Disability, Ability, and Greatness

Video: Disability, Ability, and Greatness in captioned.

Video by Benny Adam



Further Notes/Further Questions:

0. It is hard to determine if historical figures were autistic, but it is widely believed that Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac (Nobel Prize Physics 1933), and possibly Isaac Newton were autistic, among others. There are many who assert that autism and Musical/Mathematical genius are positively linked.



1. Alexander Graham Bell is actually a controversial figure. Q: Is it a contradiction to be both deaf and hearing? Are we involuntarily turning our children into cyborgs by giving them cochlear implants? Should we take advantage of critical periods of learning, or should we wait to allow a child to decide for him/herself whether he or she really wants a cochlear implant?



2. Dostoyevsky's full name is Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (abbreviated in video).



3. Kay Kavus is a character from the Persian National Epic, the Letter of Kings (the Shahnameh). Note the winged man flying next to the throne.



4. Harriet Tubman was not actually born with narcolepsy. She developed it after being struck (violently) by an overseer when she was a slave.



5. Wheels, associated with wheelchairs, are in fact powerful philosophical and historical symbols. The Ashoka Chakra is a wheel associated with the idea of the Chakravartin, a righteous ruler who, without moving himself, becomes the axis around which the world turns.



6. Question (to contemplate): Is the significance of Princess Changping in Chinese Culture her historical role, or her mythical role as a figure in Chinese folklore?