The hideous ugliness of normalcy is perhaps best demonstrated in the mob scene where Merrick is trapped in an underground station, and cries out that he is not an animal, but a human being. In truth, the so-called normal persons have been acting like a stampede rather than compassionate creatures, unlike Merrick who still retains the individualism, that is humanity's truest birthright. This reversal or world upside down where the persons dehumanized with animal or medical names actually exhibit the values that make human beings distinct from animals validates the suggestion that the way that both popular and medical culture celebrates health, symmetry, and beauty is profoundly misguided.

In her essay, "From The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Beautiful Things Can Be Made," Anita Silvers makes a profound call that the standards of symmetry and wholeness be rewritten as a standard for human health in a way that is sounded like...
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