Fallacy Week: The Shocking Behavior Fallacy & The Suddenly Specific Definition Fallacy

Hi guys it's FALLACY WEEK! Every day you get some fallacy action from a post I made a super long time ago at LOVE-NOS.

The Shocking Behavior Fallacy

MARY: My nephew Ralph has autism and it’s really sad. He insists on watching Thomas the Tank Engine every day, and he’s sixteen.
JOHN: Why is that sad? There’s nothing inherently wrong with an older person liking things that are aimed at kids. I feel like in our society, people label a lot of things as problems that aren’t actually problems.
MARY: That’s really insensitive. Ralph bites himself so badly that he has to go to the hospital.

Rebuttal:
John didn’t say that it’s not a problem to seriously hurt yourself, nor did he say that Ralph doesn’t have any problems. But Mary reacted as though he did say that, and now John is knocked off balance. He wonders, did he say that? How can he explain that that has nothing to do with what he was saying? Is there anything he can say now to avoid giving the impression that he thinks self-injury is okay?
In the Shocking Behavior Fallacy, you can use a shocking behavior to excuse something unrelated that you did to or said about the person who has the behavior. The fallacy functions by changing a very specific statement to a general one. Mary changed John’s specific statement–watching Thomas the Tank Engine is okay–to a very general statement–everything Ralph does is okay. Now she can prove John wrong by giving an example of something Ralph does that is not okay.

(Fun fact: This is actually one of the most dangerous fallacies in use. By equating one thing a person does with everything that person does, it creates a class of people about whose treatment no one is allowed to complain. Let’s change the example a little and say that Mary is a staff person working in an institution, and every time she sees Ralph trying to watch Thomas the Tank Engine she takes points away from him, which means that he doesn’t get to go on day trips. John thinks that Mary is micromanaging Ralph’s choices in an abusive way. Mary responds that Ralph has to be monitored closely and dealt with harshly because his problems are so severe; he bites himself, remember?
Professionals can fall into an inverse of the Shocking Behavior Fallacy, where instead of going from specific to general to shocking behavior, they go from shocking behavior to general to specific. Ralph has a really big problem, but instead of thinking of it as one problem, Mary starts thinking of it as who Ralph is. So whenever Mary sees Ralph doing something she doesn’t agree with, she responds as if he is biting himself. The results can be horrifying.)

The Suddenly Specific Definition Fallacy

JOHN: It bothers me that doctors tell pregnant women that people with Down Syndrome can’t count change. They advise women to abort people like me, when they don’t even know what someone with Down Syndrome can do.
MARY: But most people with Down Syndrome aren’t like you. Just think, it would be so hard to have a kid who could never live on their own.

Rebuttal:
In this fallacy, you tell a person with a disability that they can’t use their feelings or experiences to make a point about their disability, because you just made a new, more specific definition of the group of people being talked about-–a definition which no longer includes them. Mary has transformed John from someone who had authority on the subject, due to his experience, to someone whose experiences aren’t valid because he’s an exception.
Let’s briefly accept Mary’s new definition of someone with Down Syndrome-–a person who can never live on their own. It’s true, John could have some opinions about whether it’s wrong to abort such a person, but he can’t speak as someone from that particular group. But guess what? The prenatal test doesn’t measure whether someone could live on their own, it just measures whether they have Down Syndrome. If a fetus exactly like John is diagnosed with Down Syndrome, it doesn’t get a break because it’s John. Its mother’s doctor is just as likely to present the diagnosis as bad news, encourage an abortion, and list a bunch of things the child won’t be able to do that may or may not be true of the John-fetus in particular, or people with Down Syndrome in general. Being an exception gets the John-fetus absolutely nothing.
The reason the Suddenly Specific Definition Fallacy is a fallacy is because of its suddenness. Stuff goes along, people with a particular disability are getting discriminated against, mild and severe alike. Everyone’s welcome in the stigmatized group. Then someone says, “Hey, I have this disability and all these things you’re saying about my disability aren’t true.” Bam! Apply the Suddenly Specific Definition Fallacy and remove the person’s authority (they can keep the stigma).

(Fun fact: I’m sorry if the example comes off as melodramatic, but I’ve read a lot about this stuff and John is not exaggerating.)

(weird hobgoblin song)

I know you don't want me here
I know you don't want me here

I am the hobgoblin
of little minds
I am the hobgoblin
of your life

You were prepared then I showed up
I just waltzed in while you were all cleaned up

I am the hobgoblin
of little hearts
the kind that last a few hours before
falling apart

'Cause they know they're not wanted here
They know they're not wanted here

You patched up the holes in the ceiling
we came through the floor
You patched up the cracks in the universe
we found one more

You looked me up, you scoped me out
You read up on me and found out what I'm all about

You'll turn around one night
and slump in defeat
we're racing toward you
on a hundred centipede feet

I know you, you little shit, I fucking know you
you piece of shit, I fucking know you, you little freak
I know you don't want me here, I know you don't want me around
you blocked off the whole sky and I came in up from the ground

[a/n: I just developed this whole concept last summer; I feel like I shouldn't even put it on the Internet but it's just...not really fair that I should have to feel that way. I mean, how is this really more "hateful" than what we live with.]

who does sadness belong to?

I was just rereading the transcript of the May 30 IACC meeting and I came across a particular saying that Francis Collins used in his not-especially-sensitive comments.

"A parent is never happier than your saddest child."

Now, what does this mean? Is autism the same as sadness?

