Deaf Destiny: Death or Enlightenment!
It is really strange being Deaf here at the dawning of the Twenty-First Century. Technological and sociological progress could either be a mortal threat to our language, or be the vehicle for our ascendancy of humanity.
Being a 26-year old Deaf man 100 years after Einstein's annus mirabilis*, I, like my fellow citizens of the Deaf World, find ourselves standing at the crossroads of reality's destiny. If we continue on the same path of conflict with the hearing world, we will watch our beloved culture and language agonizingly writhe and die away, an experience that would find some commonality with our life-form co-habitant of this adolescent planet: kingdom Plantae.
Think of it this way: If left alone to nature, plants have their instinctive (read: DNA hard-wired) mode of survival, almost always in a synergistic manner. Add Homo sapiens to the mix, many plants experience a life not suited to their DNA, and as a result, either lives or dies based on the personal preference of Tom Green Thumb. One man's weed is another's flower. Luckily, plants don't have feelings (or so we think).
Unfortunately for those eager to "perfect" the human race, the Deaf people are militantly keen on preserving their sense of heritage, culture and language. Most are DNA-infused with the characteristic human symptom of feelings and emotion. Deafness is literally encoded in the connexin-26 gene of their deoxyribonucleic acid program. Society will be forced to ascend a slippery slope if they really desire to cure deafness by any means available to man, let it be (perfected) cochlear implants, brain stem implants, nanotechnology, and/or the use of genetic engineering to manipulate the Cx-26 gene in order to turn off deafness (no pun intended).
That is the bleak picture we face if we either submit totally to the wishes and worldviews of the Hearing society at large, or go militant. That's the opposing viewpoints currently splitting those who live in a silent world. Those more inclined to "think hearing" tend to abhor the "so-called Deaf Culture" in favor of a more perfect, "hearing" identity. The militants oppose any attempt to "cure" deafness and views cochlear implants as a fatal Naziesque instrument of death for the people and language of the Deaf World, commonly known as Eyeth.**
The citizens of Eyeth strive for recognition of their earthly humanity. One of the luminaries of a century twice removed from us, W.E.B. DuBois, said this of the state of the blacks in the late 1800's:
The people of Eyeth have a very high desire to ascend the human ladder with our cadre of luminaries from every field of the human continuum of history-shaping occupations (scientists, educators, inventors, doctors, leaders, athletes, businessmen, etc). But, the existential threat of a "permanent cure" of deafness is looming, undercutting the purpose of their true destiny: as one of the divine, unheard-of hands that molds the course of humanity. Depending on who you ask, either Evolution or God has given us the Cx-26 gene, so we find ourselves in no man's land when we choose sides. From a philosophical standpoint, it makes more sense if you combine these two views.
People living in the silent world have made huge contributions to history and still has a very important purpose for the world. Hearing people rarely ever recognize how deafness played a big role in, say, Edison being isolated in his silent world which developed his voracious appetite of books, thereby giving him the knowledge requisite to become the Inventor. Or, take Alexander Graham Bell, who wouldn't have invented the phone, which stemmed from his failed attempts to invent an electromagnetic hearing aid for his deaf wife. Even Samuel Morse had a deaf wife, who he communicated with by tapping into her hand, which led to the formulation of Morse code. Beethoven and Goya were deaf. It was a deaf woman with an attuned eye, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered Cepheid variable stars at Harvard Observatory in 1912. She would have gotten a Nobel prize if she had lived a few more years (Nobels are never awarded posthumously). Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, another deafie, was the Russian father of cosmonautics. Vint Cerf is deaf, on the Gallaudet Board of Trustees and one of the pioneers of the Internet (he invented TCP/IP). He is now Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. No kidding, that is his actual job title.
Like autism and blindness, which it is widely accepted in that they give the brain a unique insight, deafness does give the brain a special insight: a whole cranial cortex to hack and use for greater purposes. The quirky Isaac Newton is said to be autistic (in his day, he was viewed as an eccentric, charlatanic hermit) , and Ray Charles would be someone else's trademarked stage name if he was not blind (he aurally hacked into his visual cortex to be able to "see" a hummingbird flying outside). The only thing preventing the Deaf from rising from a subhuman status is the general refusal of the Hearing world to accept sign language as a bonafide language in its own right, since language is often the benchmark of humanity.
