This is something that has bothered me for a long time, and actually led to one of the very few spats between the boyfriend and I (quickly mended, once we both cooled off a bit). I really hate the use of disability-based metaphors. Hate them, hate them, hate them. I believe that they’re part of what makes disability such a fearful, distorted, tragic cloud to people who are able-bodied.
It’s all well and good to say they’re bad, but I think it makes more sense if I actually go through some of the more common disability metaphors so you can see what I mean
Crippled – this one gets used ALL THE TIME. The city was crippled by an unexpected snowstorm. The political entity is crippled by corruption. So-and-so was crippled by a powerful emotion. The poor are crippled by their lack of savings. I’ve even heard references to people being crippled by scruples. Here’s the thing – crippled has a pretty specific physical meaning – it’s a physical disability, usually related to walking. What being a crip really means is that you have to get creative about how you do things and how you get around. It doesn’t mean that you’re unable to do things! I think these metaphors that tell us an entity or person is incapable of doing ANYTHING (or at least, anything useful) really emphasize that being crippled is being useless. And as someone who identifies as a crip, I can tell you I’m damnwell not useless! I do a great many things, including my work at a legal center for people of limited means and my disability advocacy, that I think have a great impact on the world.
Blind – I bet you can’t count the number of times you’ve heard this one – blinded by viewpoints, blind to miss facts, blind to misunderstand intentions, blind to misread things, so on. It’s definitely a favorite metaphor. I count short-sighted in the same category, as short-sighted originally means nearsighted (as in, someone who can only see the shorter distances, not the longer ones). Similarly, long-sighted originally means farsighted (as in, someone who can see things at greater distances, but not up close – someone who needs reading glasses). We use sight metaphors to a ridiculous extent in our lexicon. And through all of these, we imply that people who are blind or nearsighted are incapable of planning, unable to comprehend the information available, so naive as to misunderstand the motives of others, and similar issues that have NOTHING to do with sight!
Retard/retarded – (I am using the whole word only for clarity; I’ve written other social justice related pieces about how awful and hurtful this word is.) Just mentioning this one makes my blood boil, in part because we generally don’t use this one as much of a metaphor. When we say someone is a retard, we mean that they have so low an IQ as to fall into the category that used to be labled ‘mental retardation’. We mean they’re stupid, they’re foolish, they’re naive, they’re incapable…but mostly that they’re stupid. Plenty of people will argue that the way we use the word today doesn’t tie back to those roots, but think critically about the last time you heard someone use that word – I bet it was to belittle someone’s intelligence.
Lame – I’ll admit, part of my hatred for this one stems from its use in my own family, and finding it over and over again in my own language. Lame means having an altered gait, typically a limp. If you don’t believe me, ask someone who deals with horses what it means for a horse to be lame. Now we use it for all kinds of different meanings – stupid, foolish, clumsy, easily injured, ridiculous, unfair, etc. A lame call in a sports game, a lame excuse, a lame-o who just doesn’t get it, etc. Notice how having an altered gait – like me – suddenly gets turned into all these nasty negatives? Listen for people using the word lame around you. I bet they aren’t using it to literally mean a limp, and that what they’re using it for is more negative.
Mad/crazy – Here’s one we use to a ridiculous extent in our language. I’m crazy-busy. Work was crazy today. …and then she just went crazy! I am just crazy about this designer. You’re driving me crazy! The way they treated her was just crazy. That idea is just crazy. Political opponants are crazy. (most of which you can substitute mad for crazy and get the same meaning) Yeah, that’s not exactly the same as mad or crazy meaning someone who is experiencing psychosis (a break with reality) or neurosis (not a full break with reality, but having an altered relationship with reality). These words originally mean someone who has some kind of mental illness, and are being reclaimed as such. Most uses of crazy are dismissive, ways to marginalize people and ideas. Using them for negatives has obvious problems, but what about positives like ‘crazy about this designer’? Well, it still means ‘overly’ or ‘too much’ – when we say things like that, we mean ‘I’m excited about this designer beyond reason.’ See how even that seemingly positive thing slides around to a negative?
Look, using disability as a metaphor tends to come from one basic problem: linguistic laziness. There are SO many other words that can be used! Foolish, ridiculous, thoughtless, senseless, hampered, troubled, restrained, naive. Just to name a few. When you use disability metaphors, you hurt those of us who actually have disabilities. I am NOT your metaphor. Find a new one.
