312 RüdigerKunow
phenomena that had appeared in witnesses' dreams but could not be
otherwisevalidated.^141
To take the term "spectral" to the domain of the non-normative
embodiments designated by "disability" is not to suggest that disability
itself is virtual or a phantasm; for persons with physical or cognitive
impairments,itisamaterialandoftenharshrealityinwhichtheyfigure
as the "counterpoint to normality; a figure whose very humanity is
questioned"(Murphy117).Whatremainsshadowy,evenhaunted,isthe
spectral humanity of the disabled person, in many cases resting on
superficial diagnostic visual impressions. Affective certainties are here
based on epistemological uncertainties,^142 and such uncertainties have
been the reason why such persons are often interpellated into a system
ofinspection,control,evensuspicion.
Doubts regarding the authenticity of the disability condition are as
old as recognition of bodily impairments. With the advent of
EuroAmerican modernity and the medicalization of the body, however,
such doubts have at the same time grown more intense and systematic.
In the wake of well-intentioned but oftentimes misguided attempts to
establish systems of administrated charity, authorities needed proof that
the objects of their (often niggardly) benevolence were actually
deserving it. The establishment of disability as a social identity marker
was therefore "integrally tied to notions of deception" (E. Samuels,
"From Melville to Eddie Murphy" 61), and disabled persons routinely
came under suspicion of just faking their impairment, for symbolic
(compassion) or material (charity) gain (Stone 23). The blind bum
peeking over his eye-patch or the lame mendicant who, when
unobserved, throws away his crutches, as in Mark Twain'sThe Prince
(^141) Thisintroducesasecond-levelmeaningof"spectral,"whichisquitepertinent
to some of the situations in which disabled persons find themselves: given that
disabilityisinmanycasesavisiblephenomenonwhosecorporealbasisandalso
severity are difficult to validate, the term spectral is a name for "evidence" that
cannotbevalidatedbutisnonethelessusedtoindictotherpeople(Kreutter9).
(^142) This process is also at work among the disabled community itself. In an
instructive article, Mark Deal, citing other sources, has pointed out that
sometimes disabled persons consider other people with impairments as not
"reallydisabled"ornot"disabledenough"sothatahierarchyemergesinsidethe
community(904).