194 RüdigerKunow
excommunication from public presence and concern in turn produces
material as well as imaginary effects, shaping how the people thus
interpellated come to view themselves through their biological status
while pre-determining the ways others perceive them.^41 This insistence
by bio-based normativities, for example physical fitness as benchmark,
can,asKathleenMorganhasnotedfromafeministperspective,produce
paradoxical results: as "natural destiny is being supplanted by
technologically grounded coercion," a new vulnerability or
"woundedness" can emerge. People who cannot, be it through surgery,
dieting, and physical sculpting in general, bring their bodies into
conformity with ruling norms, are vulnerable, not only in a physical or
corporeal sense but also in terms of job chances or personal relations
(148).
As this example shows, biological or corporealnon-normativities in
theirturn producesecond-degreesignifications,oftentimes,bywayofa
chain of significations, invoking yet another set of norms, social or
cultural ones, which are also missed by people who fail to conform to
the biological norms: for example through the lack of initiative (why
don't they make use of available technologies to improve their
mobility?) or of moral stamina (why don't they do something that will
stopthemfrombeingapubliccharge?).Theconceptofintersectionality,
briefly referenced in a previous chapter, captures this accumulation of
violations of norms quite well, as does Canguilhem's suggestion of a
"correlativityofnorms"(249).
Both the excommunication of non-normative human biologies from
the public sphere, and the secondary significations accruing to the
people thus interpellated are not simply the deplorable fate of specially
challengedindividuals.Infact,asthefollowingargumentisdesignedto
show, they are crucial building blocks in U.S.-American and other
cultures, expressions of a powerful biological imaginary which is at the
same time a social and a cultural imaginary, realized in the forms of
everyday communication (for example in social media) or in cultural
practices,suchas(non-)participationin pastimeactivities,likesportsor
(^41) Thus, the desire to maintain a normative male identity may even lead to
resorting to "negative health practices" such as heavy drinking or otherwise
riskybehavior(Robertson451).