posted
A child with a cochlear implant still sounds "off". Their intonation is not "normal". It may be due to the age at which people I have met had the operation. The question is whether it is better to be an accepted part of the deaf community or a marginal part of the hearing world.
Then there is the hypothetical about selective abortion, in which some deaf activists said that if it is okay for a hearing couple to abort a deaf baby, it should be okay for a deaf couple to abort a hearing child. I don't know that a deaf gene has been found... and if the deaf commmunity doesn't wish to participate it will probably take longer.
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That's too bad, Icky. I noticed whenever I was in a language class of any kind. (I took some Spanish in HS) it was the process of learning a second language that the grammar of the first language really started sinking in.
We might instictively learn grammar, but we don't understand it until we analyze it.
Edit: I distinctly remember LOVING grammar lessons in elementary school. I was the only one. I just ate it up. It was just another way I was "weird".
posted
Sorry, Porter. I am posting a bit behind this thread--it's moving so quickly that every time I post I find two or three posts that beat me in that I have not read. So I didn't see your response.
Alcon, np. I was just venting because I had gotten that feeling in several threads lately, including the Jatraquero one.
posted
I think it is sad and just plain mean that somebody with cocclear implants would no longer be accepted in deaf society.
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quote: That's too bad, Icky. I noticed whenever I was in a language class of any kind. (I took some Spanish in HS) it was the process of learning a second language that the grammar of the first language really started sinking in.
Maybe this is another avenue, along with extensive reading.
quote: We might instictively learn grammar, but we don't understand it until we analyze it.
I agree.
quote: Edit: I distinctly remember LOVING grammar lessons in elementary school. I was the only one. I just ate it up. It was just another way I was "weird".
Me too. It's so mathematical.
-o-
And let me say, this thread is an example of wat I love about Hatrack. Two different tangents, neither of which was necessarily meant to originate a serious discussion. Lots of good back and forth. And at least a couple of threads in the last two days on the hot, controversial topic of . . . Deafness?!
quote: I don't know that a deaf gene has been found... and if the deaf commmunity doesn't wish to participate it will probably take longer.
Yeah, I thought of this as a possible perceived threat, but I wasn't sure.
One big difference between the Deaf and the blind is that the Deaf are bound together by their language. And because they are a pretty small minority, and they have been so isolated from the hearing world in the past, what with growing up in residential schools and all, they have grown pretty attached and dependent on that community support. It means a lot to them.
And they get by really very well without sound. It is not nearly as debilitating as you might expect if you have never depended on sound and have had the support of the Deaf community. But I imagine it is a pain working in a hearing-majority world.
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Bev- generative grammar kind of means both. But you are correct that the ability to map any language with XP theory is not evidence for the Language Acquisition Device.
From the writer's workshop:
quote: I don't think 5th graders are really able to understand grammar, except in the context of a foreign language. When grammar was learned in the English school system, in the golden age I am imagining, it was with students who learned Latin and also ancient Greek. The study of grammar by English-only speakers is really difficult, because it just seems like a bunch of arbitrary rules that are unnatural. ... I wonder to what degree this is due to "Latinate" grammar. That is, the grammar rules for English were established to model Latin. The prohibition on dangling prepositions is a prime example. A preposition has to preceed its object in Latin. That is why it is called a pre-position. I'm not kidding.
Another is the split infinitive. In Latin an infinitive can't be split because it is a single word.
[ January 07, 2005, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
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quote: I think it is sad and just plain mean that somebody with cocclear implants would no longer be accepted in deaf society.
Yeah, the more I hear about Deaf society the less I like it... and I think part of my reaction on this thread has simply been refusal to believe that Deaf society could really be that... bad. I still find it hard to believe.
quote: Then there is the hypothetical about selective abortion, in which some deaf activists said that if it is okay for a hearing couple to abort a deaf baby, it should be okay for a deaf couple to abort a hearing child. I don't know that a deaf gene has been found... and if the deaf commmunity doesn't wish to participate it will probably take longer.
