Thursday, February 18, 2010

Aimee Mullins on Language

Aimee Mullins, whose inspirational talks we've highlighted in the past, recently hosted another on the power of language. Mullins begins her talk with a discovery she made in the thesaurus when she looked up the word "Disabled: crippled, helpless, useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down, worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile, decrepit." She challenges the notion that disability is necessarily negative by demonstrating the potential of adversity -- in her case, being born without shinbones -- to encourage human development.

You can watch the video on TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.html.

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