Olivia and Raven discuss the ways society dehumanizes disabled people, and the double standard regarding how disabled people and nondisabled people find fulfillment. They revisit Helen Keller’s article: “Physicians Juries for Defective Babies” to address controversial, but commonly held beliefs about disabled existence.
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Discussion Summary:
01:11: Topic intro, and the misconception that society is less ableist than it was a century ago.
04:39: Reducing disabled people’s humanity to their health condition.
09:21: Helen Keller’s article and devaluing disabled existence.
12:52: Breaking down Keller’s assertion that “happiness, intelligence, and power give life its sanctity”, and the subjectiveness of what constitutes happiness.
21:26: The different types of intelligence, and how they’re all valuable.
33:02: Lack of power, or autonomy, doesn’t make life less worth living.
42:58: Nondisabled people finding meaning or inspiration in disabled existence, and thinking of disabled people as inherently infantile or childlike.
49:06: Keller’s view that disabled existence devalues nondisabled, or “normal,” existence.
55:15: Outro.
Learn More!
Helen Keller: Physicians Juries for Defective Babies, Article in the New Republic, 1915
