When reading Cockeyed by Ryan Knighton and referencing G.T. Couser’s chapter Self Representation in Disability Memoir a question immediately came to my mind. Couser talks of a disability memoir of emancipation, meaning that the memoir was from the perspective of one who find freedom and liberation within one’s constraints and hopes to bring others to this realisation.
However, what I began to wonder was: ‘Does everyone have a common goal’? When reading the chapter ‘Jungle Fun’ Knighton talks about the ‘aristocrats’ at the blind camp who have a very different goal of completing freedom and liberation in blindness. They seem to think that one should try to disguise one’s blindness and rely as little on other people as possible. The opposite can be said of other members at the camp who have no shame and rely on others to help them with their everyday activities. It is very interesting to think that there are different goals throughout the blind community as to how to realise this ‘freedom’ within blindness of sorts.
It also raises the question: ‘How should we interpret these memoirs of disability’? We must be careful not to assume that the goals of one writer are the goals of all the populations, even if we agree with these goals. Personally, I believe that if I was blind I would prefer to follow a path more akin to Knighton’s. However, many might not share this view. Therefore, I believe it is important to recognise that there may be differing views. Although Knighton makes it abundantly clear that there are different goals to achieve ’emancipation’ of sorts, while some people do not wish to accomplish any sense of ’emancipation’ at all.
Due to this I believe that we must look at all different population and sub-groups like this. For example, just because one member of a certain community makes their goals and theories publicly clear, we must be careful not to assume that these views are shared by the larger community as a whole.