Sure, a ‘culture’ has grown up around being deaf. This happens with any group of people who share a strong physical similarity.
But would you call being blind a ‘culture’? Or being diabetic? Or paraplegic? Would you deliberately force any of these on your potential child even if you were afflicted by them?
No matter how you look at it, political correctness be damned, the so-called ‘deaf culture’ is just taking the lemons you were dealt and making lemonade. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, its something to be extremely proud of. I don’t know if I could do it.
But its still overcoming a handicap. And just all of a sudden deciding that deafness isn’t a handicap but a ‘culture’ doesn’t change a damn thing. You ARE missing out on something. Namely, sound! Human speech, signing, music, the sounds of nature etc.
Not to deride at all the importance or achievement of sign-language, but it is wrong to say its better (or even just as good) as verbal speech. In fact, its incredibly selfish to do so.
The Anthropologist/Sociologist has to speak out on this.
Badly.
Arguing about the definition of “culture” is one huge can of worms. I could sit here and type out definitions of culture, from Frazer to Durkheim, to Berger… and everyone in between.
Instead, I shall voice my academic opinion:
You are confusing “community” and “culture.” All the illnesses or diabilities you list DO have their own specific communities. Individuals with similar issues are drawn together for supportive purposes, among other things.
But do they form a “culture” in its own right? Do they exhibit any form of artistic expression that is very much their own? A language of their own? A lifestyle of their own? A communication system that runs so deep it has its own media, its own services, its own adapted systems? Do they have their very own identity? What about their world view? How do THEY perceive meaning? Having never heard, for example, do they have a completely different system to interpret the world around them? To interpret the way people (humans) interract with each other? Their own source for the provision of meaning and belonging? Drawing from Berger, do they have their own plausability structures (not in the religious sense)? (social bases - specific social processes or interactions within a network of persons sharing a meaning system.)
Is there a “deaf” culture? Yes. Very much so. Do the blind have their own culture? Yes, very much so.
Broadly defined, culture (in the sense you are interested in) is the social, religious, intellectual and artistic manifestations (and more!) that characterize a society.
Hell, we even talk about youth culture.
Culture and identity walk hand in hand. Denying that the deaf have their own identity, their own cultural construction of the world is to be blind to their reality.
Who are you to say that sign language isn’t just as good as verbal language? Why is it selfish to view sign language as a valid way to communicate that has inherently no less value than spoken words?
Just because a culture arises because of difficult does not make it not a culture. Look at Jewish culture, for example – suffering, and dealing with suffering, are very much a part of what Jewish culture is today. (It’s somewhat of a mistake to unify Jewish culture, but for the sake of this argument, it makes sense.)
Deaf people must learn to communicate in very different ways than speaking can. They are involuntarily excluded from many aspects of mainstream culture (like speech and music).
It’s obvious that the deaf are missing out on something – hearing. It’s not a cultural choice, it is a physical fact. Yet that doesn’t exclude the deaf from having a culture. Surely, those who are not handicapped are excluded from some experiences as well, and that effects how we behave, and how we think, and how we communicate. It’s simply the same for the deaf.
Look at American society today. Should we immediately decry all of the resultant changes to our culture – even positive ones – that occurred because of 9/11, because it’s bad to be attacked? Of course not. It’s shaped who we are and how we think whether we like it or not. A group of people with a shared attribute or experience – even a negative one – can become a community that does have a culture. No, it doesn’t always happen (as with diabetes), but that doesn’t mean that it can’t.
My parents are both deaf. I grew up surrounded by Deaf culture. I am hearing.
Yes, there is Blind culture, Paraplegic culture, Disability culture. I have worked for a Disabilities Arts organisation which supported and organised Disabled arts events, as well as training in and access to the arts for disabled people. I was witness to the huge variety of cultures that have grown up around disabilities. I saw blind comedy troups, paraplegics sports teams, deaf web design courses, deaf churches. Some cultures are richer than others, and Disabled culture is an amalgam of them all. Deaf people have a particularly rich culture because they are unusually isolated through the difficulty of communicating with the hearing world, and having their own language.
Your second question requires further investigation. I presume you’re thinking about the recent case of the lesbian couple who wished to seek to ensure the child they had was deaf. This has been addressed in another recent thread, and is a seperate issue from whether or not such a thing as Deaf culture exists. As it happens, I disagree with the couple picking and choosing the physical characteristics of their child. That is neither here nor there right now though.
No, it’s not “just making lemons out of lemonade”. Deaf culture exists above and beyond the disability itself. It has a history, tradition, its own fully formed language in almost every country, theatre, poetry, TV, humour. There’s a deaf club in almost every town in the UK, US and Europe, not to mention the more spread out clubs in Africa and India. It comprises a group of people who have come together initially because of a shared disability but continues through a sense of nationwide and worldwide community. The essence of Deaf culture is not deafness but community. A community that would not exist without the disability but which goes above and beyond the disabilty to form a very real and strong culture.
