logoalt Hacker News

forestrywattoday at 8:01 PM1 replyview on HN

"Have a disability" and "broken" are not synonyms.

There's no judgement or moralizing in having a disability. Autism and ADHD like you mentioned are disabilities.

But the people who have them are not broken. Having a disability means some part of your life is more difficult. But that's very very different from you as a person are broken.

For example, if you can fix the environment and the person can now function equally to someone without a disability, then maybe it's the environment that's broken. If you can fix the social expectation and suddenly the person can function equally, then maybe the society is broken. Even if you cannot accommodate the person's needs, insinuating they are broken is not a great framing -- it creates a sense of pity rather than constructively looking at means to support them.


Replies

nick__mtoday at 8:32 PM

What else but pity should I feel toward non verbal autistic people?