One of the ones that bothers me is “like the blind leading the blind.” Um, in most cases, a blind person who knows where he or she is going would make an excellent leader of another blind person who doesn’t yet know how to get to that place. I can’t think of a better choice as guide!
I keep hoping I can get that alternative reading to catch on. . .
One can always hope, but with one as deeply ingrained in society as that one is, I think it would take a great movement to change it.
[…] machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and […]
I totally agree with this. I feel that the more such words are used in society, the less people truly understand about the true meanings of the words, and therefore the people behind them.
I feel that people need to be educated on things. Especially with mental illness because I know there’s a lot of prejudice against those that are mentally ill; schizophrenics have a bit of a name for being the types to kill and act out of line in that sort of way, but every schizophrenic I’ve ever met has turned their fear inwards. They’ve always been very shy people, and my mother’s schizophrenic best friend tried to kill herself this summer (but put herself into a vegetated state). Following this, my mother then had an episode of schizophrenia, probably triggered by effectively losing her best friend, and killed herself. It was all very tragic, but these two people were some of the most timid, but lovely people I’ve met. My mum would’ve gone so far to help me, and she did. She was ALWAYS there for me and she never complained.
I just wish people didn’t judge others by a stupid label, based on untrue portrayals in society and the media. 😦
Oh Maja, I am SO sorry to hear about this pair of tragedies!
I agree completely with the misperception of mental illnesses, and the media has done nothing but stoke this senseless fear of all people who are mentally ill. I hear people start on about these horrid stereotypes, and sometimes I’m brave enough to out myself and point out that most of us with mental illness seem perfectly sane to those around us. Or at least, the ways we’re quirky and odd (like my near-photographic memory) really don’t relate to our status as people with mental illness.
I’ve known a few people who were schizophrenic. The worst I could say about any of them was that one of the people I knew wasn’t quite clear on who was real and who wasn’t. Her solution to the problem was to decide that all of them could be real and therefore she should avoid doing anything that might harm any person she percieved as existing. Gee, someone who wants to be careful that they don’t hurt anyone around them…that sounds just like the media-created images of uncontrollable maniacs. *shakes her head*
To weigh in on the violence thing from inside the spectrum, the only time I’ve gotten (or can get) “violent” is out of defense and fear. This is something I warn people about when I’m outside of those episodes, because I know that for me, the issue is when people outside of my world try to “help” in a way that I perceive as threatening when in a paranoid state (such as touching me/restricting movement/pinning me down), or they’re disrupting this reality in a way that makes me think they in turn are a hallucination (since some of the ones I deal with can be frightening for me).
The people that are close enough to me to know about these episodes and how to calm me down know about this, because I made sure to make them aware of it. I just get scared, and people have no way of knowing that unless they experience it through themselves or others, or they’re educated about the functioning of psychosis. And even then sometimes it isn’t enough.
I just wish more people realized this. Because then maybe we’d get less cases that people will point to, talking about how people of the schizophrenic spectrum are dangerous or out of control (I’m looking at you, Kendra’s Law) and instead try to understand how that person is seeing the situation. Because frequently they’re afraid. There’s a reason why paranoia’s a common symptom of the disorders.
I have, as a person with PTSD, gotten mildly violent. I think there’s been 4 occasions total where I’ve either hit someone or shoved them away from me, and all were times where I was triggered enough that it was a pure instinctive response. I feel mildly guilty about them, because the people who triggered them had no idea that they had until after the fact.
But with all of them, it’s been a single blow to get someone away from me. None of that finding a knife and carving people up nonsense. Push or hit and shrink back as far as I can. I’ve also had a couple occasions of doing something that might have incidentally harmed someone, like closing a door in their face, in a panic. Again, something designed to get something between them and me.
I can’t speak to schiznophrenia from the inside; my mental illness is bipolarism with a side of PTSD. But I thank you for sharing your experience. I think if people understood, it would be a much safer world for everyone concerned. Much of the way I think people should respond to people with mental illness is the way I think we’d all be better off if people could respond to everyone – respect and empathy, offering help instead of imposing it, so on.
