V is for Valuable…
There is an intrinsic value in every human person. It’s not a measurable value, it’s not a measure of value against other humans, it just is. Every human person is intrinsically valuable. They are valuable to those around them, they are valuable to siblings, parents, extended family, society, and the world.
I am a neurodivergent person. I am valuable. My wife is a neurotypical person, My wife is valuable. I am no more valuable than she, and she no more valuable than I.
Every human person has value. It is an immeasurably important value.
It is an extremely unfortunate aspect of modern life that this intrinsic value is artificially measured by society and that prowess in some aspects of life are ascribed an unreal value and promoted over and above everyone else.
A disabled person, whether that be a physical, neurological, intellectual disability is of no less value than a person who is not disabled.
A Prime Minister or President is of no more value than a dishwasher, a construction worker, a bar worker, a croupier, a builder, an accountant, an engineer or any other occupation or vocation that can be named.
V is for Valuable.
A football star or a baseball star is not more valuable than an autistic person who has difficulty with managing the day to day tasks of life.
An Olympic medalist is not more valuable than a blind person who relies on others to assist them with daily living skills.
It is a distortion of reality that we elevate such people. It is an even greater distortion that we do the same for people being famous, for playing a role in a film, for singing a song, or for winning a reality TV show.
This is nothing more than a distortion, because all people, every single human person regardless of ability, fame or fortune are in fact equally valuable.
We live with so many distortions of the intrinsic value of human people in society. We seem to get a kick out of creating false hierarchies of value.
We elevate people on the basis of the job they perform.
We elevate people based on their adherence to a socially constructed normality.
We privilege ourselves on the basis of sex, gender, class, race, sexual identity to name but a few.
This is not reality. This is nothing more than us making a social construct in order to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. In order to exert power and control over others.
It is I believe, time to declare that the emperor is, in fact, wearing no clothes.
This declaration must occur, because people are being harmed. People are being subjugated. People are being abused and tortured. Declared other, disordered, sick ill and less.
This surely needs to stop.
People are hurt. Groups of people are maligned in the name of this false assignment of value.
Groups of people are labelled as wrong, sinful, corrupt, broken, and wrong when, in fact, they are probably more authentic and genuine than those doing the so-called value assignment.
Neurodivergent people, and in particular at the moment autistic people are being labelled and valued as wrong, sick, disordered, diseased, a holocaust, an epidemic, vaccine damaged, serial killers, and other, when in fact we are just different. We just have a different neurological wiring which means we experience the world differently and so we interact, communicate and act differently.
Not wrong, just differently.
We are intrinsically valuable because we are human.
We are not subhuman.
It does not matter if we speak with our mouth parts or communicate in other ways, we are valuable.
It does not matter if we seem to effortlessly manage daily living or we need help with that, we are valuable.
It does not matter if we are highly intelligent or not, we are valuable.
It does not matter if we have few or many comorbid conditions we are valuable.
V is for valuable.
All human being are valuable.
V is for valuable. All humans are valuable and yes to be clear, autistics are human. They are not subhuman shells as Ivaar Lovaas dared to claim.
V is for valuable.
I am valuable, you are valuable and yes, even D Trump and H Clinton are valuable.