Sign language, such as American Sign Language, is a visuospatial language that encompasses four dimensions, a characteristic that no other earthly language can boast. There is no other language that embodies time in its flow of vernacular without resorting to cumbersome connotations in order to explicitly indicate the past, present, and/or future. In perspective, the written form of language is two-dimensional, while spoken language is 3-D.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it the best in his 1810 book, Theory of Colours:
Thus, ASL promotes rather than hinder, true knowledge when unhindered by overt attempts to suppress the reality of the Deaf presence on this world by "curing" the scourge of deafness. The natural language of the Deaf would humble the builders of Babel's tower.
There has always been a problem confronting luminaries like >Goethe and Einstein, a problem of lucidly expressing a particular mode of thought in a language readily understood by all. It is a common experience for Deaf world travelers to meet fellow Deafies from opposite sides of the globe , able to readily converse about political issues concerning their home countries, say, China and the USA. Leo da Vinci must be rolling in his grave, especially that the long-elusive answer is right here, waiting to be utilized by the people of the world just five years into the third millennium of the Common Era. We'd better start deciding what to call the new world epoch if we decide to reset the year-clock to 0 for the second time in 1,529 years.
I am able to discuss the pros and cons of democracy and communism with Deaf Lithuanians and Russians and joke about Bush's sighting of Putin's soul, even if I don't know Russian nor they English (actually, that was my parents, last summer)! When will the hearing world finally realize that they got the language of Babel right under their eyes?!
Einstein would probably agree with me, especially after he sees me explain E=mc2 in ASL to a Deaf layperson who then passes that knowledge to a few people. Fractally spreading of enlightening knowledge at an exponential rate is sure to effect a paradigm change. Such a genius like him is to be taken to heart. He said:
In closing, all hearing people should take to heart what the patron saint of the Deaf, Laurent Clerc, said:
** Ear-th, the world of the Ear, is the bigger world, deaf to the silent world lurking right under their ears: Eye-th, the world of the Eye, home of Deaf Culture and sign language, a reality that does not include hearing nor speech.
Being a 26-year old Deaf man 100 years after Einstein's annus mirabilis*, I, like my fellow citizens of the Deaf World, find ourselves standing at the crossroads of reality's destiny. If we continue on the same path of conflict with the hearing world, we will watch our beloved culture and language agonizingly writhe and die away, an experience that would find some commonality with our life-form co-habitant of this adolescent planet: kingdom Plantae.
Think of it this way: If left alone to nature, plants have their instinctive (read: DNA hard-wired) mode of survival, almost always in a synergistic manner. Add Homo sapiens to the mix, many plants experience a life not suited to their DNA, and as a result, either lives or dies based on the personal preference of Tom Green Thumb. One man's weed is another's flower. Luckily, plants don't have feelings (or so we think).
Unfortunately for those eager to "perfect" the human race, the Deaf people are militantly keen on preserving their sense of heritage, culture and language. Most are DNA-infused with the characteristic human symptom of feelings and emotion. Deafness is literally encoded in the connexin-26 gene of their deoxyribonucleic acid program. Society will be forced to ascend a slippery slope if they really desire to cure deafness by any means available to man, let it be (perfected) cochlear implants, brain stem implants, nanotechnology, and/or the use of genetic engineering to manipulate the Cx-26 gene in order to turn off deafness (no pun intended).
That is the bleak picture we face if we either submit totally to the wishes and worldviews of the Hearing society at large, or go militant. That's the opposing viewpoints currently splitting those who live in a silent world. Those more inclined to "think hearing" tend to abhor the "so-called Deaf Culture" in favor of a more perfect, "hearing" identity. The militants oppose any attempt to "cure" deafness and views cochlear implants as a fatal Naziesque instrument of death for the people and language of the Deaf World, commonly known as Eyeth.**
The citizens of Eyeth strive for recognition of their earthly humanity. One of the luminaries of a century twice removed from us, W.E.B. DuBois, said this of the state of the blacks in the late 1800's:
The trend of the times...refused them recognition save in individual and exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the despised blacks.The Deaf resonate with nearly all who struggled for civil equality, because it all comes down to the desire to be an equal participant of the affairs of this world.
