#EYE OF THE BEHOLDER MEANING FULL#
#EYE OF THE BEHOLDER MEANING SERIES#

But instead of forcing people to “live in the eyes of others” just to survive, we can learn to make space for their full humanity. There are many personal characteristics can make it difficult for people to be who they are, rather than having to work to seem like something they are not. For people with such marginalised identities, there is little or no social space to exist safely or access the same resources as those deemed ‘normal’, unless they hide or minimise who they are. But disability isn’t the only personal characteristic that precludes some people from being able to live optimally there are many identities which are devalued by modern hierarchies.

Many disabilities make it impossible for people to satisfactorily perform 'normalcy', as defined by ableist standards. “It’s not the actual condition or disability itself that is the limiting factor, it’s society’s perception and treatment of people with disabilities”. Transition Vocational Rehabilitation Counsellor, Read Jessica’s blog post about the impact of ableism on people with disabilities. Like all systems of exclusion, ableism functions by defining an acceptable way of being and inflicting varying degrees of indignity on those who do not fit. Which is “discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities or who are perceived to have disabilities”. Structurally also, the lives of people who are blind or visually impaired are made unnecessarily difficult by their societies’ refusal or failure to understand and accommodate them as they are. Linguistically, blindness is often imbued with unwarranted negative connotations. This article deconstructs the idea of “sight” as a metaphor for perception itself.Ī good one to start with might even be that lyrical phrase a member gifted me: “living in the eyes of others”. The ubiquity of metaphors that rely on blindness. The limits of normalcy are drawn by violence, resource distribution, and language. This system of extraction and exploitation sets out rigid understandings of what it means to be a “normal” human being, and people’s wellbeing is often determined by how closely they hew to those ideas. Today, most societies have willingly moved toward, or been co-opted into, the global order described byĪs “the imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchy”. When the terms of the contract become a straitjacket, however, the social requirement to “live in the eyes of others” can become a matter of survival. Perhaps even, there is nothing more human than the social contract that guides those interactions. We all are formed and informed by our social interactions. What might it mean to “live in the eyes of others”? In many ways, we all exist not only as ourselves but also as who people perceive or imagine us to be.

#EYE OF THE BEHOLDER MEANING SERIES#

The phrase set off a series of questions in my mind about the many ostensibly benign social pressures that, for some people, combine to create a crushing, inescapable weight. In his rumination on perception, language, and being forgotten by your own community, Sarneel used a phrase which makes me want to write a novel full of lyrical, quotable sentences: “Living in the eyes of others”. Sent by Fons Sarneel, it was, in part, an exploration of cultures in which “to seem is more important than to be'. Recently, I got another gift in the form of an illuminating email about social borders. In this piece, I share my thoughts on what borders mean today. Undocumented migration, borders, and colonial legacies. Inspired my subsequent investigation into Read my review of The Land of Open Graves. With this call out, The Other Shelf was born. Already, members have given me the gift of great literature via With me in my inbox or in the contribution section. I wrote a newsletter about being intellectually surprised by a member’s suggestion.

Eye of the beholder meaning