[Pen-l] disability & communication [was: Henwood on the radio]

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doyle Saylor asked: >>> Do you have a mental disability?<<<

There should be some sort of smiley to indicate that this is not
supposed to be an insult. It sure sounds like one.

(Going to a shrink does not indicate mental disability, by the way. It
may also result from neuroses. from problems with adjusting to a new
situation or trauma in life, from false belief in the efficacy of the
talking cure, or from receiving a 10 percent off psychotherapy coupon
in the Village VOICE.)

Michael Perelman responded: >> Personal questions like this do not
belong on the list.<<

Doyle answered: >That is because you are outside [of the] Disability
Rights [community or movement].  You are are unclear [about] and
unable to address disability issues.  One does not bandy about crap
about personal issues when [since?] disability rights are not
personal.  Nor can he [who?] claim once he brings this this [???] is
personal.< [words in brackets added to make the text clearer. I hope I
succeeded without changing the content.]

Doyle, it seems to me that the Disability Rights community (or
movement) has to communicate better with those outside of it
(presumably this includes Michael). Or at least the Disability Rights
community has to communicate more clearly than your two comments
above. (This is hardly rare: the various lefts in this country also
need to communicate better with those outside of them.)

By the way, I don't see why we should presume that Michael is "unable
to address disability issues." Pen-l just doesn't talk about them much
or ever. That may reflect an inability or a disability, but it might
also reflect a lack of interest in those issues.

Return to the key question: am I mentally disabled? damned straight I
am! Isn't everyone?

Of course, the latter question reminds us that the opposite of
"disabled" is "normal" and that "normal" is notoriously hard to pin
down. Does it mean "average" or something "good"? Worse, someone with
"disability" along one dimension is often "gifted" along another, as
with the case of autistic savants (e.g., the fictional Rainman).
Oliver Sacks suggests that this is "normal": people compensate for a
disability by developing an ability. In sum, someone without
"disability" is "abnormal."

"Disability" seems to involve having a hard time functioning in the
society we live in. So its definition is partly or even largely a
product of that society. Poverty seems to be a form of disability.

My experience with the "Disability Rights" community is with those on
the autism spectrum. A lot of adults with autism or Asperger syndrome
want to end this business of looking for a "cure" for autism/AS,
because that "disorder" is inextricably intertwined with their
personalities. A "cure" would likely involve killing those
personalities. Instead, they want society to start being more tolerant
and accommodating.

That makes sense to me. But it would be utopian to expect that society
is going to come around immediately. People with disabilities are
likely going to have to make some accommodations, to be tolerant of
some of society's foibles, while working to communicate with and
convince society of the rightness of their cause.

Am I mentally disabled? sure. in addition to (mild) Asperger syndrome,
I've got dysthymia (mild, chronic, but intermittent depression). But
intermittently, I think it's because society is so chronically
depressing. And society's depressive [depressogenic?] side isn't mild.
(Alas, the various lefts in this country seem to suffer from many of
the same disorders that society at large has.)
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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