“Good” and “bad” are incomplete stories we tell ourselves | Heather Lanier

Heather Lanier's daughter Fiona has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a genetic condition that results in developmental delays — but that doesn't make her tragic, angelic or any of the other stereotypes about kids like her. In this talk about the beautiful, complicated, joyful and hard journey of raising a rare girl, Lanier questions our assumptions about what makes a life "good" or "bad," challenging us to stop fixating on solutions for whatever we deem not normal, and instead to take life as it comes.

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40 Comments on “Good” and “bad” are incomplete stories we tell ourselves | Heather Lanier

  1. Modern moral relativism isn’t a new idea, nor is it worth spreading. It destroys any country that adopts it.

    Absolutes exist…

    • AManWithaWoodenleg2 I don’t think it is about moral relativism. She doesn’t state that an act can’t be good or bad, she says that a given situation can be good or bad, and if life throws something at us, we should try to accept it with an open heart, becauae we never know ‘what if’.

    • At any given moment, it’s trivial and intuitive to apply a label of good or bad to an isolated incident; we’re human and have built in preferences after all. But the message in this video is true; something good can lead to something bad, and something bad can lead to something good. Sometimes bad things lead to bad things, and sometimes good things lead to good things. For me, the point of this message (though it wasn’t stated as such) is that focusing on whether something is good or bad isn’t useful. It doesn’t help you in any way. It’s much more useful to stay open to possibilities and to roll with the punches.

    • AManWithaWoodenleg2 as a reader of nietzsche I feel me in duty to mention that moral relativism was never ment to be adopted by countries. It was “invented” to lead a way out of the labyrinth the european culture based on eternal moral goods was trapped inside.

    • As in you are an absolute purebred fukpotato? Ok. But yer wrong in every other case. Dead wrong.

      There is no “Good and Evil”, there are no “Heroes and Villains”. Period. Any argument to the contrary is delusional fukpotato nonsense.

  2. A friend of mine who’s in her 60’s. She has to bath her son who has down syndrome and is 35 — something she’s been doing for 35 years. She’s now too old to do it. I have a hard time convincing her that’s a good thing, except that one day she’ll exhaust her savings and government aide will kick in. Maybe that’s good, but ironic.

    • I’m sure her son had cute cheeks and sparkling eyes when he was a baby. Yes he’s a human and she loves him very much. But now she’s dealing with a mature man who can out-wrestle her and has uncontrollable erection sometimes. When her son was just born, she had a chance to give him away but she chose not to. I dare not ask her now if she thinks that’s a GOOD or BAD decision.

    • This talk reminds me of another TED talk by the late Stella Young, the disability right activist and comedian, who insisted that “disability is not a BAD thing; it’s just different”. I hope Heather Lanier can take care of her daughter for many years to come, and the daughter doesn’t grow up to be an entitled social justice warrior, demanding the whole world to adjust to her like Stella did.

    • You will not be happy knowing that you loved someone then gave it away. it just doesn’t make you happy. isn’t that a good enough reason to care for the child?

  3. Good or bad?; luciferians have subverted world govs and are the root of human trafficking and 8 million missing children per year? Google, MSM, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and all of Hollywood is ran by them too!

  4. I loved this speech. ‘Mental retardation’ is not a disease it’s a part of who they are. It’s an uncontrollable thing that they’re born with. I have ADD and I am 16. Throughout my life I’ve faced challenges and people patronizing me, saying that I’m ‘special’ although calling me special is like calling me different, it’s appreciative on the surface but under that it’s patronizing. I despise the way that people like me are treated, separating us from the rest of the world and treating them like they’re freaks. Every person, not just people who have ADD, not just people with autism, and not just people with Down syndrome have ‘special needs,’ everyone does. Every single person learns differently. The way they use the phrase special needs is patronizing to say the least. Although I don’t regret it, I eventually changed my ways and became who I am now. Normal is boring, and usual is boring. I am still a unique human being and I don’t try to fit in. I accept who I am; my thoughts, my interests, my personality, I all accept it. I want to explore the world, but I can’t explore it if people can’t try to get to know me past me having ADD. I can’t explore it if people label me as special, because special has become a word meaning different or meaning that they have some disorder, instead of unique.

  5. Murder … good or bad, hard to say.
    Genocide … good or bad, hard to say.
    Cotton Candy … good or bad, hard to say.
    Rape … good or bad, hard to say.

    • At any given moment, it’s trivial and intuitive to apply a label of good or bad to an isolated incident; we’re human and have built in preferences after all. But the message in this video is true; something good can lead to something bad, and something bad can lead to something good. Sometimes bad things lead to bad things, and sometimes good things lead to good things. For me, the point of this message (though it wasn’t stated as such) is that focusing on whether something is good or bad isn’t useful. It doesn’t help you in any way. It’s much more useful to stay open to possibilities and to roll with the punches.

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