There is a fine line between talking about the history of public health & displaying disabled people as monstrous others whose lives represent an outcome worse than death. I am seeing what seem like “shock value” posts with old photos of people in iron lungs that really uncomfortably walk that line. - ThreadSky

histoftech.bsky.social • 71 days ago

There is a fine line between talking about the history of public health & displaying disabled people as monstrous others whose lives represent an outcome worse than death. I am seeing what seem like “shock value” posts with old photos of people in iron lungs that really uncomfortably walk that line.

Comments

gooscolleen.bsky.social•71 days ago

Exactly. Over the 40+ years that I have had T1D, pumps have become more "discreet" to the point that they look like cells, etc. This has led to them being yanked off of students, thrown, and broken. All while making us ill and causing injury. I am a quiet person, but don't touch my "pancreas". 1/

gooscolleen.bsky.social•71 days ago

I have also had to use mobility devices for a congenital spinal issue, and my vision is affected by retinopathy due to decades of trying to hide diabetes from employers and shield coworkers from seeing the consequences of insulin therapy by running high to avoid lows. 2/

gooscolleen.bsky.social•71 days ago

I have had an employer say "that thing scares me" about my pump. Well sweetie pie diabetes IS f*cking scary and this "thing" keeps me alive. 3/

arleenb.bsky.social•70 days ago

Seriously? That's a type of employee abuse. And, I'm a business owner.

gooscolleen.bsky.social•70 days ago

I resigned from there shortly after that since there was a lot of covert aggression happening. I figured someone else might see past the disabilities.

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

I realize most don't care about this. I see how most people won't even put on a mask to save their own health, nevermind gaf about anyone society considers less worthy of life/care. To most people disabled people are cautionary tales, so othered as to be subhuman. I know this, as a disabled person.

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

So why am I saying it? I guess I just want ppl to know disabled folks can see you online & irl too, doing next to nothing to help while using images like this for shock value. Maybe feel some shame for not doing shit to improve public health while using images of visibly disabled ppl to make a point

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

It shouldn’t need to be said, but many who used iron lungs had good & long lives. Some used iron lungs for a certain portion of the day or night & were outside of it other times. Those who had to use it all day were valuable people w/valuable lives, despite how they’re presented to make a point.

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

As a historian of technology I should mention how iron lungs worked: they used negative pressure inside the chamber to induce air into a person’s lungs. They were far easier on the body than the standard mechanical ventilation methods today that require sedation & forcing air into people’s lungs.

mmlarthur.bsky.social•71 days ago

There is a modern option that is a kind of vest but when we tried to get them to use one on my grandmother the drs thought we were crazy.

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

Some reasons we don’t build or maintain them anymore are expense, (perceived) need, & also because able bodied people, esp. doctors, generally dislike anything that takes up space—actual or visual—that helps disabled people live rather than eases them towards death, especially if it’s used lifelong.

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

The drive to make disability technologies smaller, less visible, & easier to hide is as much (or sometimes more) related to able-bodied ppl’s discomfort/fear as it is to making it more helpful for disabled users. Making prostheses mimic lost limbs visually, even when it hindered function, is one ex.

victorianlaura.bsky.social•71 days ago

This is super interesting--I didn't know it at all. Thank you for this thread.

joycereynoldsward.bsky.social•71 days ago

Nods. I'm old enough to remember inspirational stories about people who lived full lives--creative lives--while in an iron lung.

gdinwiddie.bsky.social•67 days ago

The mother of a friend of my little sister slept in an iron lung due to polio. In the daytime she got around by wheelchair. She was a very interesting woman.

soberbobmonthly.bsky.social•71 days ago

Honestly nice to see differing opinions about disability issues out there, because it causes people to pause and think why this might be, even as a knee jerk reaction. There's so many different ways to warn against polio, and helping people recognise this means the chance it will improve

thesnarkyfarmer.bsky.social•71 days ago

I noticed it too with school children with Polio. Let's stop that.

radiobeartime.com•71 days ago

It’s photo pr0n for clicks.

renaissancedreamer.bsky.social•71 days ago

If people harnessed a fraction of that energy (fear, aversion, shock, pity, othering, avoidance of one’s own mortality &/or fragility, etc) and redirected that into making life better for the disabled community………I can only dream the wonderful world we could create.

runningsignal.com•71 days ago

I was once walking down the streets of Richmond one night in my 20s when a homeless man yelled "holy fuck, my life can't be all that bad look at this guy".

jburkespraker.bsky.social•71 days ago

A fine line for sure. The Mutter has a couple good videos they made last year. Not perfect, but r hey’re first person accounts from survivors.
Don’t love the title on this one, but the content is good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=03xraxDAh3g

jburkespraker.bsky.social•71 days ago

This one touches on some tougher issues briefly including Maid and internalized ableism.