Neither is good. I mean I'm prochoice, but neither of those reasons are good reasons to have an abortion. In fact they are both terrible ones, IMO.
I don't know if there is a single gene necesarily for Deafness. This sorta thing usually has a variety of causes.
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I have really got to get to bed... I loved grammar in elementary school, I just didn't know what it was for until I applied it to a foreign language. But I recall the definition of a preposition as "anything a mouse can do or be to a hole" and that didn't make a lot of sense to me. I also memorized a list of 22 helping verbs.
P.S. Hatrack writer's workshop. There is a link in the banner above...
The argument was not that the Deaf wanted to abort hearing babies, but "How would it feel if someone wanted to abort members of your culture?" I mentioned on the ASL thread that the deaf community has a chip on its shoulder due to the large overlap between deafness and some actual learning disabilities. I think Down's Syndrome is one, and we already know that most people wouldn't think twice about aborting a child with Down's Syndrome.
The point is, the deaf community is in the position many minorities were in 50 years ago where it was widely believed that empirically inferior traits went along with the minority classification.
[ January 07, 2005, 12:45 AM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
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quote: I don't know if there is a single gene necesarily for Deafness. This sorta thing usually has a variety of causes.
There are so many different kinds of deafness and so many different causes. But some are probably genetic. And if that gene were found, and gene therapy on the unborn became a reality, I think the Deaf community would feel threatened by that.
I understand you feeling "rubbed the wrong way" by the Deaf community. I really had to fight against similar feelings as I learned about it. I personally think this sort of behavior is common in any tight-knit, small, isolated social group. A lot of it comes from narrow ranges of experience and ignorance. But this is how they actually feel.
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The examples people always like to give of the arbitrariness of grammar are the ones that are typically not emphasized much these days anyway. I mean, have you ever truly had a teacher penalize you for a split infinitive or a preposition at the end of a sentence?
These few examples do not convince me of the worthlessness of formal grammar instruction.
(Though, again, I agree there are better ways to get a basic grasp of grammar. It would be better if the formal instruction was only fine-tuning what was already there.)
quote: I understand you feeling "rubbed the wrong way" by the Deaf community. I really had to fight against similar feelings as I learned about it. I personally think this sort of behavior is common in any tight-knit, small, isolated social group. A lot of it comes from narrow ranges of experience and ignorance. But this is how they actually feel.
See, that sort of attitude in groups like this always frustrates me and pisses me off to no end. Becuase often these groups are the ones who preach tolerance and that they should be accepted for what they are and they rely on that tolerance and acceptance in the workplace and in life. Then they are intolerant with in their own community? And if they'd just open up their minds a little, they'd find they don't have to look to a closed, tight-nit community like that to get support, they could get support from a much larger community that doesn't just include those who are deaf, but many many other people.
The whole "you can't understand me, becuase you don't face the problem I face" attitude that is evidenced often by these sorts of group frustrates me to no end. No, I don't face the same problems, I face the a different set of problems which THEY can't understand, until they talk to me and try to understand it. And I can't understand theirs, until they talk to me and try to help me understand. Its just... ARGH!
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posted
My AP english teacher had a couple of pages of deadly composition errors that we had to avoid on pain of... something awful. It may have been an F or 10 points off per infraction on that assignment. Also, the split infinitive is the one people are always mocking the Star Trek thing over. Maybe just the folks I hang around with. As you can tell, I don't try too hard to avoid dangling prepositions. But I do know when they are happening. Dangling participles actually bug me.
Anyway, I had a pretty good education so I guess it's easy for me to say folks don't really need it. But it hasn't gotten me far in life.
