Introduction

which our contradictory ideology about human ability revolves. For the

ideology of ability makes us fear disability, requiring that we imagine our

bodies are of no consequence while dreaming at the same time that we

might perfect them. It describes disability as what we flee in the past and

hope to defeat in the future. Disability identity stands in uneasy relation-

ship to the ideology of ability, presenting a critical framework that dis-

turbs and critiques it.

One project of this book is to define the ideology of ability and to

make its workings legible and familiar, despite how imbricated it may be

in our thinking and practices, and despite how little we notice its patterns,

authority, contradictions, and influence as a result. A second and more

important project is to bring disability out of the shadow of the ideology

of ability, to increase awareness about disability, and to illuminate its

kinds, values, and realities. Disability creates theories of embodiment

more complex than the ideology of ability allows, and these many em-

bodiments are each crucial to the understanding of humanity and its vari-

ations, whether physical, mental, social, or historical. These two projects

unfold slowly over the course of my argument for the simple reason that

both involve dramatic changes in thinking. The level of literacy about dis-

ability is so low as to be nonexistent, and the ideology of ability is so much

a part of every action, thought, judgment, and intention that its hold on

us is difficult to root out. The sharp difference between disability and abil-

ity may be grasped superficially in the idea that disability is essentially a

"medical matter' while ability concerns natural gifts, talents, intelligence,

creativity, physical prowess, imagination, dedication, the eagerness to

strive, including the capacity and desire to strive-in brief, the essence of

the human spirit. It is easy to write a short list about disability, but the list

concerning ability goes on and on, almost without end, revealing the fact

that we are always dreaming about it but rarely thinking critically about

why and how we are dreaming.

I resort at the outset to the modern convention of the bullet point to

introduce the ideology of ability as simply as possible. The bullet points

follow without the thought of being exhaustive or avoiding contradiction

and without the full commentary that they deserve. Some of the bullets

are intended to look like definitions; others describe ability or disability as

operators; others still gather stereotypes and prejudices. The point is to

begin the accumulation of ideas, narratives, myths, and stereotypes about