How many times a day do you complain about something?
For me, it is an infinite number of times because it happens unconsciously and many of us would call these complaints as “first-world problems“(tumblr site). But thinking about it, are they even problems worth complaining about? Depending on the context, complaints are important for implementing some sort of change in society, and an example of this would be in the service-sector that works towards enhancing the quality of customer service. Otherwise, can you imagine spending a lifetime critiquing and complaining about the all the miserable aspects of your life? I certainly can’t because a simple gesture of glancing around the environment I’m in (safety under a roof), it already a privilege that many don’t necessarily have; a blessing that I often take for granted. The exposure to life narratives that we take in each day, allow us to make comparisons about the lifestyle we have and the lifestyle that we aspire to have or create for ourselves. In contrast, there are also life narrative that expose us to a lifestyle that we are glad that we don’t have, making our life seem so much better. But just like the definition for what it means to be successful, the quality of life is up should be self-defined (noting here that it is relationships we have with one another that makes it most valuable).
The feeling of pity towards marginalized individuals may strike across as automatic but should not be encouraged. They don’t need pitying. This was the message I got from reading Ryan Knighton’s memoir Cockeyed. As a disability memoir, Cockeyed fits into the many types of rhetoric (emancipation, triumph, and gothic horror) explained by Thomas G. Couser in Rhetoric and Self Representation in Disability Memoir. Yet, Knighton’s memoir is unique because he speaks truth to the reality of facing blindness as a normal person. Similar to grief, denial was a phase that Knighton had work through to adjusting to his loss of sight. But often times because he was able “to pass for sighted” (112), it reinforces the idea that he can still be normal. The fact that he describes typical-everyday normal activities (e.g. taking the bus or crossing the street), and how those activities became experiences that he has to adjust to because of his blindness really encourages readers to think about how they would confront blindness if they were in his position. Personally, this makes me appreciate my ability to see, and to know it works in closely in relation to my other senses. Knighton remarks that “my eyes won’t disclose the meaning and cause of the noise, so I just stay put” (230) explaining the difficulty of confronting sound when “you don’t have the eyes to go with it” (230).
In looking at the senses of sight and sound, the comparison where Knighton states that: “the deaf, unlike the blind, have their own culture”, which is through a shared language (192) points to strengths and weaknesses of both disability. Although, it is interesting to look at the kind of normal activities the deaf and blind are able to do, they nonetheless enjoy these activities (e.g. sports) through means of accommodation or have to go to a greater extent to do so. But the outcome is that the experience is more valuable because they realize that their disability should not constantly be the constant barrier or restriction to enjoying a desirable life.
And so, is disability a deviance that can never be normalized? Can disabled individuals escape the social stigmas that condemn them as deviant (ranked lower as human beings)?
It may seem that one’s disability defines them as a whole, but I believe that disability should only be seen as one part of a person’s identity. Similarly, for drug addicts, their addiction although takes up much of their lives, it is only one of the many sides to know them as people. This can then be said about deviance, which is socially constructed, and there ( I would assume) is at least one aspect of our lives (so called “ordinary people”) that is considered as deviant. I like to believe that we as individuals have control towards countering social stigmas that label us or our action as deviant. However, that would at the very least require us to be comfortable in our own skin (an immune system of some sort).
So live life according to your own measure of expectations! (I must admit, that this is easier said than done but we might as well try)
Hi Emily,
This post reminded me of one of the interactive posters that I saw at the CAP conference. It was a life-sized outline sketch of a person, and the question, “what makes you different?”. There was then a marker beside so everyone could contribute to the poster. On the poster, people wrote such things like “I am a ginger”, “I’m a university drop out”, “I’m ‘fun sized'”. These are all things that make everyone different, ‘deviant’ from one another. But these deviances are also how one composes a part their identity and ‘uniqueness” from one another. I. As you discuss, it is due to the social construction of the stigma that makes these differences what we define that individual, and thus like how you mention, “disability should only be seen as one part of a person’s identity”.
Emily,
To answer your question about deviance, I don’t think it is impossible, but it will take a long and enduring process. The biggest problem with media is that it has the power to frame and manipulate information as either negative or positive. As Jiwani and Young pointed out how pity can be used for attention, or Couser who talks about the rhetoric of horror, it appears that negative connotations are more popularized and thus more likely to be used. This could explain why media would want to frame disabilities as negative, and therefore, why we also perceive disabilities as negative. I believe changing media frames is the first step to removing social stigmas. Media only acts are reinforcements to our already established social stigmas. If media slowly frames disabilities as positive (NOT in the style of Couser’s rhetoric of emancipation which would imply disabilities being negative), then stereotypes can be alleviated. The greater question is how that can be done – media’s increasingly “critical” (aka biased) perspective only adds to judgmental portrayals of society. In this case, a sociological lens is more beneficial to understanding the issue.