Alec Ramsdell wrote:
>
> Marta Russell wrote:
>
> > I'm going to make my objects to the use of "sane"
> > and "insane" which
> > seems to be such a common leftie language trap that
> > already I have
> > done this on three lists.
> >
> > One writer labels the Taliban a "cult of ignorant
> > psychotics,"
> > pundits and government officials have called them
> > "madmen" and
> > "insane". Then their is the use of the "sick
> > people." These are all
> > misuses of
> > impairment and are built on assumptions of
> > 'Normalcy."
>
> Labeling those involved as "insane," in addition to
> what Marta points out, contributes no explanatory
> power and can only lead, it seems clear, to
> reactionary politics. As for "normalcy"--didn't
> Warren G. Harding coin the term? That in itself is
> testimony to its dubious floatingness as a signifier.
>
I'm not sure about Harding (do you have a source) but Lennard Davis
traces the concept back to Quetelet's average man. Upon determining
the desirable "average" it was only a matter of time before the
"normal" became a part of the statistician's language to determine
deviance from it. The bell-curve is a prime example. Most all the
early statisticians were eugenicists.
marta