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Title: No Normal Author: Phanpy100 Date: 2021 Language: en Topics: ableism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-work, anarcho-communism Source: Personal Computer
First of all, I’m well aware that most of the problems talked about in
this essay, an essay against ableism, are not exclusively problems faced
by the disabled or insane. However, as it’s a subject close to me (due
to my classical autism and my boyfriend’s schizophrenia) I find both
that this is something I have the most experience in and find the lack
of theory behind the idea of “anti-ableist liberation”, as I will call
it for now, upsetting.
Let’s start with a question: what is normal? You might answer “What’s
accepted in society”, which in the case you do I would like to ask:
“What makes the abnormal any less acceptable”? The answer to this
rhetorical question is simple: just that they are not normal. It’s
effectively a feedback loop: We regard the abnormal as less than the
normal cause they are less accepted by society then the normal, which
they by definition are not.
So, the abnormal are less accepted in society then the normal, who
cares? I do! For I’m considered abnormal, and so are the queers, people
of colour and the other “less fortunate”. If society doesn’t accept me
or us in general, who am I to accept that? No, for I’m still, despite
everything, human and in a society that seeks to strive for the
“betterment of humanity”, I E liberalism or communism, depending on who
you ask, should my life not also be bettered? “No” says the society, as
it does not accept me, thus causing a fundamental hypocrisy.
So, how does one get rid of this hypocrisy? By removing the abnormal,
and by doing so the normal, from society. For if everyone is equally
accepted in society, me and you are also equally accepted.
But can we not reform the normal? No! As any scenario where the normal
exists, there will be the “less normal” or abnormal, and thus the
hypocrisy continues. “But if there is no normal, won’t that make rape
and other such acts accepted?” No! for the normal does not decide what
anything but society at large has to accept, one can still not accept
rape within a world where the normal is abolished, as we are
individuals, not a hivemind.
So, what would abolishing the normal actually entail? The complete
abolition of prisons for one, as while I recognise that professional
help may be needed to prevent further harm, mental wards are nothing
more or less then medical prisons. As all agency or autonomy is taken
away from the individual in favour of some larger entity that will only
let them free once they are conditioned to be “safe to society”.
Effectively the only difference is punishment versus forced
rehabilitation. One can not be against one without being against the
other.
This already forces anti-ableist movements away from liberalism, as
liberalism bats no eye to establishments like prisons nor mental wards,
as long as they are “for the betterment of society”. A society that
would still tolerate the view of the insane or disabled as “lesser”, as
“abnormal”.
Yet it also forces anti-ableism away from the authoritarian forms of
communism. as, while they might pretend otherwise, no socialist who
believes in a state is for actual equality. As in a state with a leader,
there is always someone above “equality”, which includes “equality for
the abnormal”
Who can an anti-ableist work with though? The anarchist of course! As
with her abandonment of statism and liberalism Mother Anarchy is the
only one who can truly free the “abnormal” and thus truly free everyone.
Work? Laugh my butt of. Any society that requires work is not free nor
as Stirner would say “it’s own”. For if I have no choice in whether I
can work or not, I have no choice. A capitalist “anarchist” might say:
“You have a choice, you can work or you can die”, to which I would point
a gun and say: “You have a choice, you can give me your money or you can
die”. Both are equally valid, or invalid depending on how you look at
it. You might ask: “Why work? Why is being anti-work essential to being
anti-ableist?” Simple: Not everyone can work, and without a state to
deal out subsidies to those unfit to work, subsidies against its own
liberal or authoritarian interests mind you, one cannot be as free or as
its own in a society that forces them to work even if they are unfit
too.
What makes me any less than the normal? The liberal society we live in.
Thus it’s only logical that the abnormal of the day, in this text the
disabled and mentally ill, band together with leftist and anarchist
forces to end the discrimination by this society we live in and seek
their own liberation from the ableist forces trying to keep them under
their thumb. As the person of colour and queer did, so shall the rest
find liberation in the left.