And if Autistic children are sad, does their sadness belong to their parents instead of to them?

Collins, who amused me by saying, "I know this is a tough time for anybody, any family, any individual who is going through the experience of raising a child with autism spectrum disorder" (bending over backwards to include all family structures, but forgetting that actual disabled people might be having a tough time), probably does think that. What does it mean if you don't even have the rights to your own sadness?

A few months ago I was consumed by the idea that my parents would have aborted me if they had known I would have ASD. Despite knowing it would lead to a lot of drama, I couldn't help but ask my mom if this was the case. She said that she wouldn't choose not to have me now that she knows me, but that if she hadn't known me but had known "how sad you would be," she might have had doubts about bringing me into the world.

The thing is I don't think of myself as a sad person. Obviously there have been occasions when I've been really sad, but I'm a pretty dissociative person (which is scary, but I guess it happens because I need it) and I also tend to produce a lot and be very spiritual when things are going badly. I'm not saying I enjoy being sad but I just don't think of it as being a big part of my life; it doesn't happen that much and when it does I focus more on the byproducts.

The worst thing about times when my life is going badly is that my mom won't stop talking about it and basically criticizing me for wanting to do other things than emote about how bad things are. I feel like she doesn't understand that if I did constantly do that, my life would be terrible. I couldn't think that way, so I don't. The way things are, I'm more guilty about how sad she is about my "sadness" than I am actually sad myself.

It becomes an affront to her that I am not worried and sad in the way she thinks I am or should be. It also becomes insensitive for me to be uncomfortable with the idea that I maybe shouldn't have existed because of my sadness--it's insensitive to her, because my sadness doesn't belong to me, it belongs to her.

It kind of reminds me how fans of Jerry Lewis and his telethon will accuse his opponents of being "bitter" or "hateful" when in fact the opponents are the ones being positive, and the telethon is negative. Even though Jerry Lewis doesn't have muscular dystrophy, he has ownership of it and gets to decide how it feels. If people with MD don't consider their lives to be tragic, then they're taking away something that belongs to Jerry Lewis. Somehow, they're the ones being mean.

I forget how we get on these topics

My mom teasingly asked me if I was mad at her for planning to abort me if I was XY (which would mean I'd have Nettleship Falls, which would mean I'd grow up as a person with low vision, and become legally blind at about the age I am now). I said, "I think it's screwed up, but you're my mom."

A minute later, I ate some of my mom's poached eggs even though I don't usually like eggs. I said, "Maybe I'm pregnant. I hope I don't have a kid who's not disabled."

Her face froze. "Amanda," she said, "what a horrible, stupid thing to say."

Since I will never be pregnant, my statement is kind of a joke, while my mom's decision to abort me if I was XY was a real decision, and not a joke.

Recommended Reading Number Two: Down Syndrome Prenatal Screening

This is a two-year-old Dave Hingsburger post--I found it when I was messing around, and I really recommend you read it--A Question Along the Way. Actually, this one too: A Story About George. They're both stories related to prenatal screening for Down Syndrome.

It's just an upsetting situation. I mean, we freak out about it happening to us, and we make this analogy, but I can't help but feel we should be doing something about the fact that it's already happening to them. But what can we do?

I don't know many people with Down Syndrome right now. There are three kids with Down Syndrome in Zach and Joe's class--Steven, Anthony, and Deja. Steven seems to have a bunch of sensory issues and he and Deja both get upset a lot; I haven't really gotten to know them. I like Anthony, he has a sneaky smile. About a year ago I knew two older women, Sharon and Emily, who both had Alzheimer's but were about as different as two people can be. Emily struck me as incredibly brave and I still think about her a lot.

I'm going to adopt when I have kids, and I know I'll probably want to adopt a baby with Down Syndrome. I have this whole riff about how I'm going to dress him in really snazzy clothes to make up for all the people who dress their kids with Down Syndrome in jerseys and give them bowl haircuts. But any kid of mine will probably end up dressing like a lumberjack, I'm sure.

In 2007 there was a New York Times article about parents of kids with Down Syndrome who are trying to educate medical professionals and prospective parents about what kids with Down Syndrome are like--which is to say, you know, kids. Perish the thought. My favorite part is when the medical professionals basically say that it would be mean and upsetting to ask people who are pregnant with Down Syndrome fetuses to talk to one of these parent advocacy groups. God forbid they actually have to think about what they're doing; FEEEEEELINGS strike again.

This is the article: Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus. It has some accompanying videos which I haven't finished watching. The article also made me aware of a really boss Newsweek piece by George F. Will, Jon Will's Aptitudes, about his then-21-year-old son:

One must mind one's language when speaking of people like Jon. He does not "suffer from" Down syndrome. It is an affliction, but he is happy-as happy as the Orioles' stumbling start this season will permit. You may well say that being happy is easy now that ESPN exists. Jon would agree. But happiness is a species of talent, for which some people have superior aptitudes...

Because of advancing science and declining morals, there are fewer people like Jon than there should be...

It seems mistaken to say that Jon is less than he would be without Down syndrome. When a child suffers a mentally limiting injury after birth we wonder sadly about what might have been. But a Down person's life never had any other trajectory. Jon was Jon from conception on. He has seen a brother two years younger surpass him in size, get a driver's license and leave for college, and although Jon would be forgiven for shaking his fist at the universe, he has been equable. I believe his serenity is grounded in his sense that he is a complete Jon and that is that.

He also wrote this piece, which is more focused on prenatal screening: Golly, What Did Jon Do?