled. 40% of young women (under 35) claim mental illness, and SSI disability payments have gone up 400% in a single generation. It isn't good for anyone, least of all people who are actually disabled, when everyone looks the other way as friends and family and peers con the system with a level of shamelessness no architect of our safety net ever imagined could be possible in America. When everyone is disabled, nobody is.