Playing Devils Advocate on the Mentally Ill

[Cyberwave]

I have an Autistic sister, so I know my own views on the matter. But for the sake of it, let's say I didn't believe that the mentally ill should receive special education, or even believed they should be euthanized. How would you all personally counter such claims? I find this sort of thing interesting because I've met self described leftists who are inherently anti-mentally ill, so to speak.

At the most basic level, I'd say that my own personal arguments stem from the fact that there are plenty of "normal" people who don't contribute to society, and thefore, if one doesn't want "SPEDs" to receive their benefits, it would be hypocritical and foolish.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I have an Autistic sister, so I know my own views on the matter. But for the sake of it, let's say I didn't believe that the mentally ill should receive special education, or even believed they should be euthanized. How would you all personally counter such claims? I find this sort of thing interesting because I've met self described leftists who are inherently anti-mentally ill, so to speak.

At the most basic level, I'd say that my own personal arguments stem from the fact that there are plenty of "normal" people who don't contribute to society, and thefore, if one doesn't want "SPEDs" to receive their benefits, it would be hypocritical and foolish.
Supporters of eugenics should be killed to benefit the intellectual composition of humanity.

Seriously, if you want to make an argument against a eugenics supporter, then tell them you should have the right to kill diabetics, people with heart disease, cancer, deaf people, blind people, people with a family history of these issues. Why would this shut them up? Because 9/10 chances they have a family history of some disease.

[Crux]

I've met self described leftists who are inherently anti-mentally ill, so to speak.
I'd challenge their claim to be leftist.

[CommieTroll]

I always thought that a eugenic point of view is seen as conservative and outdated

[PhoenixAsh]

oh no...unfortuately...its part of a whole new group of pragmatic liberalists resurgence over the recent upcomming questions of food shortage and the rising expenses of society.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I can't see much of a purpose to this thread, other than to weed out members who think that mentally ill people have anything other than the right to exist as much as a mentally sound person and then banning them swiftly.

What kind of leftist would deny a person the right to exist because of a mental or physical disability that was beyond their control? This is revleft, not stormfront. I hope to fuck that you wont find any debate here.

[Blackscare]

Eugenics has come and gone as a trend on the left. Pre-WW2 even the likes of Trotsky talked it up. I guess that after having been waning for such a long time, a new crop of cooky pseudo-leftists are picking up the torch.

[Ocean Seal]

The good thing about these people: You don't have to argue against them. Just let them talk, and everyone around them will realize how full of shit they are.

[Crux]

Eugenics has come and gone as a trend on the left. Pre-WW2 even the likes of Trotsky talked it up. I guess that after having been waning for such a long time, a new crop of cooky pseudo-leftists are picking up the torch.
Source? Not that I doubt it, unfortunatly. Allende and Tommy Douglas both wrote approvingly of eugenics pre WW2.

[Cyberwave]

Source? Not that I doubt it, unfortunatly. Allende and Tommy Douglas both wrote approvingly of eugenics pre WW2.

"[Y]ou Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men--the first worthy of the name of Man." (Leon Trotsky, "If America Should go Communist").

I don't really feel like that statement proves anything at all, really, but that is where it comes from, I think.

[Aurora]

Eugenics has come and gone as a trend on the left. Pre-WW2 even the likes of Trotsky talked it up. I guess that after having been waning for such a long time, a new crop of cooky pseudo-leftists are picking up the torch.
Well yes and no, i'll post the actual Trotsky quote here:

Yet a wide struggle between interests, groups and ideas is not only conceivable – it is inevitable. One-year, five-year, ten-year plans of business development; schemes for national education; construction of new basic lines of transportation; the transformation of the farms; the program for improving the technological and cultural equipment of Latin America; a program for stratosphere communication; eugenics – all of these will arouse controversy, vigorous electoral struggle and passionate debate in the newspapers and at public meetings.
....
While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men – the first worthy of the name of Man.
I think what Trotsky mentions in passing is more what people on this board would call 'transhumanism' or somesuch.
*edit* Beaten too it :p

[caramelpence]

let's say I didn't believe that the mentally ill should receive special education, or even believed they should be euthanized.