I think these were created for disability pride month last year.

https://youtu.be/6zLydwVb1G4

crushedcat.bsky.social•71 days ago

In the small street where I grew up there were two polio victims, both crippled from the disease. It's not a great outcome and people need to be made aware of the benefits of vaccines, even if it requires shock treatment to do so. Unfortunately the target audience don't respond to much else.

renaissancedreamer.bsky.social•71 days ago

It’s not great to teach people to fear those with disabilities cause that’s the message. “Look! How horrible THIS life!” And also it’s heard loud & clear by the one with the disability. The attitudes of the ‘normies’ or ‘ableds’ & hostile environments have a huge affect on QoL

kendrawrites.com•71 days ago

I can say from experience you can argue convincingly about the need for vaccines without making disabled people your visible cautionary tale. Id even argue that it doesn't work because people can't imagine that they might themselves become disabled. (Which is another convo) /1

kendrawrites.com•71 days ago

But telling them measles causes immune amnesia so that they're susceptible to every cold, every infection they've ever been vaccinated against does resonate, because they've already had those infections and vaccines. They know what that's like. And they don't want it again.

thewettanktops.bsky.social•70 days ago

I’m struggling a little bit to see the qualitative difference here.

If it’s bad to show a picture of peoples’ experience as a “cautionary tale”, I’m not sure why it’s so much better to describe their experience more or less with the same message.

thewettanktops.bsky.social•70 days ago

The people who got polio are people who deserve the same dignity as anyone else, but we all understand that it’s bad for a lot of people to get polio and it’s bad that so many people had to go into iron lungs (permanently or temporarily) and it’s worthwhile to get that point across.

crushedcat.bsky.social•71 days ago

But their children might. If the arguments work how come we have so many anti vaxxers about.

kendrawrites.com•71 days ago

You might want to actually look into the history of anti-vaccination before you just say stuff

histoftech.bsky.social•71 days ago

This part🔥🔥 So many seem unaware or unwilling to accept that the antivax movement got a big boost because it (fraudulently) positioned a specific disability as a rare but possible outcome of vaccination. It was a fear of visible disability that led many people to reject vaccines in the 20th/21st c.

recombobulating.bsky.social•71 days ago

The approach so far on a national level has been much more your preferred option of shock and threats. There is a lot of establishment support for these traditional methods despite the harm they cause.

lebendon.com•69 days ago

Monstrous others? Perhaps some people are inclined to see them that way, but that's in the eye of the beholder. I've always seen it as a warning of a fate that no-one deserves to suffer.

moodybill.bsky.social•71 days ago

Thanks for saying this. Let’s hope we can move on from freak shows and Victorian gothic sensibilities

nurseferatu.bsky.social•71 days ago

Even professional healthcare educators sometimes fall back into using scare tactics when trying to emphasize an important message. The iron lung/polio link is attractive because it is a dramatic visual. But it isn’t an effective tactic in addition to being dehumanizing.

streussal.bsky.social•70 days ago

📌

sschwinghamer.bsky.social•71 days ago

Saw an interesting, troubling discussion recently, pointing out that traditional museology shared a crucial link with an underpinning of nationalism. (I mean, yes, there are many things here.)

"Wonder" was/is often buoyed up by a sense of Other... exotic or not, it worked by division.

dervala.bsky.social•71 days ago

This is fascinating. We lost my mother-in-law to myasthenia gravis this year, and months of ICU intubations over the last 12 years were unfathomably cruel.

Never knew that iron lung was a gentler intervention, but your explanations make sense. Aesthetics of disability.

besswww.bsky.social•71 days ago

Yup, seeing this too. Polio survivors were prominent in the US disability rights movement and a number of them noted how there was lots of support for eradicating polio but not so much for supporting ppl who were lifelong disabled from polio

besswww.bsky.social•71 days ago

Also reminds me of @disabilitystor1.bsky.social great historical roundup of health posters using visible disability as a scare tactic https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/public-health-campaigns-and-the--threat--of-disability

foxymoxie.bsky.social•71 days ago

Interesting. I use am app called, Visible, that helps me pace myself. Since using it, the ppl around me are more aware of my otherwise invisible illness. It's amazing how ppl in general don't accept something as real unless they can see it for themselves.

auntiepokchop.bsky.social•71 days ago

The inner & external lives of a person in an iron lung were a beautiful triumph over tragedy. But now that the tragedy is easily preventable & has been for so long, the visceral fear people had of the disease is gone from public conciousness. How, IYO, should a new pub ed program proceed?

altiam.bsky.social•71 days ago

It's crucial to honor dignity over shock value.

theprestige.bsky.social•71 days ago

How do we talk about the consequences of (eg) stopping polio vaccinations without discussing consequences? I legit want to have your insight on this.

apollonysus.bsky.social•71 days ago

Their point is that "consequences" here are framed as shocking and the victims of polio as less human. If I understand it correctly, this conversation is somewhat alongside a results-oriented one. This is pointing out whose bodies we're stacking up when we build our rhetorical trenches

tomduncombe.bsky.social•70 days ago

Don't bother; the OP has no answer.

stevempars.bsky.social•71 days ago

It's really a dilemma across the board. How do you attract enough eyeballs / attention without becoming hyperbolic and thus easily dismissed. Not just in terms of disability, but almost any societal issue

glenseguin.bsky.social•71 days ago

My guess is every person in the Iron Lung would have traded simple vaccines over life in a machine. The shocking photos and newsreels of the Vietnam war did as much to end it as the protests and politics.(IMHO). Monstrous others is your interpretation.

eab-dc.bsky.social•71 days ago

📌

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