sorry for any misunderstanding last time. this one is better because it portrays the actor/object relationship between ableists and the language they steal directly rather than implicitly. it’s hard to get a gauge on how everyone reads the memetic text. hoping this works better with the local audience. :)
“Neurodivergent” is a bit different though. The r-word says something normative about people’s mental development. It’s saying that the person has been prevented from being normal; that something is wrong with them. “Special needs” indicates that someone requires different resources than what is typical. Much like IQ when it was developed, it’s a way to sort people’s needs on an economic basis, which isn’t poorly intentioned. However, it still labels people by how we need certain things within our socioeconomic system.
Disorder classification systems like the DSM or ICD seek to normalize people, making sure we “function” in society. It measures us by a set of standards to ensure that we can live independently with our environment. It is very much defined by how society is structured; the environment of industrial capitalism. It doesn’t matter how fulfilling your life is, only that you are a functional cog.
“Neurodivergence” seeks to avoid the pathology based approach. It says nothing about us having disorders. It instead focuses on us as different and divergent from the norm, but not inherently ill because of who we are. It’s invariant to economic systems or cultural norms, only saying that we are different.
Absolutely. All of the terms in the post are a bit different from one another. All came from varying origins and backgrounds and have different histories of how they came to be in my post.
What they share is a pattern of similarities. They all are originally polite descriptive words that became demeaning.