The tyranny of normal
March 22nd, 2008In an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, author Jonathan Mooney says our culture’s concept of normal is damaging to everyone, not just people who are identified as different.
Mooney, who had dyslexia and didn’t learn to read until he was twelve, is the author of “The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal.” His book documents a four-month journey that he took around the country in a converted special-ed bus (the “short bus” of the book’s title.) Along the way, Mooney came to terms with his differences as he confronted his preconceptions about other people who have been labeled as disabled.
Mooney argues that humans are interdependent, and that all different kinds of people should be welcomed and celebrated. All kinds of people are “normal,” he said, when they live in grounded comunities where people are included and engaged and allowed to live independently, even if that requires support.
“But when institutional knowledge trumps personal knowledge, people become abstractions, they become diagnoses, they become things to be treated and cured,” he said.
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on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Asperger's, Down syndrome, normal.
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