JDA Lecture

Howdy Ya'll,

To start off with, I want to make plain the fact that in this blog I will not only be talking about the lecture and readings and my relation to them as a college student, but I will also be expressing my raw feelings and reactions in relation to the lecture and, less so, the readings. My initial reactions will serve as my starting point and should not in any instance, unless otherwise specified, be interpreted as my definitive opinion of these specific issues.

While watching the JDA lecture, I was constantly searching within my knowledge base for some material with which I could analyze the issue that faced me. But, in hindsight, the thing that provided me the most effective way of analyzing the issue were my own emotions in relation to it.

To be frank, I had a hard time paying attention to the parts of the lecture when Eli Clare was speaking, due to the pace and general fragmentation of his speech. This, in contrast to my ability to listen and interpret the speech of Matt Richardson. I think that the juxtaposition of a speaker who, for me, was easily understandable and one who was not so easily understandable provides a good framework to analyze their point of valuing bodies. As an effect of my listening habits, I carried away more from Richardson than I did from Clare. Thus, I valued the speech of Richardson more so than Clare. This devaluing of Clare's words came from my arbitrary standard for judging "good" speech. Richardson was able to communicate more effectively with my sensibilities, thus enhancing my perception of him as a good speaker. For me, their speaking abilities decided which "body" would be valued more than the other. In this case, the devaluing of Clare's words line up with the talk about what bodies are valued in society, his disability causing his speech to be devalued in my mind. What is interesting about this is that my mind's ability to appreciate the speech of each person depended upon their speaking ability, not upon the content of their actual speeches. Thus, I could very well have walked away from the viewing of the speech with a very different view of the issues than I would have had I read a transcript of the dialogue, where Clare's disability would not have been evident.

I used the previous example of my reactions to get at the issue of devaluation. I think that the valuation standard with which certain bodies are placed above others is only a arbitrary standard. Imagine if Clare's way of speaking was the "normal" way of speaking and Richardson's speech was the one affected by his disability. Would Richardson's speech still be considered, by me, as the superior and more valuable one or would its difference from the "norm" cause me to feel like I was being forced to listen to it? Here, the argument that there is some universal aesthetic style that forms the basis for all our standards falls to pieces. We only operate on culturally-defined standards that could change at any moment. So, it is unfair that a devaluation of Clare's speech occurred for me, as his speech might have, in another context, been the more striking contribution to the dialogue.

Thanks for reading,
Brady