Can living in communes be some kind of a solution for the emotional alienation we feel?
Many people do that all the time- by renting a house in a particular quarter of the city, or by joining some housing colony or some kind of group based on ethnic, communal, linguistic or other bases. Imagine the joy of joining a Durga Puja committee in New York? Or running into a Hindi speaking guy in Jasper, Canada, as I did some years ago?
What if, PWS could live in communes? In special neighborhoods? Who loses? Who gains? For many PWS finding acceptance is more important than producing smooth speech. Sometime back I was reading an article about how in 18th (or 19th?) century, in the south of France, in vineyards, many deaf people (probably not severely so) were working as farm hands. They had their sign language and a kind of sub-culture, where in deafness was a non-issue; where finding work and mate was not difficult after all. This could be an advantage for the people who stammer, if something like this were to happen in our case. But society will certainly lose out yet one more opportunity to come to grips with diversity existing in its bosom. And what do we do if a non-stammering member of the family, does not want to relocate?
A good compromise will be self help groups, where PWS and CWS can drop in from time to time and feel at home; where there is no pressure to change the way I speak and feel. Let us know what you think. (Real Estate agents may contact only if they stammer!).
2 comments:
Home Address, Stuttering Street:-) Indeed an interesting idea, perhaps someone must have tried this at some point of time...I naturally feel attracted towards PWS and long for association in whatever way I can.
Shared values in terms of caste, religion, gender, sexual preference etc. can lead to a common culture and why not include disabilities into the list well?
Worth giving a though on but can also lead to too much of togetherness!!
Yes, it might be fun to have a office for TISA in some such c-c-c-colony, where visitors will have no hesitation asking for directions.. God, are you listening?
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