which began as a response to radicalharmonies.
this may not be what you hoped would be picked out of that post, but:
the pathologizing of human experience is probably among the greatest tragedies of modern Western medicine. i've been thinking about this a lot lately (where "lately" is over the past several months), in a few different directions.
in the course of my research, i ran into the idea of autism as a culture rather than a disability: a collection of people who see the world the same way and have similar experiences. and yet, the only way it seems neurotypical folks can cope with these differences is to label it a disorder, to pathologize it, to treat it so that autistic people can become "more normal."
why do we need to make everyone the same? yes, there's something to be said for providing services that enable people who experience differences to communicate effectively, to function independently. but i don't see why it should be necessary, or even desirable, to make everyone's experiences the same. there is way too much in the universe for any one person to experience & grasp fully; this is why we need each other. if another person sees the world in a way completely different from my own, i want to talk to them, to get another perspective, to see another side of things and maybe make more of the pieces fit together.
that said, it's really cool when you meet someone whose experience of the world is similar to your own in a way you didn't think anyone else's experience could be similar to your own. and then you can talk without words and communicate without language, because you just get each other. or, you find a new set of words that someone else finally understands. why should we want to alter anyone's experience just so we don't have to come up with new sets of words to describe them--or risk facing a perfect description that we don't easily understand?
you could make similar arguments about religion, culture, and morality, and in fact i listened to a particularly interesting one in panera last week. two guys were talking about morality and how it's relative, but then the one guy kept trying to impose his personal morals on the rest of the world. i almost wanted to get involved, but i figured they'd be okay on their own.
2 comments:
as someone who clearly has issues with communication, i feel like i have to say something. i also feel like i should say something because i took an entire class about the medicalization and classification as deviant of various aspects of human life.
as with any spectrum, you're going to have the people at the extreme end who are clearly and profoundly inhibited in their daily functioning, but as you progress toward the other end, it becomes much more difficult to distinguish the "afflicted" from the "normal". and then we keep expanding our definitions to include all these people that might be looking for an excuse or looking for a disease to call home.
it's the same thing all over again. people think there is something wrong with you because they can't understand the way your brain works. they can't wrap theirs around how you function, but they know it's different, so it must be bad.
i know my rituals of socialization may be a little fucked up in the eyes of most, and maybe I haven't learned all there is to know about interaction and communication, but i'm trying, but i always feel like i'm trying for the sake of everyone else. i don't see why i should have to change who i am in order for other people to be more comfortable. i'm hoping that i can learn things that will make ME more comfortable. i feel like i'm straying from the point here, but i hate being told that i have to shut up. i hate it because it makes me feel that i'm doing everything wrong. i hate being told that the only way for me to be a successful social being is to follow everyone else. when i'm with people who understand me, i feel like i bring an interesting dynamic into the picture, and i don't really feel as awkward. it's almost like they know that i don't know what to do all the time. they get how to talk to me, and that allows me to open up and experiment with talking to them on levels with which i may not be entirely comfortable. people who get me give me confidence. what would happen if we "fixed" all of those people? if we eliminated all of the people who understand what this is like, what happens to the newly bred "socially invalid"?
i always want to know what other people are thinking and how they are thinking. it's usually very different from the way i think, and i forget this sometimes.
this is jumping around a lot, and i'm sure i'll forget stuff because this comment was written rather randomly, but it's important for me to respond to this. nonverbal communication is an absolutely fascinating phenomenon. i think back to the first day of asl 1, when we had to gesture for everything. people think there is something wrong with people like me who can hardly speak a coherent sentence in stressful situations, but why can't i say that about those who can't nonverbally communicate what they mean? i want them to think about how frustrating it was for them to know exactly what needs to be said and not to have been able to say it.
need i mention the fact that everyone thinks your retarded? that's not exactly a self-esteem booster. i'm sorry that i don't throw my intelligence in people's faces. that's just not cool to me. some of the most intelligent people in the world can't communicate for shit. and i'm getting better at it, but why should it even matter?
your theory is plausible. think about what happens when an American comments on how stupid a Mexican immigrant must be because he can't speak English to the grocery clerk. for all this American knows, this Mexican man is here for medical school or legal consultation. or maybe he is an expert contractor. you have no idea, but you make assumptions about people whose language and culture are different from your own. we all do this kind of thing every day. we pass people on the street, and we comment on how dumb they are because their topics of conversation are foreign to us. or maybe they use a different style of language than we do. it's something that's really interesting to think about.
and, everything else aside, if there is something wrong with me when it comes down to it, why the fuck should it matter? people look past a lot of other shit when they make friends and talk to people. we could just as easily have called it a disease to have fair skin or blue eyes. or maybe we could have called it a disease to be a woman. wait a minute...i think they already tried that.
Thank you, both of you.
I agree, there is a cultural aspect to "otherness". I often think about the little kids who can see people's auras. Most of those kids will eventually mention something to an adult about the colors, be ridiculed for their "imagination", and then lose the ability altogether. What if we allowed--even encouraged--little kids to keep such abilities? How more diverse and more accepting would the world be today?
"i always feel like i'm trying for the sake of everyone else. i don't see why i should have to change who i am in order for other people to be more comfortable. i'm hoping that i can learn things that will make ME more comfortable. "
YES. Toss in the part about being viewed as stupid because you express intelligence differently than most people and that pretty much sums up my post-secondary experience.
I never wanted to be the same as everyone else and I don't care if people think I am weird, but I take offense when people assume I am inherently inferior just because I function differently than the majority. To those people, I say: see me for who I am. That's all I ask.
rh
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