The intersection of puritanism & #capitalism creates an incredibly insidious, toxic form of #ableism.

Because when you keep going thru sickness... You get everyone else sick. Some will not survive. Some will become disabled.

And then those disabled people will get even more sick as they try to keep up "normalcy" while chronic illness tells them to slow the fuck down.

You can't afford to take a day off work... but you REALLY can't afford to lose your job because of chronic illness.

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I got a concussion in 2015, my first semester of grad school, and it took seven months to recover because I would rest up to a point and then decide I was fine and try to push through the pain.

Most people want to get back to regular exercise after a COVID infection, but this is the WORST thing you can do. Significant physical rest is required even after most symptoms subside. Exercise at this critical time is poisonous. You need REST.

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And yet if we can make ourselves do it... we most likely will make ourselves do it. Resting feels like cheating. It feels bad.

Puritanism is the layer under everything else in American culture. We rarely notice or talk about it. But it's tied to white supremacy, perfectionism, workaholism, and a whole smorgasbord of judginess.

Capitalism, well, we know its flaws. But we've internalized it to an extent that most of us don't even realize. Our sense of worth is intimately tied to achievement.

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Just as we need to work to dismantle the racism and sexism that we've learned, we need to work to dismantle our inner systems of capitalism and puritanism. This is why you'll hear people (especially Black leaders) name rest as resistance.

This thread is inspired by a mom in a parenting group posting about how exhausted she is because her daughter is sick, so she's barely slept while taking care of her... and she's overwhelmed about hosting a holiday dinner tomorrow.

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Please do not host a holiday dinner while you have been run ragged taking care of a sick family member.

You should be resting, because your body is trying to fight off that illness. You're basically giving the virus the win.

You should not be inviting people into your virus-ridden home.

And during a pandemic, eating indoors with others – an activity that requires unmasking – is a supremely bad idea.

6/

Puritanism and capitalism are two of the forces of evil that convinced us to "move on" from the pandemic a few years ago. As if a novel virus ripping through the population and evolving constantly is something we can "move on" from.

Now the resistance against our collective reality is reaching dizzying heights. Anti-vaxxers are everywhere. Measles is spreading. Doctors get rude or act confused when asked to mask. Critical thinking is at an all-time low.

7/

So just at the time when we MOST need to be able to unplug from the ableist messaging encoded into our social programming – tasks that require immense, deliberate critical thought...

Our mental capacity is actively deteriorating. Not just from COVID itself, but also from the rampant use of LLMs to outsource our basic thinking processes.

What a fun time to exist, amirite?

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