Thought Exercise #5: Due 10/8/13

"Looking through old medical textbooks and dictionaries, I see that the comparisons have existed within medical discourse as well--elephantitis, ape-hand syndrome, lobster-claw syndrome, pigeon chest, goosebumps, chickenpox, and phocomelia) seal-like limbs....These animal comparisons exist in...medical discourse...through which disability is still perceived today."
--"Beasts of Burden: Disability Studies and Animal Rights," by Sunaura Taylor

To us humans, it seems that these terms for medical conditions are labelled as such simply because these symptoms are not natural in humans. If something is not deemed natural and human-like, it is judged as an animalistic quality. Is it really so derogatory and insulting to animals to compare what we consider freaks of nature to them? Do we humans really mean it as an insult to animals? It is true that most humans consider themselves above animals. Therefore, perhaps the association of animals in our medical terms does more than just indicate that these medical conditions are not natural in humans. Perhaps, to people, the association of these terms with animals act as red alarms that their very beings, heir sick bodies, are deteriorating and descending down from the pedestal of humanity, crumbling into the abyss of animality.

 The more I think about it, the more similar I think humans are to animals. It is silly that humans pigeonhole ourselves into the category of humans, and then the rest of living beings are collectively referred to as animals. After all, animals do not think of themselves as a collective single species. There are many species, just as how there are many different races and ethnicities among humans. I still remember Sunaura asking the class the question of whether it is possible for animals to know when a peer among their kind is disabled. She told us about how one chimpanzee was treated differently by his fellow chimps because of his disability, and also of a Japanese monkey who was able to live a long life and be seen as a caretaker despite her disability. Our state of being boils down to the fact that all living beings are walking sacks of chemical reactions, with the goal of surviving every single day of our lives. Surviving involves interacting with other beings. It's simply Darwinism, plain and simple, a dog-eat-dog world in which humans like to think of themselves as the superior being.