Talk:Sanism/Archive 1

Neutrality disputed
This entire article has the consistent viewpoint that anyone who considers, say, mental retardation (or ADD, the latter of which I suffer from personally) to be a disability and a problem is practicing discrimination (a loaded word in and of itself when it comes to human beings) and is doing something wrongful. Allens (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't go that far. Mentalism is where you treat someone unfairly for their mental difference not when you acknowledge these mental differences. Acknowledging and educating on the differences between race, gender, sexuality, disability etc. is not discrimination. However treating someone with a disability as if there is something wrong with them might be considered discrimination depending on what you are doing. But no where does this article say that acknowledging difference=discrimination. -Rainbowofpeace (talk) 22:58, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sigh... First, I was specifically talking about acknowledging that a disability means that someone has a problem. Second, I will certainly acknowledge that the article does mention some things that are wrongful ("understand the other's situation and needs better than they do themselves" in most cases is certainly a delusion, and a harmful one), and I am not in favor of psychiatric imprisonment when it is not utterly necessary (I'm a libertarian). However, the article makes, among others, the following claims about "mentalism":


 * That it includes treating someone as "constantly in need of supervision and assistance". This is the case with someone with severe mental retardation. It is also more the case with a child with (severe) ADHD than it is with a child without it.
 * 'Further discrimination may involve labeling some as "high functioning" and some as "low-functioning"': Yes, in most situations someone with more-severe retardation or ADHD/ADD is less functional than someone with less-severe; this is the case. (Yes, someone with ADD can sometimes find professions where untreated ADD isn't a problem. But what if one doesn't wish to be in such a profession? I prefer college teaching to teaching preschool, for instance.)
 * Yes, sometimes behaviors like seeming self-harming (e.g., usage of illegal drugs) can seem nonfunctional but actually be, say, self-treatment. (Although I note that the article, ironically enough, fails to give people credit for using the side/"adverse" effects of drugs as beneficial effects (like using sedative side effects to help one go to sleep, or appetite-suppression side effects to reduce eating).) But sometimes they are self-harming. Allens (talk) 16:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

With your bullet point A lets use another minority group as an example. Women are generally physically weaker then men. So if a woman could not lift a chair on her own someone should help her. This is not saying that we need to help EVERY woman to lift a chair. IF you do that you are treating them as if they are "constantly in need of supervision and assistance." Make sense. It does not mean that you should never do that. Its saying that when people say they have a disability that often times happens to them when they don't need it.


 * It's certainly a problem for people to be interfering and offering assistance when it's not needed. But there are some cases in which it is, ranging from infants to someone with sufficiently severe mental retardation or Alzheimer's. About the only time nearly-constant supervision isn't needed in such cases is when the person is asleep (or comatose).

Point B. Labeling someone with for example High-Functioning Autism means they get less help then others.

One your non-bulleted point. Acknowledging a disability is not necessarily acknowledging a problem unless you have the mentalist view that a disability is a problem. It is a difference in the mind. The reason why it is a "problem" is because that A) society set up the world for able-minded and neurotypical indviduals B) lack of education on mental differences (ask anyone on the street about Childhood Disintegrative Disorder)


 * Nope. I can't concentrate as well as I need to to do certain tasks - tasks that are necessary for reasons of reality (e.g., scientific research), not society, at least without external aids. Needing external aids (that, if my brain worked differently, would not be necessary) is a limitation/problem - I can't do things if something goes wrong with them, like medication wearing off. Are there cases in which it's a societal matter and/or lack of education? Certainly. Take education. From what research I've seen, untimed tests would be better for everyone in the first place (more accurate - less test anxiety effects, for one thing), as well as being especially helpful for people with learning disabilities or similar. I try to help fix the lack of education by being quite public about my ADD, to let people know there is such a thing as adult ADD and that there's nothing wrong with taking drugs to treat it, if one desires to. Allens (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Not being able to do something is not necessarily a problem. And telling a disabled person they have a problem is incredibly disrespectful.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 10:19, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I trust that wasn't a personal attack, but simply stating an opinion. I am of the opinion that it is incredibly disrespectful to claim that I don't have a problem when I (a disabled person) say I do - and I am by no means alone among disabled people in this view. If I am unable to do something that I want to do, and it is something biologically possible for any organism to do, then my not being able to do that thing is a problem. (Others may regard their disability differently; if they've managed to find a situation that's both satisfactory for them and in which their disability is not a barrier to functioning, I'm happy for them.) Allens (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Excellent points on both sides I think. As editor who previously contributed most of this article I think it would be great if it could be improved. I would say that the low vs high functioning distinction is also partly a problem beacuse it's a simple categorical dichotomy when in fact functioning can vary along different dimensions and in different circumstances. Also it doesn't differentiate between unsupported vs supported potential (which in the case of some mental health issues for example may simply relate to how supportive and understanding other people are, intellectually or emotionally). But I do agree it's important to identify those with the most extensive ongoing needs. EverSince (talk) 08:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I let the topic sit for a week and think that there is little argument over whether this article is neutral or not.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 19:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * False. I had to go away to calm down (plus, given ADD, I unsurprisingly got distracted). However, EverSince's suggestion should make a start on resolving the matter. Allens (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I do personally feel it could do with some counter points, for example to distinguish discrimination and prejudice from genuinely recognising people's problems and needs - and the difficulty of doing that sometimes given the many unknowns about the nature and causes and prognosis of conditions. EverSince (talk) 20:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Could you possibly work on putting these in? And your acknowledging that a disability can be a problem is very helpful. (Yes, there are circumstances, for some people, under which something like genetic ADD can actually be helpful, that probably being why it's retained in the gene pool in the first place. This doesn't mean that someone like me necessarily wants to be in those circumstances.) Allens (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Welcome to what it feels like to be a minority. Do you think anyone wants to be black, gay, ethnically Jewish? The fact that you don't want to be ADD unfortunately has very little to do with what your mind is doing. It is unfortunate that you feel that way. However you are trying to say that addressing that someone with a disability is a problem is not offensive. If you think so then walk up to someone who is disabled in some fashion and say that. The reaction you get when you say that "you have a problem" will not be pleasant.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 03:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Then feel free to add something however this is not a matter of neutrality that you are talking about. I do believe that the article does not just go out and say that everyone who knows that someone has autism is automatically discriminating againist them.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to make a few wording changes. Allens could you point out or edit in any particular paragraphs or missing points that seem not quite right or balanced to you? Do more citations still seem necessary? I recall being forced to refer quite a lot on a great article by Coni Kalinowski (psychiatrist) and Pat Risser (former recipient of mh services) which was in press back then, but there are several other papers/books also cited throughout. EverSince (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Gonna stop going over the article. be good to get an idea if any issues with it or suggestions. hope it will get edited around anyway. EverSince (talk) 05:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

