Learning Object INCLUIR
UCS/FAPERGS
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‘From up-close nobody is normal’
Cláudia A. Bisol
Carla Beatris Valentini
Since the year 1986, Caetano Veloso has been singing in his song, “Vaca Profana”,
that “From up-close nobody is normal”. This sentence circulates in different moments
in several social circles, almost like some kind of tacit knowledge.
It is a pity that people do not give it a deeper thought. A longing for normality
seems to persist, as if normality would ensure some kind of belonging... “Oh, but this is
normal...”, “that is the way it is” ... Psychologists are asked about the normal
development of a child. Doctors are often called to talk about the normal weight, normal
height, and normal rates in blood tests. A thorough constant measurement of all aspects
of life.
The concept of norm relates to the idea that most of the population must or
should be, in a way, part of a pattern. The height of a significant sample of the
population, for instance, is added up then divided by the number of individuals and the
result is the average height of the population. The contribution of statistics to the
establishment of the notion of normal as an imperative of modern society was very big.
Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1847) formulated the concept of average man or standard
man: this abstract human being would be the average of all human attributes in a given
country (Davis, 1995). When the issue is about height, weight, blood pressure, we have
the description of a physical type – what is more usual, what happens more often in a
certain population. However, at the same time that the average is established, the
deviation is established as well. Everybody is supposed to be as close as possible to the
attributes of the majority.
To turn the idea of a pattern into something imperative that everybody should
respond to is a very small step. A man much shorter than the average of his social group
may find himself inferior for not having an attribute that would equal him to the others.
In this example, the damage may be restricted to his self-esteem, but the same
mechanism becomes more insidious and perverse depending on the distance between
the attributes in question and the average of that population. Power zones are
established rapidly, indicating exclusions, devaluation and segregation, not only based
on physical attributes, but also on behavior: one must behave as the majority of people,
to remain within the conventions.
Up-close we are all unique. Up-close, nobody can respond to the standards:
bodies escape the average in one aspect or another, behavior slips between the cracks
of conventions. It is in the difference that we build our uniqueness, that we differentiate
from one another. However, the movement is very unstable: zones that are more
flexible are possible now when comparing to the apogee of modern society (until half
the past century, approximately). Tradition, in most western countries, does not have
the same rule-maker weight it had some time ago. Nevertheless, there are some traps:
sometimes, strict standards of the past are changed by standards of the present. For
being current, contemporary, they seem less rigid, but new power zones of exclusions,
devaluation and segregation are promptly set up.
Were it not this way, it would not be necessary to have such a structured speech,
insistent and sometimes a contradictory speech about the issue of diversity and respect
to the differences. Huge discursive efforts in the form of propaganda, laws, quotas,
events, affirmative actions, usually denounce the difficulty of building a legitimate space
in the institutions (state, school, family, work, etc.). If the norm were not excluding,
there would not be a reason to talk so much about inclusion.
In the paradigm of inclusion, emphasis is on diversity and not on similarity, and
that is because inclusion focuses in adapting the general systems of society so that the
factors that excluded some people are eliminated. For society to include, what is needed
is a movement that seeks to meet everybody`s needs, taking into consideration the
diversity of individuals and their right to equality, that is, to match opportunities. Thus,
the belonging is not in normality anymore, but in the right and recognition of
individuality: may no one need to be normal from up-close!
Bibliography
Davis,J. L. Enforcing normalcy: disability, deafness and the body. London: Verso, 1995.
Cunha, M.I. & Pinto, M.M. Qualidade e educação. Revista Bras.Est.Pedag., Brasília, v. 90,
n. 226, p. 571-591, set./dez. 2009.
How to cite this text:
Bisol, C. A. & Valentini, C. B. From up close nobody is normal. Learing Object Incluir –
UCS/FAPERGS, 2011. Availabe at ...... (mention the site URL). Accessed on ... (mention the
date).