As for the first of those claims, about education, you don't have to be a reactionary to argue that - you can argue that having special schools for the mentally ill is disempowering because it isolates them from the rest of society and provides a basis for prejudice. It's the issue if exclusion and inclusion. How effective that argument is, I don't know, because I'm not familiar with the complexities of mental disease and education for the mentally ill.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Fuck eugenics, and fuck the fabians.

[Queercommie Girl]

"[Y]ou Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races there will come a new breed of men--the first worthy of the name of Man." (Leon Trotsky, "If America Should go Communist").

I don't really feel like that statement proves anything at all, really, but that is where it comes from, I think.

Um...he was speaking metaphorically here, I think.

[Queercommie Girl]

Source? Not that I doubt it, unfortunatly. Allende and Tommy Douglas both wrote approvingly of eugenics pre WW2.

You put the likes of Allende on the same level as Trotsky? Are you serious?

I'm not surprised that some elitist social democrats support some form of eugenics. Even the Fabian Society in Britain once talked about it. "Social Fascism" isn't always a fabricated term.

[chegitz guevara]

How would you all personally counter such claims?

Leaving aside the rest of your post, my gut instinct it to counter such claims with my fists. Perhaps not very persuasive, but it would make me feel better. ;)

I never understand why so many people don't believe that mental illness exists, simply because they haven't experienced it. You can see a broken bone, but a broken mind is invisible.

Yes, to a large degree, most mental illness seems to be a product of this society, a natural response to humans being alienated by capitalism. There'd probably be a lot less under a collective society, where we actually had time to spend with family and friends, instead of cooped up in air conditioned personal prisons with our idiot boxes and working meaningless jobs that don't fulfill us while slowly watching our dreams become more and more unattainable.

God I fucking hate capitalism.

[Fawkes]

There's no such thing as a theory or argument that's too batshit insane to be worth addressing or critiquing. Even if it is an incredibly stupid argument that's put forth, we not only teach others by addressing it, we also learn about and develop our own ideas as a result.

At the most morally detached level, my response would be rooted in the argument that depriving members of society who are unable to contribute productively on the same scale as most people sets a precedent of hierarchical organization based around mental abilities, flying directly in the face of not only "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" but also the very foundation upon which a stateless and classless society rests.

However, given that my aunt and uncle are both mentally retarded and that I spent a lot of my time growing up at my grandmother's home alongside 10-15 mentally retarded women whom I got to know very well, my actual response would probably be more along the lines of a swift backhand followed by taking their lunch money.

[JustMovement]

I do not think that the question was answered well on this thread, and at its roots its a very important question. Yes we are all against eugenics, but no one so far has given an adequate theoretical explenation for why that is. After all, I think its fair to say many here would describe themselves as "utalitarian" or "egotistical" communists- as in they are communists because it makes sense for them personally to be a communist, and because communism would bring the most happiness to the greatest number of people.

So if it a) Does not benefit you, and b) does not benefit society as a whole, why are we in favour of maintaining, and educationg, people with severe mental and physical disabilities? Empathy would be one argument. But that seems like a very slippery basis, afterall peoples feelings change, and they might feel less charitable when times are tough.

Thats why I think its important not to reject the "liberal" language of rights. I think after a revolution it is important to enshrine in law the rights that we have as individuals to education, housing, food, etc. etc. regardless of our condition. Laws in a revolutionary society ensure solidarity and mutual respect, as well as upholding the duties that every one individual has towards the other and society as a whole. They also make sure that the weak do not get crushed in the name of utility, the greater good, or for the convenience of a politically empowered elite.

[Cyberwave]

Um...he was speaking metaphorically here, I think.

