Sophie Mirabella and the headdesk incident

But more importantly, this is only a crisis if you believe that someone collapsing is unusual. For many of us it is not at all unusual. Unfortunate, annoying, embarassing, but not a crisis. There are epileptics, narcoleptics, people who experience seizures, people with physical weakness, illness, or any number of conditions who experienced collapse today and just got on with it. That is life.

Excusing Mirabella because the situation was so extreme as to remove all hope of a normal cognitive response denies the reality of people with any number of conditions. It also reinforces the idea that any exposure to such situations is extreme, and provides a basis for exclusion.

If someone is going to collapse on the desk at work, can you really afford to hire them? What about the risks? What about their wellbeing? Is it really safe for them to be there?

These arguments are used time and again to exclude people with a disability, and ignore the basic fact that such incidents often occur irrespective of the circumstances. The only difference is whether the individual is isolated and alone, sitting at home with nothing to do, or whether they are productive and engaged in a workplace with peers and colleagues.

The wellbeing of every individual is found in a place where they are able to assess their own risk and choose to belong to society despite their vulnerabilities.

It also leads to exactly the circumstance that Mirabella experienced; the choke. In What the Dog Saw, Gladwell looks at instances where high performing individuals have choked. The choke is attributed not to an incompetence, but a dissonance between capability and expectation. The second guessing of the black student in a room with a white examiner, the uncertainty of the politician when faced with a real life situation.

Arguably Mirabella did not herself see this as a moment of crisis in which she had no way of responding, but a situation in which the expectations of her in this context were so disparate from her personal sense of self that she was incapable of action.

Both positions create dangerous, albeit seductive illusions.

Firstly, there is the illusion that we must be perfect in order to handle difference, or risk being considered cruel and heartless. This reduces our social capacity for acceptance, and prevents us taking risks with inclusion.

None of us is perfect when dealing with difference. We all make mistakes, say stupid things, do the wrong thing. The important matter is not to be perfect, it is to keep trying.

Attacking Mirabella for being imperfect is unfair and preposterous. It also ignores the elephant in the room; we are all graceless in the face of difference and will only become more skilled at it if we have more practice. Ridicule and name calling do not make us more likely to reach out for more experience.

The other danger is that we create an environment where we do not expect people to cope, and we excuse their incompetence by labelling the situation a crisis. It is not a crisis. It is a situation, and as humans we experience the unknown on a daily basis.