Campbell gives a detailed account of how the term “ability” came to be what we now know it as today. It seemed to start as a measurement of what a person was able to do, and usually was legally used to benefit men who owned property. To not be able was to be disabled, and to have less value socially. This disabled term was applied to pretty much everyone other than property owning men. The term would only really be applied directly to people in the late 14th century, where people would be identified as able or disabled. Ability was focused much more on “perfectionability”. Philosophy and science around this time was really focused on the contemplation of what made us human. In the next 200 years or so, we see the expansion of the global market, where ability is now seen as how much a person is able to work, how efficient is the human body and how it could be used for profit. In the 1980’s, we see ability and disability being connected to each other even more, mostly in a negative way. With the development of modern medicine and technology, the definition of ablebodidness grows narrower and narrower, especially as the idea of the able body becomes more compulsory and unattainable (its pretty cool that we see McRuer here too). Campbell finished this off with explaining how the two main parts of ableism are the concept of the normative and the division of the perfected body and the “aberrant” or underdeveloped, the unhuman. She argues that the idea of ableism is important to look at in terms of disability, as well as other marginalized identities seeing as they often also face being categorized under the term “less human”.

Quotations:

“‘Ability’ in the Anglo-Norman world was a legal term tied to capacity to enter into contracts or inherent property” (Kumari Campbell 12).

“Throughout much of pre modern Western history, ability and able-bodiedness referred to a person’s role in the community rather than to a fixed condition”(Campbell 12).

(14th and 15th century) “‘Abled’ as an adjective, described a ‘capable, vigorous and thriving’ person or object”(Campbell 12).

“Key to a system of ableism are two elements: the concept of the normative (and the normal individual); and the enforcement of a divide between a ‘perfected’ or developed humanity and the aberrant, unthinkable, underdeveloped, and therefore not really human” (Campbell 13-14)

Analysis:

When I first read Campbell’s analysis of what able bodiedness is today, where hyperproductivity, physical and mental perfection and constant availability are key factors of the “abled body”, I couldn’t help but think of machines. I found it really ironic when Campbell explained how often the humanity of disabled people would be debated, when meanwhile the definition of what makes an able bodied person was not of a person, but of a profit, or dollar sign; a living factory. The movement towards nondisabled people being valuable only in their ability to work and never fail to come in to work really disturbs me, it makes me think a lot too about universal healthcare and welfare and how retirement works as well. I think that the mentality behind a body being made for labor and hyperproductivity is really damaging to society as a whole, our very views of bodies are being warped and given values based on what they are able to provide labor-wise. It just feels so wrong. Bodies are a rhetoric, they embody rhetoric, they give us the opportunity to experience the world around us. They are vessels for our beings that allow us to perceive the world around us and to be perceived by others, they’re tools for interaction, not tools for someone else to use, for someone else to pass judgement and value upon. This sort of mindset is not only dehumanizing but extremely damaging to humanity as a whole. Not everyone’s bodies are the same, not everyone experiences the world in the same way, so saying disabled bodies are less valuable because they are visibly different has been and will continue to chip away at our perceptions of others. 

I found it really fascinating to see how the term “abled” has changed throughout history. Campbell does a wonderful job at showing both negative and positive definitions of disability throughout the ages, and you could really see how our present day perception of ability and disability has come from. One thing that really stood out to me was how originally ability was not always in reference to a person, let alone a person’s body. I think that this is where the term started and to now see where it has wound up is really daunting, I hope to learn more in this class about how terminology evolved throughout the ages both within general society and academic circles of the past, and to see how these changes have influenced our present.