Althouse: "Mx. Baggs was concerned that autism awareness had become a trendy catchphrase..."

April 29, 2020

"Mx. Baggs was concerned that autism awareness had become a trendy catchphrase..."

"... 'whether it’s parent groups who throw the word "autism acceptance" around to sound current but don’t actually accept the slightest thing about their autistic children, or whether it’s autistic people who’ve fallen in love with the words and forgotten the meaning.' There were blog posts about hir father’s death, hir cats and the 'snake words' used in the disabilities-services industry that sounded helpful to clients but, Mx. Baggs said, were actually harmful. ('Apologies to actual snakes,' one of these entries noted.).... Mx. Baggs took the name of the ballastexistenz blog from “ballast existence,” a concept employed in Nazi propaganda to justify killing people with disabilities...."

From "Mel Baggs, Blogger on Autism and Disability, Dies at 39/Candid blog posts and a widely viewed short film sought to expand the very definition of what it means to be human" (NYT). Baggs died of "respiratory failure, though numerous health problems may also have played a part."

21 comments:

Oso Negro said...: The newspeak sure sucks.; 4/29/20, 8:21 AM
traditionalguy said...: Time to watch Temple Grandin again.; 4/29/20, 8:22 AM
Be like a tree said...: What it means to be human? That's easy; it's contributing and relating to others both of which have been deep-sixed by govt house arrest.; 4/29/20, 8:28 AM
Howard said...: Call it spectrum jealousy; 4/29/20, 8:34 AM
Lucid-Ideas said...: I have some very interesting information for independent researches looking for autism's origins:

- I will not go into further detail, but I have quite a bit of experience in nuke-weapon design, maintenance, rad-haz mitigation, and detection.

- A large amount of contamination was deposited - especially across the midwestern and eastern-continental divide between 57 and 69 (look up 'venting').

- Back in the day, my Grandfather and Father used Roentgens. Today we use Grays. The expectable dose - even during those times - has been far exceeded.

- I can't go into more detail, but I believe there is a definite connection between atmospheric and below-ground testing (this includes non-fissile tests at DARHT) and autism.

Males are especially susceptible to genetic changes due to stimulus in their environment, which would explain male autism and other synaptic disorders outnumbering female disorders - in some cases by as much as 100 to 1.; 4/29/20, 8:35 AM
Fernandinande said...: "Mx. Baggs" = "Mexico Baggs"?

Rainman Twins., "...the fascinating story of the only identical twin autistic savant sisters known to exist."

You don't want to play "name that tune" with them.; 4/29/20, 8:37 AM
tim maguire said...: Mx...hir...apologies ot snakes

This...person...sounds like a horrible person who wouldn't do well in the post-Covid world if there is less patience for luxury outrages.; 4/29/20, 8:39 AM
rhhardin said...: Asperger's woman makes an interesting movie script. The normal woman lateral thinking is avoided. The Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge for example.

The actress said it was really hard to learn.; 4/29/20, 8:40 AM
Wilbur said...: Stix Hix Nix Mx Baggs Flix; 4/29/20, 8:47 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: I guess just leathering up was out of the question, and yet I’ve known a lot of people with disabilities who’ve courageously done exactly that. Much less gratifying than Pronouns! and Nazis!.; 4/29/20, 8:47 AM
Howard said...: You're absolutely wrong RH Hardin. Aspie women have a woman's birdbrain on hyperdrive they merely lack the compassion that most women have. Truly a lose-lose; 4/29/20, 8:56 AM
Howard said...: Hipster mothers in Brooklyn are now having spectrum parties like their grandmothers used to have chicken pox parties in the 50s.; 4/29/20, 8:57 AM
Howard said...: Lucid: I was under the impression that the millennials are the ones that are suffering the most from spectrum disorder. The kids who got exposed all that nuke testing are baby boomers. So is your theory that this is a generic defect that presents itself in The offspring?; 4/29/20, 8:59 AM
Ralph L said...: I suppose someone non-verbal might enjoy making everyone else trip over nonsense words.

Amanda Melissa Baggs was born... to Anna Marie (Lynch) Baggs, a respiratory practitioner

Whatever that is. Probably they both had respiratory problems. Then obesity not a good idea.; 4/29/20, 8:59 AM
Charlotte Allen said...: I like this paragraph from Mx. Baggs"s blog:

In the eyes of the medical profession, I’ve become even more of a ballastexistenz than I used to be, ever since I got my feeding tube last year. I had no idea that once you got a feeding tube, you crossed a line into a category of people that are seen as being ‘artificially kept alive’. People who maybe shouldn’t be kept alive. Have you ever heard someone say “We have the technology to keep people alive too long these days”? Said it yourself? People on feeding tubes, people on ventilators, we all have to contend with this idea that maybe we shouldn’t be here. Maybe we’re a waste of resources that could be better used on people who really matter.

Remember Terry Schiavo, the disabled Florida gal with the feeding tube that her husband (who wanted to marry someone else) insisted on having pulled over her parents' objections? He did eventually succeed, after a lengthy court battle, in getting her dead from starvation and dehydration in a hospice owned by his lawyer because..."right to die."

Mx. Baggs might have been an annoying pronoun person, but she (don't know the right pronoun substitute) got some things right.; 4/29/20, 9:16 AM
Charlie said...: "Stix Hix Nix Mx Baggs Flix"

Nicely done Wilbur.!; 4/29/20, 9:44 AM
Fernandinande said...: In Andy Warhol's (not really, just fake advertising) Bad, I thought they were going to kill a kid because he was artistic - turns out they were saying "autistic".; 4/29/20, 10:08 AM
Caligula said...: The definiation of "autism" has so expanded that anyone who is not out at the furthest fringe of extraversion one is probably to be found somewhere "on the spectrum."

And with such an expanded definition, "awareness" becomes obsolete: for when practically all may be said to be autistic in some way, this "difference" all but ceases to exist.; 4/29/20, 1:13 PM
Lurker21 said...: Diversity. It's easy to joke about them, but if we had to go back to only two genders, you know you'd miss what you have now ... C'mon ... Really? You don't like all those new pronouns? ... You want to go back to just plain vanilla and chocolate when your identity could be any flavor of Baskin-Robbins or any color in the J. Crew catalog?

They was actually very intelligent to judge from one of hir blogs (the other one, with posts when they was very sick is very sad and less impressive intellectually), but with that terrifying intensity that people on the spectrum have. Maybe somebody should have turned them on to math or science, rather than gender and grievance studies and hir life might have been happier.

The idea of a militant autism advocate may seem funny, because people on the spectrum are supposed to be unaware of what others think of them, but they wouldn't be laughing, either because it wasn't true or because people on the spectrum don't get jokes well.; 4/29/20, 4:13 PM
Darkisland said...: Sarah Smith died of WuFlu on her way to be tested though having an Acme brand piano fall on her may have played a part

John Henry; 4/29/20, 4:48 PM
Nichevo said...: There are three genders:

Him
Her
It; 4/29/20, 6:38 PM