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To all I have been following this thread with interest and would like to throw something out for your consideration. I feel that we nee to look closer what we mean by ' tragedy ' or ' tragic ' with regard to disability. I have cerebral palsy, but I would feel uncomfortable in describing having cerebral palsy as good or bad and I guess ' tragic ' is mostly associated with the 'bad'. There are good and bad consequences of having cerebral palsy, for anyway. Firstly, if it wad not for my cerebral palsy, since it made it difficult for me to take part in sports and made me more concentrate on my academic pursuits when I was much yonger - I might be that I would not being doing a PhD (this assumes of course that doing a PhD is a good thing). And yet, I have back pains, I cannot take part in certain activities that otherwise I could. Whether disability is ' tragic ' assumes that the alternative to disability is desirable, I would say it is, but the desirability and the desiring of a life without disability does not make a life with disability bad or tragic. That someone may bemoan from to time to that they have a disability does not mean they fall foul of the ' tragedy ' view of disability. It merely means that one is fustrated with one lot - as many people are with or without disability.In short I feel there often is a dualistic logic at work, even by those who argue against the personal tragedy model - its good/bad,there is no in between. But there is. Finally, and the forgive the long-windednes of this posting, there is a trend is disability politics, as another on the list alluded to, to re-educate those with disabilities who do see disability as tragedy, which is their right, indeed it could be considered unethical to re-educate them into being a 'good PWD' I use that phrase because a similar form (those obviously much harsher tactics!) were used in Communist Russia - those who didn't believe were 're-educated' into being a 'good communist'. Back down the fox hole I go. Michael _________________________________________________________________ On the move? Get Hotmail on your mobile phone http://www.msn.co.uk/msnmobile ________________End of message______________________ Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List are now located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.