The Art Of Being Normal By Lisa Williamson Summary

Rethinking Normal is a coming-of-age story about transcending physical appearances and redefining the parameters of “normalcy” to embody one’s true self. Katie Rain Hill memoir on her transition discussed what normal is and how she came to understand that normalcy was completely based on what each person individually makes of it.

Hannah Arendt presents in her novel, The Life of the Mind, a theory she refers to as the “two-in-one.” She builds her theory off of a Socratic proposition. Socrates stated that it would be better for a group of men to be out of tune with each other than for him to be out of tune with himself. Here, however, lies a paradox. How can one be out of tune with itself? Arendt states that “you always need at least two tones to produce a harmonious sound” (183). Yet when you appear to others, you are one, otherwise you would be unrecognizable. But Arendt points out that you do not only appear to others, you also exist and appear for yourself. In doing so, you become more than one. As Arendt paradoxically states, “A difference is inserted into my Oneness” (183).

In Chapter 3 of Opening Skinner’s Box, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Lauren Slater discusses the contentious issue psychiatrists faced in 1972 after psychologist David Rosenhan conducted his most famous experiment, proving how psychiatrists already label patients when they walk through the door to be evaluated. The author, Slater is a psychologist herself in which her writing in this chapter is supportive to Rosenhan’s findings. This may limit supporting arguments on crediting psychiatric conceptualization. The meaning of behavior can easily be misunderstood, a patient can be diagnosed according to the doctor’s capacity of knowledge to specific behaviors.

In An Argument for Being a Poser, Liz Armstrong describes the crucial dilemma every young person faces about their identity, and to which subgenre do they belong to. Armstrong argues that such question can be both totally ridiculous, and actually very important; which leads to beginning of the process of discovering “who you are.” Furthermore, she describes the fictional subculture that you chose for your escape; within your chosen subgenre you don’t have to pretend to be different, and people understand you. In other words, your chosen subgenre is your place of escape, it is the place where acceptance and freedom is present. Besides, the fact of looking for a hidey-hole, she informs us with a life changing situation at the age of 16 years old. She describes the experience as being life changing, the kids she came across were simultaneously were role-playing and professing as being someone which they weren’t part of. Consequently, Armstrong used that moment to adapt to new change, which she describes as “not dressing up or being normal again.” She describes herself looking like a punk one day with a spiked collar, a crushed-velvet mini skirt the another day. Thus, for that reason she couldn’t fit in with honor students, nor the art kids. She couldn’t fit in with the honor student because for them she was too weird, but for the art kids she couldn’t draw. For this reason, she went from being a straight-A student to a what she describes a poser. Furthermore, Armstrong argues

David must pretend, not just for the remainder of the novel, but for the next forty years, to be ignorant of Frank’s crimes, and much of what is happening because his parents do not realise that he has

No matter where one goes on this dismal chunk of rock, one will probably encounter an outsider. In high school lunchrooms there is always at least one poor, sad teenager who has the unlucky seat next to the trash can. In parks and school playgrounds there is always that one melancholy kid that provides a stark contrast from the joyful shouts and screams coming from the other playing children. The experience of being an outsider is an inescapable universal condition that can be caused through social class, appearance, or other factors.

Several things that happen in this book are a result of what the father and son do in their relationships for

Society has always had certain views on what normal should be; and if a person doesn’t fit the picture then they are isolated away from others. People don’t accept different, they accept normal. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls isolation is a problem. The Walls family had isolated themselves away from others; running away from Child Protection Services. The family constantly moves away from their problems.

The author, Leslie Fiedler writes about the differences in what it means to be normal. She discusses this in a professional manner that opens eyes to what we have disguised and even been ashamed of. “The Tyranny of the Normal,” we learn much about what we perceive as abnormal and what society seems to portray normal as. We discover what we believe is normal and also what has changed through-out the history of this subject. Our minds are opened and exposed to the world of abnormalities and how we see them.

In the article “The New Normal” by David Brooks, he states that there are many issues involving the national budget that need to be addressed. Brooks first exclaims that in order to begin to solve the issues, the citizens of the nation need to make it so that everyone is affected by the different cuts. Not just one group of people. The author also states that we need to trim from the elderly to invest in the young considering many schools and their programs are experiencing sizable budget cuts due to lack of funding. The final law that Brooks discussed was that government officials should, under no condition, cut without an evaluation process.

Sophie allows for doubt to pierce its way into David’s life for the first time. At the start of the novel, when David first meets Sophie, he gets an insight into a deviant’s life. She has proven to be the first blow to efficiently impact David’s thoughts and make him question the authenticity of his society’s belief system. “It is hind-sight that enables me to fix that as the day when my first small doubts started to germinate.”

In “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent,” Safwat Saleem, shows his passion and his courageous side when speaking in his Ted Talk, describing the main idea of there not being such a thing of normalcy, as well as arguing that individuals should be confident and accept who they are from their special qualities. Agreeing with Saleem (2016), however to also consider it has become common in today’s society to want to be normal. Therefore many people would not agree with wanting to be exactly known as quote on quote ‘normal’ but they may want to assimilate to norms because that person is or may be in a unique way socially accepted.

(Hord Zinn). David is a telepathic boy living in a post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, called the “Tribulation” in the book The Chrysalids. David manages to change the world and the vision of mutation and deviants. David would have never able to do that without the people around that changed him. This Essay will explore how Sophie, Uncle Axel and Gordon though minor characters have a major impact on David's development.

LGBTQ social movements have evolved over time from liberationist politics of the 1970s to an enormous contemporary focus on gay and lesbian marriage rights, a controversial and arguably assimilationist priority for mainstream LGBTQ advocacy groups. Different forms of activism have approached assimilationism versus societal reformation or preservation of unique constructions of queer identities with a myriad of arguments. In “The Trouble with Normal” by Michael Warner, the author focuses primarily on a criticism of gay marriage rights activism in which he posits that all marriage is “selective legitimacy.” He points to other LGBT movements and issues as more worthy of pursuing, particularly intersectional pursuits of equal rights for people regardless of coupled status. In “Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” authors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor give a snapshot history of LGBTQ activism since the 1970s and offer similar arguments as Warner about the heteronormative and neoliberal nature of placing the fight for legal marriage rights at the forefront of LGBTQ activism, although they do also introduce emerging improvements with the increasingly intersectional awareness of modern advocacy efforts.

Though David represents a seemingly common boy at the time, he has several qualities that make him stand out. However, these character traits are never simply told to us. Instead, the implied author uses David’s actions, decisions, and beliefs to