Deaf culture is a trip. Because you have degrees of deafness, on top of that, you have pride. A sense of pride and community for not getting the cochlear implant, you retain your identity. I have family members that are deaf and I’m an honorary coda kid.
It bugs me, to be honest. I'm effectively deaf (without hearing aids) since childhood, and it sucks. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I can't grok the whole identity aspect of it, or the attitude among some that it's wrong to cure deafness. It feels like a very weird form of cope to me.
Agree about curing deafness is a good thing. As for identity, I'm not deaf or hearing impaired, but sign language is fascinating to me. I can understand that peopel who are fluent in sign language want to preserve that part and think of it as part of their identity.
Except hearing aids and implants are not cures. Implants have risks and neither work for a lot of people. They also resent the push for “trying to fix themselves”… adapting to a hearing world. Learning to talk (if possible) gives the hearing person access to them, not the other way around. Lipreading is constant guesswork and exhausting. Practicality is building a community of a shared language rather than trying to assimilate to a world quite inaccessible to them.
It’s a world of hearing people trying to “fix” the deaf person rather than learning sign language for them. Thing is-glasses and Lazik CAN be a cure for those who can’t see. It just doesn’t work that way for those that can’t hear.
I dated a scientist who got their PhD in Rochester, which apparently has one of the largest deaf communities in the US. He and I had a really great conversation about the ethics of whether or not I would “cure” my child if they were born deaf and he enlightened me on how people in that community find it to be mutilation or even comparable to the selective genetics breeding program America had for a short period of time trying to end certain mental disabilities or traits (as well as try and staunch the black community). Truly so fascinating that they identify so strongly with their disability that it’s considered ableist and ethically immoral to try and improve it.
You hit the nail right on the head. That’s exactly it, it’s their identity. Hearing people’s thoughts be damned because they are not in the deaf world/community to understand it. It’s not our place. I respect it ethically.
As far as I understand, the issue with this way of thinking is that most deaf people don’t think of themself as needing to be fixed, or cured.
Particularly those who were born deaf, they’re not anything less than because of their deafness. It’s just a part of who they are, and a part of their experience of the world. There’s nothing wrong with them as they are.
The problem, insofar as there is one, is that society is not fully accessible to deaf people. For example, in the UK, sign language is only just being added to the available highschool courses.
Furthermore, it’s a mistake to think of hearing aids including cochlear implants as “cures” - they aren’t appropriate for everyone, they can cause pain and discomfort, and overwhelming sensory overload.
Not bothered about wording, or how they see it. Its a loss of a sense, call it what ever you like itll always be better to have it and claiming otherwise is objectively incorrect
But it’s not a “loss of a sense” if you’ve never had it.
Thats like saying you and I have lost the sense of echolocation - from the perspective of bats and dolphins, we’re lacking there.
From the perspective of birds and bees, we’re lacking the ability to see UV light - is that a loss of a sense too?
Perhaps you want to say deaf people “should” hear because hearing is a human sense. Well, biology isn’t neat and diversity is natural. Deaf people are as human and whole as the rest of us.
There’s absolutely nothing “objective” about the situation. The important thing is to listen to deaf people’s own experiences- and the reality is that a significant portion of the deaf community, particularly those born deaf, are happy, or at least fine, being deaf- but just wish for a more accessible world.
Doesn't matter that you never had it, ofc its a loss. Im not going to agree with you here, there is no gain in pretending having no hearing is a good thing.
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u/coffee_ape 7d ago
Deaf culture is a trip. Because you have degrees of deafness, on top of that, you have pride. A sense of pride and community for not getting the cochlear implant, you retain your identity. I have family members that are deaf and I’m an honorary coda kid.