A great many people are proud to be Deaf. They’re proud to be part of a group of people that have achieved so much, that have a beautiful creative language and culture. A lot of people, my parents included, would never choose to be hearing. Having never heard, they don’t miss sound. They don’t feel like they’re somehow missing out. They’re part of a strong and vibrant community that more than makes up for the ever-decreasing difficulties they face in everyday life. It’s much easier to be deaf now than it used to be. People are deaf-aware, and it’s much easier for a deaf person to get on in the world. There are deaf universities and colleges. People know now (mostly) that deaf != stupid. You can be deaf and make as much or as little of your life as a hearing person. I don’t call that making lemonade out of lemons.
I hope what I’ve said already will point towards the fact that deaf culture isn’t just about overcoming a handicap. It might have been to begin with, but it’s evolved WAY beyond that. And as for missing out on something - how do you miss something you never had in the first place? If you’d never heard music would you miss it?
I’m not denying in the least that deaf people lack something that hearing people have. Hearing people hear, deaf people do not. I see that as plainly as anyone else. You can hear music, a deaf person can’t. The point is that you consider it a loss or a lack for someone to never have access to music, whereas to a person who never had that access in the first place to call its absence “loss” is meaningless.
I beg your pardon? Why is it wrong/selfish to say sign language is “just as good” as verbal speech? Sign language is not some vague system of miming what you want to say. Sign language is independant of English or indeed any other language. It has its own grammar and syntax. It has its own idioms and slang. It is a fully developed language of its own. Sign Language differs from country to country. In fact, I as a British Sign Language user, cannot understand American Sign Language. There are ASL and BSL dictionaries. The grammar is complex.
Sign language can go beyond what verbal speech can express. There are words that exist in BSL that do exist in English, and as a hearing person I often find myself at a loss to explain what I mean to other hearing people when, if they knew BSL, I could express it quite clearly.
I would like to hear your reasons for saying that it is wrong for sign language to be considered “as good as” verbal language.
Well, great for them. I wonder if they would feel that way if they couldn’t hear a shouted warning that resulted in their injury or death.
Please. The functions of hearing go far beyond minor things like enjoying music. It’s one of the five senses, and, most people would say, second only to sight in importance. Being deaf doesn’t just mean you don’t get to listen to music, it means you have problems communicating with most of the rest of the people in the world and, thus, have a difficult problem to overcome in leading a happy and productive life.
You have to have a clear view of the “speaker” to “listen” to it. It takes money and effort to accomodate. It isn’t used by most of the population outside of specialized communities. Linguistically it may be fine, I have no idea. But realistically, knowing sign language is not as useful as knowing English.
Obviously deaf people can find success and happiness, but it’s because they overcame a serious problem- not because they are “differently enabled.”
Oy vay… deaf culture and language just like any other?
Here’s where the difference lies: I can learn Chinese and the Chinese can learn English, so that we can communicate without any barrier if we choose. We can participate fully in each other’s worlds if we choose. And if I were to move to China and not learn the language and find myself surrounded by people I couldn’t understand, unable to participate in and appreciate a good percentage of what was going on around me, that would be my choice… not like having the world/country/city/community you were born into be foreign to you.
While the hearing can learn to sign, the deaf cannot learn to hear. They can cobble together a facsimile by learning to read lips, but that’s about it.
It’s a funny thing… I find the whole “Deaf is A-ok and just as good” thing to be both fabulous (lemons from lemonade) and yet pathetic. (The hard-assed realist in me).
But ya know, apart from making designer-deaf babies (OY!) and denying children the right to be hearing if it is open to them (cochlear implant…double oy!) who cares? If individual deaf people are happy with their lot, great! Why should anyone care? Isn’t it better that disabled people should be happy with their situation, rather than feeling inadequate and alienated? What is more important, after all?
I’m firmly on the same side as the OP. I think the women who purposely bred a deaf child should be put in prison.
Reasons why sign language isn’t as good as spoken language? Here:
Sing.
Look up when you hear something coming towards you from behind.
Talk to somebody when his back is turned.
Have a conversation with a blind man (a member of another “culture” that exists only because of a disability).
The sarcasm here really isn’t malicious. I’m just fed up with PC bullshit. It’s good for people to be able to spend time with those with whom they have a lot in common, and injuries and disabilities do provide that catalyst. People who were born without hearing or sight (and even more, those who lost it after knowing sound or light) have shown amazing strength in overcoming their disabilities and are quite admirable.
But that doesn’t mean that everything is just as good.
You might as well say that a braille typewriter is every bit as good as a pencil. It’s good, but not as good.
Is it just as good to be without a leg and have to use a prosthetic? There is, after all, a culture surrounding that particular disability, a viable means of locomotion, even amazing athletes, some of whom can even run faster than I can. But that doesn’t mean that it’s normal or just as good to lose your leg as to have it. Because it isn’t.
Claiming that it’s so belittles the achievements made by people with those handicaps, and makes all of us look stupid. And if you chopped off your child’s leg, just because you and your wife both had only one leg and you wanted him to participate in your culture, you’d spend your life in prison getting gang-raped by prisoners with two good legs. Purposely creating a deaf child should be treated the same way.
PS. I just agreed with Stoid. Why does that worry me? Maybe I’ll check my temperature…
I think both. It is a disability, and it is a culture.
