Questioning norms isn’t “political correctness gone mad” (have you ever met a politically correct monster, dear reader?) – it’s revolution. The ‘other’ is analysed, scrutinised, categorised, pathologised, stigmatised, despised all a means to organise, to fix the body so it can be read denying complexity, multiplicity, ambiguity and an on-going narrative. Linton (2006) highlights: “The medicalization of disability casts human variation as deviance from the norm, as pathological condition, as deficit, and as an individual burden and personal tragedy.” But Davis tells us the problem isn’t the disabled person, “the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person.” If there’s an ‘other’, what defines ‘us’ is the seemingly innocuous word ‘normal’.ĭavis (2006) states: “The concept of a norm… implies that the majority of the population must or should somehow be part of the norm.” Non-normative embodiment is policed, open to interrogation this body must ‘answer to’, must be called upon to justify the breach of the normative, must be brought into line. His reaction to the creature’s form, the horror and fear that led to rejection, is what disabled people and anyone regarded as ‘other’ have experienced for centuries in both everyday life and art representation. Frankenstein judged, classified, and fixed his creation as ’other’. Frankenstein wasn’t simply stricken with regret at his breach of the ‘natural order’ – he assessed the creature based on physical appearance before fleeing, “unable to endure the aspect of the being I created.” The creature was born into a corrupt world that rejected him, yet it’s the creature who’s positioned as deviant and pathological. If you don’t see yourself in the statue does it mean you don’t belong here? This city isn’t for you? You are rejected, just as the (no name) monster was rejected by Frankenstein and ‘civilised’ society.Īs his toils came to fruition, the creature endued with life, Frankenstein was horrified, calling him: “wretch”, “hideous”, “miserable monster”. And what of those who don’t work?Ĭardownie clearly didn’t consider an ‘ordinary man’ adequate to represent the city, but this stemmed from class prejudice and isn’t the reason I question such banal prescriptive morphology. Does the working man see himself in the statue? Is he content with the reduction to the category ‘working man’ is that all he is? What of the working woman? Non binary? Trans? Erased – they must make do by identifying with the universal ‘he’. This everyman statue was, ironically, condemned as “Political correctness gone mad” (Scotsman, 2007) by deputy council leader Cardownie because its purpose is to represent the working class. (ed) Core Sociological Dichotomies, 1998)Įdinburgh, the city I left behind to embark on this exploration, has a statue of a man in a white shirt and black trousers outside the city council headquarters. “The word ‘normal’ has become one of the most powerful ideological tools of the twentieth century.” Here be monsters, but have courage, dear readers – I am confident in the “ success of my undertaking” (Shelley, 1818/1992). I’ll pick apart what we consider to be a ‘normal’ and ‘good’ citizen, my lens focussed on disabled people.ĭauntless, I’ll move beyond the normative, calling for an ontological revolution and a radical episteme as I take you through liminal realms where dichotomous thinking, pathologisation, and hierarchies are broken down. In this correspondence I’ll share with you my interrogation of the current Frankensteins, De Laceys and Waltons, of which there are many. He failed his creation, exhibiting all the faults humanity still perpetuates. Shelley’s protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, created a creature and imbued life where there was none. The two-hundred-year-old text, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has inspired these words before you. Too long have we forced ‘others’ to conform – such violence! Such wasted potential. Too long have we lived narrow, arrested lives. This is a selfishness (and a fiction – who is ‘our own’? who’s in? who’s out?) that’s plagued humanity for centuries. Such afflictions are born out of fear, and beneath this fear is self-interest: we must protect ‘our own’. A dangerous enterprise, you might conjecture, but I point to the dangers of falling in line, accepting limitations, and falling prey to prejudice and bigotry. I have explored outwith the confines of social norms, outwith hegemonic discourse and constraints. I am confident in the success of my endeavour. In actuality, I’ve never felt more safe and welcome in this shifting, uncertain realm. I have arrived in the liminality of the monstrous, and I must assure you of my welfare. “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise of which you have regarded with such evil forebodings” (Shelley, 1818/1992).
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