The Beauty of Silence

I finally unearthed a paper I wrote for a semester of college English in which I focused entirely on issues of deafness. There are a few more papers, but this is the only one which electronic draft I was able to find. This paper was supposed to be a definitional paper so I had to form and challenge some sort of definition regarding my general topic of deafness. I decided to challenge defining deafness as a disability; a concept I wholly disagree with. This was written in October of 2007. Keep in mind that for the most part, I still feel the same as expressed however some terminology and thoughts have been further advanced and even slightly changed since then as well as some errors/confusion which I don't want to fix. Here is the paper, and links to the sources I used [unfortunately not all of them still exist on the web], which I strongly recommend you read.

Have you ever sat down and really thought about deafness as a disability, how it lessens the quality of life? Or maybe deafness is not a disability, but only a difference in physicality, and it merely makes up a culture of its own. I am talking about any kind of hearing loss, from profound to moderate hearing loss. Many people, since centuries ago, have regarded deafness as a disability, which supposedly prevents a person from living a full normal life. Frequently hearing and deaf people see the issue differently. For example, who is to judge what a full normal life is, or who gets to have it for that matter? To many hearing people, deafness signals profound loss of opportunity. But not everyone knows that there is another side to this subject, and that is, therefore, that deafness is not a disability. That is because the definition of disability is dictated by a largely hearing culture that assumes sensory perfection which includes the assumption that everyone hears fine. This definition excludes any other culture, which in this case mainly is the entire Deaf culture itself.
For example, John Wheeler, president of the Deafness Research Foundation which dedicates its time and study towards helping deafness, does believe that deafness is a handicap, but he does also believe that in time it can be “fixed”, worldwide. Wheeler is making a proposal to help those that are “needlessly consigned to silence” to eliminate deafness. He also states that it is “a disgrace that all infants are not screened” for their hearing at birth. He announces that this suffering can end through these steps of detection, prevention, intervention, and finally research. Through increasing the use of implants, hearing aids, and hearing screenings, soon he wants deafness conquered.
I understand Wheeler’s genuine desire to help but his lending hand may not be wanted in the Deaf community where they actually embrace their deafness and all that comes with it. Wheeler supports the general hearing majority point of view of deafness as a disability. All disabilities are viewed as negatives to be fixed or cured in some way because being handicapped is supposed to be something horrible to have. In his article he also mentions with his proposal, that in time, hearing aids are and will be more fashionable and the “stigma” to the hearing impaired is forgotten. This offends me, because I have been wearing hearing aids since I was two years old. Wearing them has never been an embarrassment of any kind for me and to make them seem more desirable to people like some kind of new technological toy is ridiculous. I do, however, agree that hearing screenings should be necessary for newborns, but I don’t think it’s so much a disgrace if they are not done. The advantage of early testing is for the child’s hearing to be known, the earlier the family can prepare for what they would like to teach that child in a sense of communication. Children can learn things so rapidly at young ages, so teaching them multiple languages, especially sign language, is perfect at this time.
An unknown author, on Strange Loops website, wrote about cochlear implants and defined what normal is in conjunction with disabilities. For this writer normal is basically the opposite of disability. Normal is defined as natural, familiar, and includes full hearing, sight, and mobility, etc. While disability, or abnormal on the other hand is bad, less fully human, impaired and it is emphasized that these definitions are culturally based. The author believes these cultural definitions of what is not normal to be arbitrary and subjective. This article also mentions the identity of Deaf culture and how a hearing person may seem disabled in the Deaf culture. Deaf culture is defined as a culture because it uses a main language, sign language, and that it is only partially or selectively hereditary. For example, a deaf child born from hearing parents as to a Chinese-American born into a Chinese-American family and automatically a part of that community. Hearing parents are more likely than deaf parents to have a child with some sort of hearing loss. Therefore, these parents have to make a choice for their child and how they want them to live in the world. In other words through the form of communication the parents choose to teach their child defines what culture they may be more connected with. An interesting point this article makes is how new technology could possibly allow people to pick and choose traits for their children to have and not have. As a result, this ability to choose may wipe out disabilities as well as other “less desirable” traits, but will mostly change the cultural definition of what is normal as time and technology advances. Technology has a strong influence over our culture and has changed countless things in the past several years; because of this it is changing the public’s view on many things. For example, phones and the internet have changed the way people communicate with each other. Things such as hearing aids and cochlear implants can specifically change the way deaf people communicate, more so their communication with hearing people.