I'm sure he was. As I said, I don't feel like that statement really has much if any relevance to eugenics, so I'm wondering if the whole "Trotsky supported eugenics" thing is just a ploy used by bitter Marxist-Leninists against him, unfortunately.

[Game Girl]

The anti-human thugs of Stormfront may approve of restricting rights or even the killing of mentally/physically handicapped folk. But not us. Just because someone has a mental illness or a severe disability, that dosen't mean they have no quality of life. They have every right to live as any of us.

[Octavian]

Most mentally handicap people can contribute to society by giving them a simple job tuned to their ability like manufacturing. Personally I don't think they should be allowed to have children if they aren't capable of taking after it.

[Tablo]

Most mentally handicap people can contribute to society by giving them a simple job tuned to their ability like manufacturing. Personally I don't think they should be allowed to have children if they aren't capable of taking after it.
Their bodies and their choice to procreate. If they have trouble taking care of children they can receive help from family members and the community.

[La Comédie Noire]

Well it's kinda silly when you think about it. Man has always altered nature to fit his specific advantages and disadvantages. Handicap and mentally ill people just happen to need their environments adjusted differently than the norm. I mean how far are we willing to go back for the perfect humans?

Cause even the all star athletes of today pale in comparison to our bad ass ancestors who could outrun medium sized prey and bring down woolly mammoths. Shit, even they cheated and used spears. What about when we were more monkey than man?

I also have a personal stake in this, seeing as I have asthma. So to all those people who like to play at survivor, talking up peak oil and deciding who will survive in a callously pragmatic manner. I hope when the collapse does come a group marauding soldiers beats the shit out of you and steals all your evaporated peaches from your bunker.

[praxis1966]

Personally I don't think they should be allowed to have children if they aren't capable of taking after it.

So, what then? Forced sterilizations? If not forced sterilizations, imprisonment for handicapped people who procreate? What's a law without enforcement? I mean c'mon, look at the logical conclusion of what you're saying. Do you have any idea what other historical groups said (and did) the same sort of thing?

I agree with Tsukae. The solution isn't a banning, it's community support. Ever here of mutual aid, comrade?

[Rusty Shackleford]

It is the responsibility of the collective to raise children anyways. not this patriarchic family shit.

[unfriendly]

The solution to this is to back the fuck off, because my mind, my body, and my life are not anyone else's to have opinions on.


I have an Autistic sister, so I know my own views on the matter.

No I don't. There is an organization called Autism Speaks that advocates pretty explicitly eugenics applied to autistic people, that is made primarily of families of autistic people.

Personally speaking as an autistic person, against whom there is already an active genocide happening:

-The organization Autism Speaks, among others, primarily focuses on the development of prenatal testing for autism, so that autistic children can be aborted and therefore removed from the gene pool.
-Autistic people can be an are regularly taken away to internment facilities. Forever.
-Autistic peoples' children are routinely taken from their homes. Abused autistic children of neurotypicals, however, not so much.
-In 2006, the US government passed a bill called the "Combating Autism Act." The implications are obvious. The US government wants to cure us, the US government wants to destroy us.

my preferred solution in a perfect world would be to eugenicize such people.

Unfortunately genocide against autistic people is a lived reality, not some abstraction championed by some far-right neo-nazi scum and I wish I had a legitimate suggestion about what to do about it, but I really don't. I don't feel like there is in existence in our society a good example of an able community that has a healthy relationship with its disabled members, so an interesting task would be to create that example, which would involve first acknowledging and then fixing our ableism, rather than pointing to the most clear and flagrant examples of ableism and acting like that's the only fucked up thing in disabled peoples' lives.

Some footnotes, there is some ableist language floating around in this very threat which I thought I'd point out given the subject matter, but I don't mean to imply that not using ableist language is more important than actually not being ableist.


