Yeah, it's super-aggravating for us, because we CAN get a lot of shit done, it's just affect management and singlet-faking that burns so much heartblood, and unfortunately, all our marketable skills were social skills jobs that are ALL about that. I'm not saying I yearn to live in a world without antibiotics, but can't lie, I'm a little resentful that the workforce has made it so hard on me WHEN I CAN DO THE FUCKING TASKS. I just can't do them the way the workplace DEMANDS, even if the results end up the same.
When you had no hospitals, no specialized caretakers, and everyone was used to dealing with chamberpots anyway, cleaning someone who was too ill to leave their bed for months on end was just something you did, because there was no one else to do it for you.
Yup! Home funerals were the norm in the US till around the Civil War; there was a regular contact with death that we generally don't have now. A lot of people are HORRIFIED at the idea now, but that's because... well, they don't know what dead bodies are like and are so unfamiliar with them that the idea of keeping one IN YOUR HOUSE for a few days and then wrapping 'em up in the sheets and cleaning them up just sounds like a horror movie scenario, instead of just... what you do. (And believe you me, if we COULD have that simple, cost-effective "visit LB in their own bed at home and say bye, toss them in a hole in the yard," we WOULD. Now you just plain can't do that unless you live out in the boonies.)
The thing about severely disabled folks is... a lot of us can still do SOMETHING, even if it's not something businesses value. But that doesn't mean it's worthless! I have a friend who can't really do a lot, but their guidance and sense and kind listening have been a huge boon, and they don't seem to realize how much that means to me! And that's not even getting into the respected roles that the elderly have in a bunch of societies.
Obviously, each society has valued different abilities in different ways, and probably every single one of them had a kind of disability they just Would Not Accept. But social Darwinism had to be invented; it's not a cosmic truth.
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Date: 2020-03-07 12:23 am (UTC)When you had no hospitals, no specialized caretakers, and everyone was used to dealing with chamberpots anyway, cleaning someone who was too ill to leave their bed for months on end was just something you did, because there was no one else to do it for you.
Yup! Home funerals were the norm in the US till around the Civil War; there was a regular contact with death that we generally don't have now. A lot of people are HORRIFIED at the idea now, but that's because... well, they don't know what dead bodies are like and are so unfamiliar with them that the idea of keeping one IN YOUR HOUSE for a few days and then wrapping 'em up in the sheets and cleaning them up just sounds like a horror movie scenario, instead of just... what you do. (And believe you me, if we COULD have that simple, cost-effective "visit LB in their own bed at home and say bye, toss them in a hole in the yard," we WOULD. Now you just plain can't do that unless you live out in the boonies.)
The thing about severely disabled folks is... a lot of us can still do SOMETHING, even if it's not something businesses value. But that doesn't mean it's worthless! I have a friend who can't really do a lot, but their guidance and sense and kind listening have been a huge boon, and they don't seem to realize how much that means to me! And that's not even getting into the respected roles that the elderly have in a bunch of societies.
Obviously, each society has valued different abilities in different ways, and probably every single one of them had a kind of disability they just Would Not Accept. But social Darwinism had to be invented; it's not a cosmic truth.
--Rogan