Disabilities In Oliver Sacks The Mind's Eye

The conditions required for society to label an individual as disabled appear to be clear. When a person cannot perform a task or action that is commonly expected from a person, the label of a disability is applied to them. While this result is directly applicable to the physically disabled, such as the blind described in Oliver Sacks’ novel, “The Mind’s Eye”, there are non-physical identities that society treats almost identically to disabilities. An example of this is can be found in Andrew Solomon’s memoir, “Son”. As a young boy growing up in New York City during the 1970s, Solomon faced much adversity due to his sexual orientation. Solomon was labeled as, “defective … and ill.” (372) because of his identity, much in the same way a person …show more content…
A vertical identity is one that, “is passed down through strands of DNA, [and] also through shared cultural norms.” (370) As a species, we are reliant upon the best of our DNA to be passed down in order to continue, “the march of our selfish genes.” (369) We trust genes that have made it all the way to reproduce. As a culture, we are reliant on vertical identities because they pass down ‘cultural norms’, which, like DNA, allows a society to function by passing down fundamental rules and ideas. This double-edged sword of biology and sociology forces us as humans to view vertical identities as superior. Solomon captures this by stating: “Vertical identities are usually respected as identities; horizontal ones are treated as flaws.” (371) A vertical identity is one that has proven itself successful and beneficial to society, a horizontal one can be likened to a mutation, an unproven ‘flaw’ that could damage society. In her paper Disability, Self Image, and Modern Political Theory, author Barbra Arneil claims that disabilities are often viewed as, “individual ‘incapacities’ occurring in the ‘ordinary course of nature’ that can be measured relative to the ‘degree of reason’ characteristic of the ‘freeman’.” (Arneil 222) Similar to how Solomon defines horizontal identities, Arneil says that a disability is viewed as a deviance to be ‘measured relative’ to a ‘freeman’, implying that, just as Solomon said, it is a ‘flaw’ in a person. Because these ‘incapacities’ hurt an individual’s chance to survive, it explains a society’s displeasure in horizontal identities and the want to suppress

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