stigmatising attitude of narcissists to psychiatric illness
I would have thought that this study is relevant: http://www.psychiatry.org.il/upload/infocenter/info_images/2008200653242PM@Pages%20from%20IJP-42-4-7.pdf --Penbat (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Evaluativism" needs explaining
The word "evaluativism" (in the caption for the photo of The Giver) was completely new to me. In researching it, I found Wiktionary to be of little help, and I floundered around until I got to "Evaluativism 101". Understanding it better now, and why it shows up in this article, I'm wondering if it needs a section here. Or maybe its own article? If the word is to remain in the article, it needs at least a brief explication. I thought of redlinking it, but decided to bring the issue here for a discussion from editors more competent than I. — Gorthian (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * that was added by an editor who was trying to use Wikipedia to push an idea he is developing in the RW about a concept he called "evaluative diversity" and that he believes people are discriminated against, because they have an "evaluative style" that is ...outside of some norms. it was all WP:OR and WP:SYN.  He created an article on that was deleted and he also added content to several articles about it. I just removed the content you asked about. Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The article is still awful, full of POV pushing and disability victimhood. It's also dominated by American perspectives and preoccupations. --Ef80 (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120415083253/http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/mhealth/content/pdf/Experts_by_Experience.pdf to http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/mhealth/content/pdf/Experts_by_Experience.pdf

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Do NOT use scare quotes
Please read MOS:QUOTEPOV. Do not use scare quotes to insert a POV about the legitimacy of the use of a term when it can be taken as being used literally. Mentally "ill" people are not considered "normal" (made up example but similar to how article read before cleanup) is not acceptable and undermines the legitimacy of this article. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:10, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I can only imagine what it used to look like. The whole article needs a machete taken to it. It reads like an essay and reeks of WP:GREATWRONGS. What, for example, was the image and caption seen here doing in the article??? EEng 05:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes the picture seems like something you would insert as a joke on a talk page. Its Caption is Quite Impressive as well. This was one of the most "interesting" series of edits I have made on Wikipedia. Would it be a personal attack if I said broadly that the article "seemed" to have been "written" by persons with atypical thought patterns with an axe to grind that these should not be considered atypical. The "fox" seemed to be guarding the "hen house" here. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:27, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm "interested" in your "use" of the "word" stablished in that edit. EEng 16:24, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Hah, thanks. Fixed. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:56, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Title
I'm going to change the article title to Sanism as seemingly the more common term (and less mixed up with other uses) unless anyone disagrees. Sighola2 (talk) 07:07, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you should leave it for now until we have time to discuss it. Not saying it can't change later but sanism sounds almost demining to me.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 11:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I would second it being changed to sanism - I believe this is now the more commonly used term. The reason, as I understand, that sanism is preferable is because it points to the dominant side of the power structure: the prevailingly understood norm that is the norm people are being compared to when being discriminated against. BerthaLJorkinS (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Support The article itself includes a cited claim that the term "sanism" has become dominant.
 * Number of Google Scholar results for the following searches:
 * ableism sanism 275
 * ableism saneism 49
 * ableism mentalism 153
 * discrimination sanism 4,100
 * discrimination saneism 60
 * discrimination mentalism -paranormal 8,630 - This number appears to include a large number of instances of the word "funda-mentalism" broken with a soft hyphen.
 * Daask (talk) 19:29, 31 January 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ Daask (talk) 12:11, 25 February 2020 (UTC)