I like how this article seems to portray the definition of what is normal from the point of view of a hearing person onto themselves, whereas normal could also be different to a deaf person of themselves. While abnormal or disabled is the opposite of what each individual is. It’s significant how the definition can change simply with the presence of hearing or lack of. I do agree how futile it is to label someone disabled based on differences; it is an insult on a personal level that states that a person cannot do what they wish. There is no difference than labeling a short person disabled because they can’t reach everything on higher shelves, when yet they did not choose to be that height.
Paul Bacon wrote an article on Deaf culture and what defines that culture. He characterized it as a world without sound, sign language being its center language, that it is a minority group that faces restrictions and is currently being increasingly threatened by technology. Technology, specifically hearing aids and cochlear implants, is becoming available to make deaf people “less deaf” and crossing over to the oralist way of life. Bacon does not personally believe that these technological advances will cause the Deaf culture to disappear like some people believe it to because of the strength the culture has had in the past.
Bacon’s point of view and how he presents Deaf culture is very good, I like how he believes that the culture will survive even with the attempts technology uses against them. I believe that presenting what Deaf culture is, is important in showing just the cultural differences between hearing and deaf people rather than labeling them just as disabled people that supposedly live a lesser quality of life. The significance of this article is how it describes Deaf culture to be a strong ongoing culture which by the availability of this article also spreads awareness of this culture.
Ruth, a deaf young woman who wrote for York Vision, explains how a hearing person might view a deaf person. They may think about deafness as silent people moving their hands around excitedly or old people with hearing aids staring at you. Or maybe as people signing trapped in a silent world and since they can’t hear they are stupid. However, from her personal experience she clarifies that deaf people are nothing like what they are assumed to be and they do not live less full lives than the “average” person does. They are simply different and even within the deaf community each individual person lives and communicates their own way; they are not all the same. Ruth successfully stresses how important it is for deaf awareness to the hearing culture. With more awareness our culture won’t be so concerned with physical perfection.
Ruth accomplishes so much in her article and explains most of what I’m trying to get across. Furthermore, she basically points out that everyone is different regardless of their language or level of hearing. To her, deafness is only a disability in a culture that assumes everyone can hear flawlessly. Awareness is key to wiping out this definition and also the stereotypes on the deaf; therefore they will stop being treated like they live a lesser quality of life.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that deafness should not be labeled as a disability, because it in no way prevents that person from living a full normal life. In that case, deaf people also should not be treated like they don’t have or deserve a full normal life. Deaf people, including myself, live their lives as full and normal as they choose like any other person, hearing, blind or not. Born with moderate to severe hearing loss, my family did not find out until I was two years old when they noticed I should have started to talk. At that time I got my own hearing aids and rapidly learned to recognize sounds and speak. After a few years at Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, I was given the choice, through my parents to either keep me at the deaf school or go to a public school. From what my father remembers, the school told my parents that it wasn’t necessary for me to stay at a deaf school due to my pace of learning. Since then, I have been attending public hearing schools and have hearing friends and partners. With the exception of some struggles, there is still no reason why I should be classified disabled because I theoretically cannot live a full life and hold a decent job when my life has been no different from ordinary and my jobs as well. Everyone has their own struggles in life and mine are no more than any other person, but only different. Nothing, especially a biased label, will stop me from pushing on in the life I deserve to live. I wouldn’t change anything in my existence that would alter the person I am today; still, the sound of silence is one of the greatest gifts I have.