Tag: ableism

sharpestrose:

drst:

kyraneko:

alverdewolffe:

jamaicanblackcastoroil:

stupiduglyfatcunt:

siriustachi:

siriustachi:

silversarcasm:

bloodblonde89:

fluttersheep:

silversarcasm:

the idea of people having to be ‘useful’ is just so gross, like people do not exist to be used

having to produce something and have a use is a capitalist ideal and not an intrinsic part of humanity

just by being alive you are human and you are worth something and you can never be useless

this applies to animals as well

“Having to like DO THINGS is SO OPPRESSIVE. No one had to like DO THINGS before evil capitalism. In ancient times food, water, and shelter just existed and everything was taken care of for me”

Guess what happened to people who didn’t do things before capitalism? They died. Cause if you weren’t hunting, gathering, or useful in some aspect of nature. You were killed, died or starvation, dehydration, or exposure. 

Being useful is literally part of our biology. Fucking moron. You pull some idea out of your ass because you literally don’t want to get off your ass. 

I’m not saying nobody should ever do things ever, I’m saying people don;t have to produce to an arbitrary standard in order to prove their right to live

And if you really think disabled people deserve to die if we can’t ‘contribute’ or be useful in a way you approve of then congrats youre a fucking monster

actually there’s significant evidence in terms of Neolithic burials that disabled people who would not have been able to hunt for themselves (the archaeological evidence mostly shows mobility disabilities because it’s visible in the bone record) were well fed and cared for by their communities

so the “people like you would have been left to die” argument isn’t just cruel and violently ableist, it’s extremely historically inaccurate and based off of projecting modern prejudice on prehistoric cultures

sources because I’m on my laptop now!

note: in the neolithic era, a person in their 40s or 50s would be considered elderly

12,000-year-old burial of a woman about 45 with mobility disabilities both congenital and acquired

burial of a 40-50 year old Neanderthal man who had survived to old age with a deformed right arm and a long-healed head injury that would have made him blind in one eye

neolithic burial of a man in his 50s who lost the use of his left arm in adolescence

neolithic burial of a man in his 40s with evidence of a significant mobility disability caused by an injured hip and leg, some time in adulthood but long before his death

neolithic Asian burial of a man in his 20s with a congenital disorder which would have made him a quadriplegic around age 14. He survived for 10-15 years after that.

5th century burial of child with Down Syndrome

Our society continually propagates the myth that our ancestors’ lives were miserable, but the truth is human beings figured out how to live cooperatively and humanely a long time ago. Really the agricultural revolution fucked everything up.

Cuz clearly people only died and starved before capitalism

Anthropologically, proof of fixed femur fractures in ancient hominids shows that is one of the signs of civilized people– caring for the sick and injured is a cornerstone of civilization. So lmao go fuck yourself with the injured and disabled died thousands of years ago if they couldn’t help provide for their group.

Stop turning ancient hominids into these cruel “survival of the fittest” images. Especially cause that isn’t even what is meant by that phrase.

Even Neanderthals cared for their sick and injured. Which says a lot about those who are against the idea.

Another point: back in the ancient times, pretty much ALL work that got done was work of the “if it doesn’t get done, you starve” variety, perhaps embellished a bit by the “if it doesn’t get done, you’re uncomfortable” sort. Work was vital, yes, but all the work that was vital was vital.

Nowadays, on the other hand, we have excess, and waste, and an absolute shitpot of arbitrary work that gets shoved into the “necessary and vital” pile just because somebody else can make a buck off it, made as much off of cut corners and financial shenanigans as of anybody’s honest labor. Shitty Wal-Mart plastic pitchers and crap toys that capture attention and drop it just as fast, “fast fashion” that you wear twice and it falls apart, shiny chrome washer-dryers that are going to be replaced in five or ten years because planned obsolescence meets upgrade culture, and produce that gets rejected because it doesn’t look shiny and uniform and perfect.

If you’re a cashier, you have to stand even though you could do your job just as well sitting. A fast-food place throws out pounds of fries, empties the whole assembly-line of prepared food into the dumpster at the end of the night, and if you take any of it home to eat, that’s called stealing. Grocery stores throw out entire cartons of eggs because one out of twelve is cracked and lock their dumpsters so nobody can scavenge food from the tons of what’s thrown out still edible. Tech stores demand that unsold computers be destroyed with a sledgehammer before being thrown out, and all the labor that went into making it, assembling it, forming its component parts and mining its raw materials, is all wasted.

We can see this shit going on, we encounter it and sometimes we’re ordered to carry it out, in our workplaces that pay us shit, and let me tell you, there’s a hell of a difference between “if you don’t get the wheat harvested we’ll have no bread all winter” and “you need to spend the next eight hours cooking food so we can hold a profit after throwing a quarter of it in the garbage.” A multitude of people would benefit greatly if allowed to access that waste or allowed to not produce what’s likely going to be wasted.

It’s not that we want something for nothing–it’s that we want the stuff we’ve put work into creating to benefit us, or someone who could use it, and not see good work twisted into benefiting no one while still being demanded and still being underpaid.

If people in agrarian societies of the past starved it was frequently due to an uncontrollable act of nature (drought, flood, locusts, plague).

Now people starve because they don’t “produce” in an acceptable way for our capitalist system, which has a very narrow and limited definition of what being “useful” is, and because our corporate overlords would rather throw food away than feed someone who is starving.

We have enough food, but people are starving to death.

We have enough houses, but people are dying of exposure because they’re homeless.

We have enough medicine, but people are dying because they can’t afford to pay for it.

And we accept this as correct because we’ve been brainwashed that only “useful” i.e. “capitalist productive” people deserve to have food, shelter and healthcare.

That’s fucked up.

caring for the sick and injured is a cornerstone of civilization

I’ve used this in arguments for years. Those in need are never a drain on a society – but the way they are treated is the measure of one.