Thank you so much for bringing up near/short-sighted. It’s one that I rarely see addressed, but one that really bothers me when I hear it. To me it’s just another reminder that visual impairments aren’t nearly as destigmatized as people think they’re becoming to be. It’s not destigmatized – it’s just ignored unless it becomes blatantly obvious to people.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a rant there.
Kali,
I arrived here via your comment on StoneKettle Station.
Very interesting post. I’ve been disabled since birth. I’m really torn on this subject of language. On the one hand, I get an uncomfortable feeling every time I hear The Band’s “Up On Cripple Creek”, a song which isn’t even about disability. Yet if I read or hear “he was crippled with fear” it doesn’t phase me at all.
What I take from your post is that language effects the “receiver” and we should be mindful of how those who hear our language will interpret it.
Here’s another interesting example that isn’t about metaphors but is still about the misuse of language.
One day many years ago I was thumbing through an issue of Time magazine when I saw a letter to the editor from an old college acquaintance of mine who used a wheelchair. He objected to Time’s use of the phrase “confined to a wheelchair”. He pointed out, rightly so, that wheelchairs are liberating for their users, not confining.
In the past couple of years it has become increasingly difficult for me to walk long distances. I finally bought a mobility scooter to use in malls and large grocery stores. When I bought it, I thought I was “selling out” or giving in to my disability. I discovered just how much it enhanced my lifestyle!
Language is a funny thing, ain’t it? Thanks for bringing these issues to light!
I’ve found my scooter an enormously helpful item, too. I get out more and spend more time at school or doing things I want than I’d be able to if I didn’t have my wheels. Your acquaintance’s objection to the language of confinement is far from uncommon amongst those of us who use assistive devices. I think people look at us using them and think ‘they are less mobile than I am, in that wheelchair, and therefore the wheelchair is tragic’ when really what they should see is ‘that person is more mobile than they were before due to that wheelchair, therefore the wheelchair is a great device.’ Now, I’m not the pollyanna type, so I’m mot saying they should think it’s all rainbows and unicorns that we’re using assistive devices, but it’d be nice if they could find it in them to recognize that A) the wheelchair helps and B) our inherent humanity is not changed by disability.
I think the big thing with language is that we have to think beyond just the people we might hurt with our language and address why we’re using that language and why we accept others using that language. We need to take a good hard look at the way we devalue people who have disabilities. Language is only a symptom of the problem.
As a deaf person, it bugs me when people use “deaf” or “deaf ear” as a metaphor for someone’s refusal to listen (eg, “his pleas fell upon deaf ears”). Deaf people can listen, we just do it differently. And it annoys me when my inability to hear is used as a metaphor for someone else deciding to be a callous jerk.
Oh goodness, how on earth did I miss the metaphorical use of ‘deaf’? I agree completely! I mean, it’s not like it’s really that hard to communicate with someone who is deaf. Granted, there are occasions when you have to be a bit creative, but for the most part, it can be managed at worst with a couple of simple implements: a pen and paper! (I say at worst because I think it’s preferable to use sign if everyone involved uses it; sadly, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned when I took a year of ASL in undergrad.)
Right, we can communicate … but asides from that, another reason why that particular metaphor bothers me is because I feel it is insulting to equate my inability to HEAR to a person’s incredibly rude intent to REFUSE TO LISTEN. “Hearing” and “listening” are not synonyms … if I fail to hear you, it’s not because I’m choosing to ignore you, it simply means you need to adapt the way you’re attempting to communicate with me. However, if person X does choose to respond with callous disregard to your tale of woe or your plea for some small modicum of assistance with your desperate situation, their insensitivity does not equate my deafness. Thanks.
So very true! I think that much of the use we make of language is sloppy, and people make great misuse of words. I see things and I think, this word has a meaning, and the way you (general, collective you, not you, Andrea S.) are using it implies a distinct and different idea. I find it a bit depressing, really; perhaps it comes of having an exceptionally large vocabulary, but I think that it is important to use precision in language.
I can be just a shade pedantic when it comes to language. (um, and history, and the law, and just about anywhere I have expertise. I’m rather hopelessly pedantic, really)
[…] A contrario, Kali, du blog Brilland Mind Broken Body, semble plutôt critiquer les « métaphores validistes » en tant qu’elles le/la troublent, l’offensent, lui suggèrent […]