The people of Eyeth have a very high desire to ascend the human ladder with our cadre of luminaries from every field of the human continuum of history-shaping occupations (scientists, educators, inventors, doctors, leaders, athletes, businessmen, etc). But, the existential threat of a "permanent cure" of deafness is looming, undercutting the purpose of their true destiny: as one of the divine, unheard-of hands that molds the course of humanity. Depending on who you ask, either Evolution or God has given us the Cx-26 gene, so we find ourselves in no man's land when we choose sides. From a philosophical standpoint, it makes more sense if you combine these two views.
People living in the silent world have made huge contributions to history and still has a very important purpose for the world. Hearing people rarely ever recognize how deafness played a big role in, say, Edison being isolated in his silent world which developed his voracious appetite of books, thereby giving him the knowledge requisite to become the Inventor. Or, take Alexander Graham Bell, who wouldn't have invented the phone, which stemmed from his failed attempts to invent an electromagnetic hearing aid for his deaf wife. Even Samuel Morse had a deaf wife, who he communicated with by tapping into her hand, which led to the formulation of Morse code. Beethoven and Goya were deaf. It was a deaf woman with an attuned eye, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered Cepheid variable stars at Harvard Observatory in 1912. She would have gotten a Nobel prize if she had lived a few more years (Nobels are never awarded posthumously). Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, another deafie, was the Russian father of cosmonautics. Vint Cerf is deaf, on the Gallaudet Board of Trustees and one of the pioneers of the Internet (he invented TCP/IP). He is now Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. No kidding, that is his actual job title.
Like autism and blindness, which it is widely accepted in that they give the brain a unique insight, deafness does give the brain a special insight: a whole cranial cortex to hack and use for greater purposes. The quirky Isaac Newton is said to be autistic (in his day, he was viewed as an eccentric, charlatanic hermit) , and Ray Charles would be someone else's trademarked stage name if he was not blind (he aurally hacked into his visual cortex to be able to "see" a hummingbird flying outside). The only thing preventing the Deaf from rising from a subhuman status is the general refusal of the Hearing world to accept sign language as a bonafide language in its own right, since language is often the benchmark of humanity.
Sign language, such as American Sign Language, is a visuospatial language that encompasses four dimensions, a characteristic that no other earthly language can boast. There is no other language that embodies time in its flow of vernacular without resorting to cumbersome connotations in order to explicitly indicate the past, present, and/or future. In perspective, the written form of language is two-dimensional, while spoken language is 3-D.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it the best in his 1810 book, Theory of Colours:
"We never sufficiently reflect that a language, strictly speaking, can only be symbolical and figurative, that it can never express things directly, but only, as it were, reflectedly. This is especially the case in speaking of qualities which are only imperfectly presented to observation, which might rather be called powers than objects, and which are ever in movement throughout nature. They are not to be arrested, and yet we find it necessary to describe them; hence we look for all kinds of formulae in order, figuratively at least, to define them."ASL, unlike the written form, is able to describe the wave-form motion of light particles exactly as it is, without arresting its natural movement. I essentially just did that. Goethe continues:
"Metaphysical formulae have breadth as well as depth, but on this very account they require a corresponding import; the danger here is vagueness. Mathematical expressions may in many cases be very conveniently and happily employed, but there is always an inflexibility in them, and we presently feel their inadequacy; for even in elementary cases we are very soon conscious of an incommensurable idea; they are besides, only intelligible to those who are especially conversant in the sciences to which much formulae are appropriated. The terms of the science of mechanics are more addressed to the ordinary mind, but they are ordinary in other senses, and always have something unpolished; they destroy the inward life to offer from without an insufficient substitute for it. Moral terms [religion], which undoubtedly can express nicer relations, have the effect of mere symbols in the end, and are in danger of being lost in a play of wit.All philosophies are fraught with their problems, mostly because of how language is used to transmit the knowledge. Goethe expresses the strong desire for a mode of communication that will solve all the problems that diversified languages without any unity present. Sign language would be the unifying force.
