As far as the original article goes, it's basically an op-ed piece. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. Take it for just exactly that.
My father, on the issue of subjects like welfare reform, was extremely fond of saying that "The measure of a society is how well it cares for its weakest member."
What do I think of that?? Well, it's certainly true that a society that nurtures every weak member, at least to the point of treating their weakness as irrelevant, isn't going to succeed, simply on the basis that, sooner or later, there won't be enough strong members to care for the weak.
It's equally true, however, that a society that chooses not to care for ANY weak member is brittle and moribund. Lois Lowry had an axe the size of Paul Bunyan's to grind in The Giver quartet (there are 4 books, and they just keep getting better--check them out sometime, especially if you lay awake nights and wonder what REALLY happened to Jonas and Gabe)-- granted. HUGE axe to grind. Also granted that life does not unfold in the convenient, controlled, and structured manner of a novel. All a story can do is mirror someone's conception of how life is (or, more often, how it should be).
Notwithstanding, the trouble with the current human concept of natural selection is that someone should be driving the selection, as in the breeding of dogs. It is acceptable to select for certain traits in, say, a German Shepherd (though given their current predisposition to hip dysplasia, one might say we've gone a bit far-- that in fact our high-handed meddling has been destructive to the breed).
Humans-- all of us, even the John Galts and Harrison Bergerons among us, the prime specimens and mental giants-- are human, thus limited in their vision and fallible. We don't know with any reliable certainty what is going to prove truly beneficial and adaptive IN OUR OWN TIMES; we have practically ZERO ability to predict what is going to be adaptive in some future scenario.
I'm sure we're all familiar with Thom Hartmann's conceptualization of ADHD as a trait that was predominantly beneficial in a hunter/warrior society. It's not too much of a stretch to see Asperger's as being predominantly beneficial in a gathering/farming society either-- an excellent visual memory, attention to detail, and high tolerance for tedium require no explanation to see how they'd be useful enough in that environment to more than compensate for being clumsy and having a tendency to stick one's foot in one's mouth. The stereotypical "laconic farmer" is an Aspie in a nutshell.
Nobody is going to argue that someone who cannot care for themselves should have a pack of kids-- it wasn't allowed before modern times, and it isn't encouraged now. Other than rapists and profound romantic fools, nobody wants to breed with someone who is not capable of carrying out the basic functions of life.
THAT is natural selection at work. The eugenics movement, which seeks to replace common sense with human intelligence, isn't natural selection at all.
As to the comment about THINKING you are disabled (versus differently abled) MAKING you disabled...
...my husband would argue that I am living proof of the validity of that argument. Limitations exist-- I am never going to be a high-powered executive, a brilliant mathematician, or a beauty queen. But a lot of our limitations are personally and artificially constructed-- we do not attempt what we believe we cannot accomplish; if we throw up our hands and say, "I cannot do it" when we become frustrated, we do not learn.
My example is relevant here: For ten years, I raised children and ran a house. Not perfectly (perfection is a myth), but competently enough. We were clean, we ate nutritous food, the budget was balanced at the end of every month, children learned, children were disciplined and hugged, we laughed and smiled, nobody died.
I got depressed. I asked for help; based on their limited knowledge of my diagnosis, the people I asked for help told me I could not possibly do those things. I had to be deluding myself, it had to be a fluke or through someone else's agency, my children had to be maladjusted, I had to be abusive. I tried to be compliant-- and I succeeded. Within a few months, my house was unkempt (not merely cluttered and untidy-- chaotic and bordering on filthy), my children were running half feral while I sat on the couch in a risperidone fog mourning the fact that I did not realize this was the only way it could ever have been, and, lo and behold, by the end of it my children found themselves being smacked around and savagely berated for simple mistakes.
Years later, we're still digging out of that mess. So completely did I accept what I was told that I'm still digging out of that belief; so totally did I internalize it (on a couple of different occasions) that I may never be able to leave it fully behind. But my husband will attest-- LOUDLY AND VEHEMENTLY (believe me, he does it all the time)-- that the good days are the days when I believe in myself and do what I know is right and what I know I am capable of with a happy heart, and the bad days are the days that I drag myself through the bare basics sobbing that I can do no better, shouldn't have bred, the children are all hopeless, and et cetera.
Based on my son's deteriorating behavior as I've been losing that struggle for the past three or four weeks, I think his teacher would also be inclined to agree.
Within the limitations of common sense, you do indeed tend to become what you believe yourself to be.
_________________
"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
18 Nov 2013, 8:40 pm
