Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body
To understand the disabled body, one must return to the concept of the norm, the normal body. So much of writing about disability has focused on the disabled person as the object of study, just as the study of race has focused on persons of color. But as with recent scholarship on race, which has turned its attention to whiteness, I would like to focus not so much on the construction of disability as on the construction of normalcy. I do this because the "problem" is not the person with disabilities; the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the "problem" of the disabled person.
We've got our accounts in the wrong bank. We've been focusing in our modern era on the "disabled" person, try to "fix" him or her, when the real problem is how we define and act toward the "normal."
What is in need of study and of correction, Davis says, is how we build our ideas of what it means to be "normal" in terms of the appearance, behavior, and functioning of our bodies. We do this so that we can construct a sense of ourselves, as a society and as individuals, that is predictable and standard, because that makes us feel safe and gives us a feeling of belonging because our bodies are "like," within an "acceptable" margin, most others.
But this idea of the norm, Davis says, is not natural; it is something societies create to develop their own identities. In the process, though, they have to exclude the "abnormal" and to label anything or anyone that doesn't fall within a socially acceptable limit of the "norm" as disabled or pathological.
It's our job, then, to focus on the idea of the normal: where it comes from and how we use it to label, define, and exclude others.
Long story short, the idea of the "normal" is for suckers.
Quote :"The End of Identity Politics: On Disability as an Unstable Category" in The Disability Studies Reader
Politics have been directed toward making all identities equal under a model of the rights of the dominant, often white, male, "normal" subject. In a dismodernist mode, the ideal is not a hypostatization of the normal (that is, dominant) subject, but aims to create a new category based on the partial, incomplete subject whose realization is not autonomy and independence but dependency and interdependence…
The dismodernist subject is in fact disabled, only completed by technology and by interventions. Rather than the idea of the complete, independent subject, endowed with rights (which are in actuality conferred by privilege), the dismodernist subject sees that metanarratives are only "socially created" and accepts them as that, gaining help and relying on legislation, law, and technology. It acknowledges the social and the technological to arrive at functionality…
Impairment is the rule, and normalcy is the fantasy. Dependence is the reality, and independence grandiose thinking. Barrier-free access is the goal... Universal design becomes the template for social and political designs.
We're all freaks. We've all got funky bodies that misbehave, bodies that look weird, and bodies that need help. The idea of perfect independence is messed up; it's a lie that is used in our modern consumer culture to sell products all so that we can pretend to look, be, and act "normal."
But the reality is that our ideas of the "normal" are a fantasy that create false divisions between the "normal" and the "abnormal" or the diseased. Instead, what we need is not the idea of the modern subject, based on whackadoodle Enlightenment ideas of the autonomous (independent) self, but a new idea of the dismodern self.
The dismodern self is the opposite of the modern self. Instead of being built like the modern subject upon the (false!) idea of complete independence and perfect functioning, the dismodern subject recognizes, accepts, and embraces his/her weaknesses, "abnormalities," and dependence.
The dismodern subject is not built on a distinction between the "normal" and the "abnormal." Instead, the dismodern subject is a universal—it encompasses everybody and every body—because, as we've said time and again, Shmoopers, bodies are super-freaky. All bodies are wounded in some way. Not just because all bodies will become sick or injured at various points in the individual's life, but also because even supposedly "perfectly functioning" bodies require assistance countless of times throughout each and every day.
Sounds kind of out there, right? Well, think about this: how many miles do you travel each day from your home to work or school? Do you do this on your own two feet? Probably not. To get through the average day, we all need technology and society to help us. When we try to make it from point A to point B, we need the technology of transportation and the social structures of good and accessible roads.
And that's just an example of getting from place to place, but there are countless more instances that we encounter each and every day that prove to us that our bodies are simply not enough to sustain us alone. The food we need to nourish our bodies is often shipped to us from vast distances. The clothes we wear, likewise, are often manufactured in far-flung corners of the globe.
To function in the ways that we wish in order to live good, fulfilling lives, we require the intervention of both technology and science: we simply cannot go it alone, no matter what the Enlightenment tells us.
Davis' Dismodern Subject and Universal Design (UD)
The dismodern subject, then, recognizes his/her dependence on technology, society, and the people in it. It is humble enough to acknowledge its own limitations and strong enough to work for the kinds of technological and social advances that will ensure that all people, all of those dismodern subjects out there, have equal access to these technological and social resources.
This is what Universal Design is, for Davis: the development of a society in which the unique needs of individual bodies are provided for, whether this be access to a motorized wheelchair for a quadriplegic or to public transportation for the poor, so that each can move with the same ease through his/her community, school, workplace, and home.
Additionally, in Universal Design, there's no distinction between "normal" and "special" access. In other words, stairs are not the "normal" way to enter a building while ramps are a "special" access point. Stairs are no more and no less an accommodation than ramps are: universal design shows that without these, without stairs and ramps, neither the "normal" body nor the "disabled" body can enter the building. In other words, when both of these forms of access, stairs and ramps, are removed, one body is just as disabled as the other when it comes to accessing the building.
So, dismodernism shows us how vulnerable and dependent all our bodies are. Kind of depressing, no doubt, but it's still cool because at least we're all in the same boat. And it's definitely a much easier pill to swallow when we know that we all need each other.
It would kinda suck (and would be totally wrong) to be told you're the only one in need, as most "disabled" people have across the centuries, right?