Evil Isn’t A Mental Illness

Abolishing Ableist Rhetoric in Politics

It’s been a long time since a discussion of the current president, his ideology, and his followers hasn’t used the word “crazy” in some form. The constant drumbeat that mental illness is the only explanation for his immorality and unpredictability has ground disabled people like me, and the 1 in 5 Americans with physical or mental disabilities, into a powder of exhaustion and worthlessness. At best, the flood of rhetoric stigmatizes a group that almost everyone will belong to at some point. At worst, it speaks out loud the thoughts disabled people have about themselves, the very thoughts that drive us to consider suicide and euthanasia to unburden our loved ones.

Ableist language is hyperbolic and inaccurate. It gives credibility to armchair diagnosis, when psychiatrists say that the only way to get an accurate evaluation of a person’s mental health is through in-person testing and interviews. And it leaves nowhere to pivot if discussion needs to turn to actual concerns about a person’s behavior, as in the case of Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

Most ableist terms are rooted in ancient ideas that disability and mental illness were punishments administered by a vengeful god as a mark of a person’s moral weakness and mistakes. Children born with disabilities were considered punishments for the parents, and old tales encouraged people to leave the disabled child in the woods to be exchanged for the “real child” whom malicious spirits had stolen.

English has hundreds of more precise, more descriptive words to express the things that frustrate and baffle us. The main reason we still use ableist language so heavily is that we don’t stretch far for words that fully express our confusion, dismay, and horror at what we see and hear, especially in politics these days. As an autistic woman with hyperlexia as one of my characteristics, I realize that coming up with a list of 156 non-ableist words without using a dictionary isn’t the average response. But it clearly demonstrates that the disability perspective has much to contribute to our political discourse beyond lending words that don’t hold immoral people to account for their choices.

DUMB, STUPID, IDIOT, MORON, IMBECILE, HALF-WITTED, MINDLESS, WITLESS

Why not use these words? They all belong to classes of mental retardation in the psychological sciences, some used as recently as the 1960s. Idiot, Moron, and Imbecile are actually groups of IQ score rankings. Terms like mindless, witless, and dumb (unable to speak) assigned zero worth or potential to people with autism, learning disabilities, traumatic head injuries, and lack of speech.

INSTEAD, TRY: Abusive, annoying, asinine, boring, bratty, chauvinistic, classless, clueless, contemptible, cruel, despicable heartless, demagogue, demonic, dense, deplorable, devoid, difficult, dishonorable, disreputable, execrable, greedy, gross, grotesque, gullible, hack, ignorant, illegitimate, impenetrable, impulsive, in the dark, inane, infantile, inhumane, intolerable, intolerant, irritating, juvenile, lazy, malevolent, mean, meddling, mendacious, miserable, nasty, nauseating, obtuse, perfidious, poisonous, racist, reptilian, revolting, ridiculous, self-centered, selfish, sexist, sham, sickening, snotty, sophomoric, stingy, talentless, thoughtless, toxic, treacherous, uncultured, unenlightened, unimaginative, uninformed, unqualified, unsympathetic, unthinking, vacant, vacuous, venomous, vomit-inducing, wretched, xenophobic

CRAZY, INSANE, MAD, LOONY, NUTS, UNHINGED, DERANGED, NARCISSISTIC

Why not use these words? Most of them are informal words for mental illness that were used in the past to justify the involuntary institutionalization of people who needed help in buildings (madhouse, loony bin, nut factory) full of torture, disease, misery, and inhumanity. Terms like “crazy” and “insane” were also used to brutally enforce the patriarchy. Women were ruled insane if they didn’t comply with their male family members’ demands, or were too outspoken, or even just in possession of a fortune that would be hers unless she was ruled incompetent.

The last two are actual psychological diagnoses, but it is impossible to come up with an actual diagnosis without extensively testing and interviewing the subject, no matter how much a person’s actions appear to match the inventory of common characteristics listed in a diagnostic manual.

INSTEAD, TRY: Alarming, appalling, arrogant, baffling, bizarre, brutal, Byzantine, callous, careless, corrupt, dangerous, dehumanizing, disgusting, egocentric, egotistical, feckless, foolish, futile, horrific, hypocritical, ill-advised, incomprehensible, immoral, incompetent, inexplicable, inhuman, insulting, irrational, irresponsible, irrelevant, laughable, ludicrous, malignant, manipulative, meaningless, menacing, misleading, nonsensical, oppressive, overwhelming, phony, radical, random, reprehensible, stultifying, specious, spurious, unacceptable, uncharitable, unethical, unkind, unsafe, upsetting, viperous, wicked, wild

BLIND

Why not use this word? Blind people are highly sensitive to their surroundings, so describing someone’s lack of awareness or deceit as “blindness” doesn’t make sense. Blind people know what’s going on or grasp the nuances and complexities of a situation.

INSTEAD, TRY: Fumbling, oblivious, unaware

LAME

Why not use this word? “Lame” is a description of a disability in which one or more of a person’s limbs do not work in an able-bodied manner. It’s often associated with slowness and weakness, both of which frustrate able-bodied people who see a person with a mobility problem as a drag or dead weight. In more recent years, that frustration has extended the term to mean things that are in some way weak or awkward.

INSTEAD, TRY: Artificial, awkward, dorky, fake, petty, false, goofy, graceless, insecure, lacking, pathetic, shallow, thin-skinned

DEAF, TONE-DEAF

Why not use these words? Deaf/Hard of Hearing people use many skills of observation and empathy to pick up on the feelings and needs of people around them. Being Deaf doesn’t mean they don’t notice or ignore others’ feelings, and their ability to communicate appropriately to a given situation is no different than anyone else’s.

INSTEAD, TRY: Heedless, insensitive, regardless, uncaring, unfeeling

CRIPPLE

Why not use this word? Like lameness, being crippled communicates that someone’s physical disability breaks the ability for things to function as normal. “Cripple” carries an additional signification of a disability that’s acquired, not inborn. Injuries, mistakes, diseases, and overwork can cripple a person’s body parts. Rather than focusing on the outcome of a thing being crippled, use words to describe how a thing got to where it’s not working.

INSTEAD, TRY: Bash, batter, bind, crush, destroy, disembowel, dismantle, drain, explode, hammer, rend, rip, shred, smash, tear up, topple, trash, wreck

SPINELESS

Why not use these words? A person born with or acquiring a spinal defect that makes that central anatomical structure less efficient than an able-bodied one says nothing at all about the courage or persistence of the disabled person.

INSTEAD, TRY: Chicken, cowardly, indecisive, shaky, unreliable, untrustworthy