I would compare things like deaf theatre to wheelchair basketball.
Valid, engaging, competitive and skilful activities in their own right, but activities that exist only because the people are not fully-able-bodied enough to participate in such activities in their original format (traditional basketball and speaking theatre).
Reasons why sign language isn’t as good as spoken language? Here:
Sing.
Look up when you hear something coming towards you from behind.
Talk to somebody when his back is turned.
Have a conversation with a blind man (a member of another “culture” that exists only because of a disability).
I assume you mean that these are things deaf people cannot do. The first, sing, is debatable. It is possible to sign with rhythm and it can be equally beautiful in a different way. The last item on the list, conversing with a blind person, you are simply wrong about. Blind people can read sign language through feel–take, for example, Helen Keller who was blind as well as deaf.
As for the middle two, I have a list of ways in which sign language is better than spoken language. Here’s a few things native signers tend to do better than non-signers:
Spatial analysis and visual thinking
Facial recognition (including an increased ability to recognize subtle variations in facial expression)
Detection of motion
The ability to communicate much earlier as infants (young children have the motor skills to sign several months before they have the motor skills to speak)
Secondly, Stoid’s contention that,
While the hearing can learn to sign, the deaf cannot learn to hear. They can cobble together a facsimile by learning to read lips, but that’s about it.
is not entirely true. Deaf people can learn to read lips quite well, and they tend to do it quite a bit more often than hearing people learn to sign. Nonetheless, it is difficult and thus many deaf people stay in their own community, which, while smaller, is no better or worse than the hearing community.
And my vote for the least educated, most offensive statement goes to Space Vampire, who wrote this:
(Sign language) isn’t used by most of the population outside of specialized communities. Linguistically it may be fine, I have no idea. But realistically, knowing sign language is not as useful as knowing English.
You’re right; you don’t have any idea. While it is true that Enlish is spoken more widely, that doesn’t make it more useful. The Deaf community is defined mainly by its common language and if you choose to live in the Deaf community, as many people do, sign language is more useful than English. Would you say that English is more useful than Swedish for Swedes? Usefulness depends entirely on the context in which a person lives.
As for the women who want a deaf child, I have no real comment since it relates far more to specially designed children than to deaf culture.
I know a charming young deaf chap here, in Ottawa, who has learned to sign in a wide range of languages, AND has learned to read (print) and lip-read a total of 7 different languages (including japanese) which he then translates into ASL. We’re talking interpretation skills here - not just translation from print.
So I’m sorry, but the deaf CAN learn other languages.
Is being deaf a disability? Sure, it can be. Do people compensate for the lack of hearing? Yes, they do. Is it just as “good”? Surely. They can’t enjoy music? Singing? Sounds? No. But they have alternate forms of expression, that I or you, who are hearing, can’t enjoy. Maybe we’re equally disabled.
I think Elenfair has the right approach. Look at this from the way a sociologist would, instead of from your knee-jerk impressions as an outsider. While culture is indeed subjected to variable definitions, thoughtful scholars have come up with some pretty good criteria, and it can be pretty convincingly argued that deaf “culture” fits.
It might also be helpful to realize that sign language is not merely a word-to-gesture translation of spoken and written language. It has its own grammar and other conventions, and those shape how one thinks about things as well as how ideas are expressed.
Sorry, but I trust the definition created by years of good debate and research and theoretical explanation more than someone that believes the inability to hear “Look out! There’s a bus coming right at you!” is serious argument against the quality of deaf life.
Francesca, and anyone else who was been a part of deaf culture, I am embarrassed for some of these folk and I am sorry.
Yes, but is there any country consisting entirely of people who speak sign language? The best that deaf people can hope for is special schools or social groups, MAYBE small communities. They are limited in their ability to communicate with most people no matter where they are. Somebody who can read lips and has one of them newfangled computer-talkin’ machines might be able to do okay, but it’s not a perfect substitute for hearing and speaking.
Culture and country are not synonymous. What would you say about youth culture? Is there a country consisting entirely of teens? No! Is there a form of nearly global teen “culture”? In the so-called western world, sure as hell there is!
Funny. They used to say the same about African Americans.
The deaf have a very complex system of communities, media, theatre, art, journalistic endeavours, education, communication, language, grammar, research, intellectual/academic endeavours… Who are we to say they can only “hope for” segregation, marginalization and a handful of social services the hearing are magnanimous enough to offer?
I’m sorry, but if there is such a thing as “jewish culture”, or “christian culture”, or “youth culture” - hey, here in ontario, we have franco-ontarian culture, there is a “deaf culture” out there.
Is deafness a disability? Yes. So is being a unilingual anglophone, in this great big global market.
ZING! Except, oh wait, that analogy carries no weight. Black people were/are held back in the US because of the prejudice of others. I don’t hear anybody saying “damn deaf people are getting more uppity all the time…” Deaf people are at a disadvantage because they have a physical problem that the rest of the world will, despite accomodations, never truly be geared towards.
You are arguing this part to the wrong person. I’m not touching the “culture” argument with a ten-foot pole as its a word that means too many different things to too many different people.
