Self-Organizing Man

Ballast Existence and The Vulnerabilities of Being Non-Autistic

May 3, 2006 – 10:36 am

From Ballastexistenz on her blog title:

The reason that I have chosen one of the offensive terms used in the German eugenics movement against disabled people — which, for reference, predated Nazism, was heavily influenced by American ideas, and survived after World War II — is to force people to look at the sentiments that drove that movement, that came before it, and that are still prevalent worldwide today.

Ballastexistenz means about what it looks like: Ballast-existence, ballast-life. Some of the other terms that were applied to disabled people at the same time included leeren Menschenhülsen (empty human-shaped shells/husks), and lebensunwertes Leben (lives unworthy of life).

In using these terms, I do not for one moment forget the gravity of them. The ideas that gave rise to that terms have existed a long time and continue to exist. These ideas threaten the lives and well-being of disabled people everywhere. Autistic people are frequently described in these hateful ways, as empty shells without souls, burdens on our families and society, contributing nothing, ballast that merely weighs everyone else down. (More here.)

And on the dangers and vulnerabilities of being non-autistic:

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how bad autism is, because of the trouble autistic people get into. We are either harmful to other people, or, through ignorance of danger or lack of social awareness, vulnerable, and this somehow makes autism a bad thing.

If this is true, if we follow that reasoning above, then being non-autistic is a very bad thing indeed.

How many people have been taken advantage of because they were too polite, too invested in social rules, to get out of a situation, or even to see it for what it was? Where many autistic people would have walked away?

How many car accidents have happened because the driver, having a brain that only sees what it expects to see, did not see a problem until it was too late to react to it? Where many autistic drivers would have seen it right away, and used that split-second advantage to react to the situation before it was too late?

How many children have been kidnapped because they were willing to get in a car with a stranger who touched them? Where many autistic people would have been so frightened at the touch that we would have fled? (More here.)