There's no such thing as a theory or argument that's too batshit insane to be worth addressing or critiquing

"Insane" is ableist language that has been used to dismiss arguments on the grounds that the person making them is "insane", a legal term meaning unable to tell the difference between right and wrong but filled with connotations in common usage. Not only is this bad form, attacking the person making the argument rather than the argument itself, but there really are people with mental illnesses, and language like that implies that we are unable to make valuable contributions to a conversation.


instead of cooped up in air conditioned personal prisons with our idiot boxes

The etymology of the word "idiot" comes from the psychiatric industry, which should tell you enough, but if it doesn't, it describes someone with an IQ under 40 in an insulting enough way that it's become a mainstream insult, the "new meaning" of which is still problematic because intelligence is an ableist concept.

disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/23/ableist-word-profile-intelligence

[Tim Finnegan]

It is the responsibility of the collective to raise children anyways. not this patriarchic family shit.
Noting, of course, that for the likes of Mr. Shackleford, this means state daycare facilities, and not any of that bourgeois not-rigidly-maintaining-bourgeois-family-structures stuff that those silly Kollontai types went on about.

:rolleyes:

[Rusty Shackleford]

Noting, of course, that for the likes of Mr. Shackleford, this means state daycare facilities, and not any of that bourgeois not-rigidly-maintaining-bourgeois-family-structures stuff that those silly Kollontai types went on about.

:rolleyes:
maintaining the family unit as it is today impedes womens liberation. it maintains sex roles. With adequate community, work place, and state child care centers, women have the ability to take part in social production, and not domestic "production."

Men should be encourage to take part in the social and domestic upbringing of children to the same degree that a woman does.


anyways, what is it that kollontai said about this? im not familiar.

[Tim Finnegan]

I was making fun of the historically shitty record of Marxist-Leninist states in actually achieving women's liberation, rather than simply using women as a new source of labour.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The etymology of the word "idiot" comes from the psychiatric industry, which should tell you enough, but if it doesn't, it describes someone with an IQ under 40 in an insulting enough way that it's become a mainstream insult, the "new meaning" of which is still problematic because intelligence is an ableist concept.

I think the word idiot pre-dates the psychiatric establishment and I think it was used as an insult even in the original Greek. Do you mean the word retard(ed)?

[Rusty Shackleford]

I was making fun of the historically shitty record of Marxist-Leninist states in actually achieving women's liberation, rather than simply using women as a new source of labour.
For the most parts, the former socialist states of the world have been relatively socially conservative. but they still provided day care, maternal leave and all that good stuff which would put them ahead of capitalist states.

the only real rivals were the scandinavian social democracies.

[Tim Finnegan]

For the most parts, the former socialist states of the world have been relatively socially conservative. but they still provided day care, maternal leave and all that good stuff which would put them ahead of capitalist states.

the only real rivals were the scandinavian social democracies.
Fair point; calling it a "shitty record" is, whatever my own politics inclinations, disingenuous. None the less, the point remains that Marxism-Leninism has traditionally shunned any truly radical gender politics from an early point in its history, when the Stalin party actively marginalised radicals such as Kollontai and enforced a set of familial models that were strictly conservative in form, and doubtlessly patriarchal in character. Admitting today that this party were not merely insufficiently radical, but actively and consciously conservative- even reactionary!- doesn't exactly sync up very neatly with the conviction that the fundamental theoretical basis of all revolutionary politics was confirmed no later than 1940.

[unfriendly]

I think the word idiot pre-dates the psychiatric establishment and I think it was used as an insult even in the original Greek. Do you mean the word retard(ed)?

Retarded is like, the one ableist word anyone mentions so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it, but yeah it's also fucked up don't use it. Googling the etymology of idiot, the most credible source comes from Wikipedia with a pretty solid citation:


In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for mental retardation based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to 7 years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.

but even ignoring the archaic nonsense the word is still attacking a person ad hominem, which if not always unacceptable is certainly not the best form one could strive for, on the grounds of intelligence, which as I've already linked in this topic is an inherently ableist concept so is something that I would personally be deeply appreciative if people were to avoid doing.