Disfigurement: Dehumanization?

[panzerfaust]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/oct/14/art-socialexclusion

... The human face is a miracle of nature. It can communicate nuances of emotion just by tweaking a muscle, it allows our brains not just to see the world but in some sense - through a smile or a grimace - to be seen by it. I discovered exactly how amazing the human face is when half of mine stopped working on Valentine's Day last year...

The article is that of the personal growth of an art critic, after suffering a relatively slight (I used to work in a burn unit) temporary facial disfigurement.

The piece serves to remind ... and will more than repay the few minutes it takes to read.

He also links to a few Renaissance portraits exploring a range of European faces.

It is haunting to look back 500 years through the lens of art and see people who have been dust for 25 generations looking back at you. Will your treasured digital images last that long?

Shalom aleichem
(Peace to you)

[bean fidhleir]

1. Yes, disfigurement is an amazingly vicious handicap

It puts at risk our status as fully human beings.

There's a young physician who has Treacher-Collins syndrome, where parts of the skull don't develop in the usual way. It's heritable, and in her family apparently started with her mother's father. The portrait of the three of them together is very instructive: his case of it was so slight that it went undiagnosed. Her mother's is much more noticeable, but apparently the penny didn't really drop for the family til Amie was born: she got stuck with the whole syndrome.

http://www.treachercollins.org/main.html


Of course, some "disfigurements" that cost their victims their unconsidered social acceptance aren't really disfigurements at all: being Black, for example.

Perhaps the real disfigurement is in our brains?