NotNormativelyHuman 187
WhenLifeGoesPublic:BiologicalNormophilia(s)
The preceding discussion was intended to outline the analytical
framework and the theoretical commitments which will guide the
analysisofnormsthatnowfollows.Forthispurpose,itwasnecessaryto
complicate the "statistical average" understanding of norms which so
often underwrites the understanding of norms in public and expert
contexts. As already noted by Canguilhem, norms based on human
beings are never neutral; instead, their polemical charisma invests them
with symbolic meaning. Keeping this in mind is especially important
whenitcomestonormativitiespertainingtothebiologicalsubstratumof
human life. In the field of biological normalization, all norms, to a
smaller or greater degree, have their point of convergence in defining
and monitoring what a proper, biologically "normal" human being
should be and "what counts as a valued and valuable body" (Butler,
Bodies22;ExcitableSpeech15).
Such issues have from time immemorial on been a matter of great
interest, not only for individual persons but also for the collective. For
this reason, human life has always been "public" and its biology an
important public concern, a salient, even an inescapable point of
reference in many social and cultural formations.^35 This is the historical
weight that the term "biological normophilia" is meant to carry.
Meanwhile, the phrase "life goes public" should not be taken to imply
thatthereisarealmwherebiologicalnormsdwellbeforetheytakeona
public existence. However, as Canguilhem, Foucault, and others have
shown, it is a salient feature of EuroAmerican modernity to have made
the biology of human beings a public concern in hitherto unimaginable
waysandtounprecedenteddegrees.
(^35) Fromdifferentdisciplinaryperspectives,therolethatbiomedicalthinkinghas
played for the evolution of social thought in EuroAmerican modernity has been
highlighted; cf. particularly Honneth, "Foucault's Theory of Society," esp. 158-
66; cf. also Armstrong, David.Political Anatomy of the Body: Medical
Knowledge in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1983.Print.