"If, however, a writer could use all these modes of description and expression with perfect command, and thus give forth the result of his observations on the phenomena of nature in a diversified language; if he could preserve himself from predilections, still embodying a lively meaning in as animated an expression, we might look for much instruction communicated in the most agreeable of forms."
"Yet, how difficult it is to avoid substituting the sign for the thing; how difficult to keep the essential quality will living before us, and not to kill it with the word. With all this, we are exposed in modern times to a still greater danger by adopting expressions and terminologies from all branches of knowledge and science to embody our views of simple nature. Astronomy, cosmology, geology, natural history, *nay* religion and mysticism, are called in our aid; and how often do we not find a general idea and an elementary state rather hidden and obscured than elucidated and brought nearer to us by the employment of terms, the application of which is strictly specific and secondary."ASL does not kill the essential quality of the thing like the written word does.
"...if we look through the history of science in general, especially the history of physics, we shall find that many important acquisitions have been made by single inquirers, in single departments, and very often by unprofessional observers."Emboldening!
"No one ever dreams of explaining chemical experiments with figures; yet it is customary in physical researches nearly allied to these, because the object is thus found to be in some degree answered. In many cases, however, such diagrams represent mere notions; they are symbolical resources, hieroglyphic modes of communication, which by degrees assume the place of the phenomena and of Nature herself, and thus hinder than promote true knowledge."
Thus, ASL promotes rather than hinder, true knowledge when unhindered by overt attempts to suppress the reality of the Deaf presence on this world by "curing" the scourge of deafness. The natural language of the Deaf would humble the builders of Babel's tower.
There has always been a problem confronting luminaries like >Goethe and Einstein, a problem of lucidly expressing a particular mode of thought in a language readily understood by all. It is a common experience for Deaf world travelers to meet fellow Deafies from opposite sides of the globe , able to readily converse about political issues concerning their home countries, say, China and the USA. Leo da Vinci must be rolling in his grave, especially that the long-elusive answer is right here, waiting to be utilized by the people of the world just five years into the third millennium of the Common Era. We'd better start deciding what to call the new world epoch if we decide to reset the year-clock to 0 for the second time in 1,529 years.
I am able to discuss the pros and cons of democracy and communism with Deaf Lithuanians and Russians and joke about Bush's sighting of Putin's soul, even if I don't know Russian nor they English (actually, that was my parents, last summer)! When will the hearing world finally realize that they got the language of Babel right under their eyes?!
Einstein would probably agree with me, especially after he sees me explain E=mc2 in ASL to a Deaf layperson who then passes that knowledge to a few people. Fractally spreading of enlightening knowledge at an exponential rate is sure to effect a paradigm change. Such a genius like him is to be taken to heart. He said:
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."The Deaf definitely do think at a level different than the hearing. Another of my favorite heroes, Nikola Tesla, said: (more info on Tesla here)
"It is by abolishing all the barriers which separate nations and countries that civilization is best furthered."Civilization will be best furthered once we, the Abled -both the Deaf and the Hearing- move on to the next level: abolish our barriers toward each other- the Hearing's refusal to accept sign language for what it is and the Deaf's militant knee-jerk rejection of the Hearing world for what it has to offer: enlightenment through the free and unhindered exchange of knowledge.
In closing, all hearing people should take to heart what the patron saint of the Deaf, Laurent Clerc, said:
"He who has never had anything has never lost anything; and he who never lost anything has nothing to regret. Consequently, the deaf and dumb, who have never heard or spoke, have never lost either hearing or speech, therefore cannot lament either the one or the other."* Latin for wondrous year. 1905 was the year which skyrocketed Albert Einstein to world prominence just before his fellow Jews faced an existential threat from the Nazis. He humbly viewed himself as one mere example of the Jews' humanity and importance to society.
** Ear-th, the world of the Ear, is the bigger world, deaf to the silent world lurking right under their ears: Eye-th, the world of the Eye, home of Deaf Culture and sign language, a reality that does not include hearing nor speech.
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