False sensitivity

I will avoid the obvious insensitive jokes about Svend Robinson's announcement that he is mentally ill, and proceed straight to the less obvious ones. Kidding. Just some thoughts: * Throughout the Globe piece, neither Robinson nor his interviewer is able to say the words "mentally ill," let alone crazy. Rather, it is said that he "suffers from a mental illness," or in Svendspeak, that he is "living with mental illness," rather like a room-mate. This is a euphemism, a kind of linguistic prophylactic intended to shield the speaker, no less than the listener, from the harsh reality to which it refers. Like all euphemisms and some prophylactics, it will eventually wear out, requiring the substitution of some new euphemism in its place. In time, "living with mental illness" will be seen as a grievous insult, much as "coloured people" is to people of colour. (Except, of course, for those working at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.) * Svend says he is telling the world about his "illness" in order to remove the "stigma" associated with it. Frankly, I can't think of anything more likely to stigmatize the mentally ill than to have Svend Robinson as their poster child. But leave that aside. You can see where he's going with this: Just because somebody's mentally ill, that doesn't mean they're crazy. But that's not removing a stigma -- it's displacing it. It reminds me of those celebrity interviews where the star reveals that, as a child, he had trouble reading. Until that happy day when he discovered he had dyslexia. "What a relief that was," he confides. "I thought I was stupid. I wasn't: I just had a learning disability." And we are all taught a valuable lesson: not to stigmatize dyslexics as stupid. Except... what do we do about the kids who are stupid? Or crazy? Disowning these words in favour of more refined formulations is not sensitive, it's just dishonest. Think what you like about stupid people, it says -- actually, we prefer "living with stupidity" -- just don't lump me in with them. Another example: the elaborate piety over "the beauty myth." The poster child for this particular form of false sensitivity is the "plus-sized model," whose hefty dimensions are intended to teach us there are many different ways to be beautiful, that physical attractiveness is irrelevant. Fine: except, take a look at her. Aside from the rolls of flesh, she's gorgeous, in the most conventional, looks-are-everything way. The sensible way of thinking about this, it seems to me, is not to pretend that beauty is irrelevant, or that everyone is beautiful "in their own way." It's to accept what you are. Some people are more attractive than you, some people (hopefully) are less attractive, but either way it's no big deal; and while physical beauty is a marvellous thing that we ought to celebrate for what it is -- a happenstance of nature -- it's one of the less important things you can say about a person. The same could be said about intelligence. But back to Svend. It is an odd anomaly that, while it is objectionable to make fun of or discriminate against the mentally retarded -- or whatever the preferred term now is -- it is perfectly all right to discriminate against the extremely dim -- a subject I've explored before. Likewise, while most of us have grown accustomed to referring to Svend as a lunatic throughout his long and eccentric career, what are we to say now that he has confirmed that we were, clinically speaking, right? (See also my piece on Jean Chretien's dysphasia.) * Finally: If Svend is indeed mentally ill, is it acceptable to say that he is unfit for public office? If he cannot be held accountable for the theft of a valuable ring on this basis -- he calls it "a cry for help" -- can he be entrusted with any serious responsibility? I wouldn't be so insensitive as to ask, were it not that Svend is hinting at an eventual political comeback. Of course, if he thinks people will vote for him after all this, he's completely -- oh, never mind.