P.S. Another legitimate beef the Deaf community has is that people keep trying to teach their language to Apes. True, the Apes haven't become proficient. Koko was able to invent a phrase to describe her feeling of apparent loss when her kitten died. I forget what it was, but it was a combination of terms to describe something different. Some signing apes have been observed passing the signs on to their children. (At which point the experiment was shut down by NASA )
The Great Apes are very close to humans, but I think of our language capacity is like a peacock's tail, and the development of it probably serves similar purposes. That is, birds have tails to balance them in flight and while walking. The peacock's tail is so big it has difficulty doing either. Likewise our language capacity was meant to build communities, but we use it instead to compete, to sue, to run for office, and do other things that are counterproductive the the purpose it was apparently intended for.
[ January 07, 2005, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
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quote:Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see ...
[see link below for rest of poem]
I'll offer up a link to Lisel Mueller's Monet Refuses the Operation as another perspective. It is a poem, not an argument, but when I first ran across it, it gave me pause for heavy reflection. It is written in the voice of Monet, who is explaining to a physician why he does not want to have his cataracts removed. The cataracts are, of course, seen as an obvious affliction by the physician.
Mueller wrote a great poem. It is one of four items I always have in my office. For me, it is a good reminder that disability and ability are always contextual, never absolute. Granted, we often share the same general context, but not always.
As for hearing, it is a sense I could do without. Most of what I find unpleasant in the world is sound-related, and I find noises a terrible distraction from my research work. By trial and error, I've found one album (The Essential Leonard Cohen) that I can play on headphones to drown out officemates without driving me crazy, but it's the only one. I lisen to it all day, every day, and it is a great comfort. Before that, I was jumpish and skittered and distracted all the time. Even with earplugs, I found myself unable to ignore regular office noises enough to get absorbed in my work.
At this point, I wouldn't voluntarily give up my hearing, though, because I will continue to work with patients, and I have to be able to communicate with them in order to figure out how to help them. A lot of pediatrics is vet medicine, true, but not all of it. The adolescent part sure isn't.
However, were I just doing textual research, it would be a mighty temptation. I don't say this lightly, and I don't say it just to play the devil's advocate. I'm serious. My ideal vacation would be to take the Northwest Passage up by the pole. Stark white -- ice and snow, minimal visual distractions. No talking, no music. Just thinking. (Unfortunately, the icebreaker ships do make a lot of noise, but I expect it will be more of a white noise, once I get used to it.) I look forward to this trip, and I've figured out how much it will eventually cost.
I can't think well with distractions, especially not with noise distractions that are constantly pulling my attention away. They feel abrasive. I've often wondered whether this is a bit of PDD / "autism spectrum" symptomatology for me. Certainly many of these children seem to find many noises quite abrasive and upsetting, too. I imagine that they might well welcome deafness, too.
Of course, then the problem becomes: "Isn't it just that you are defective, that for some reason you cannot process this sense properly. The problem is not the sense itself (that is a gift! a blessing! and unmitigated good thing), and if you were wired right, then you would appreciate it."
*shrug
It's all context, it's always context. I haven't found many people who can concentrate as much as I can, who are as good at pattern recognition in text or in conceptual analysis. You may not have that, just as I may not have your particular skills or talents. I certainly do not enjoy music as others do. (Ask Tom and Christy! They have played Cranium with me as I tried to hum Stairway to Heaven. Pretty excruciating for all involved.) I know this means I miss out on a lot. I have heard and read how glorious, spiritual, and defining music can be. Good grief, Synesthesia is particularly eloquent about it here, but there is a wealth of data out there through history on how important music can be.
But it doesn't turn me on. Geometric theorems do, as do formal proofs in logic, a tight conceptual analysis, the interlocked feedback loops of endocrinology, and differential diagnosis. Mind you, math and music are often associated loves. I have one, but not the other.
Were I in a different context (say, 12th century AD), the disabling nature of deafness would likely far outweigh the enabling nature of it. Again, it is always contextual. But I see no reason to necessarily privilege one context over another.
What an interesting conversation! I'm glad I found the thread.
[ January 07, 2005, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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(Note though, that I said more senses was better with the specific caveat "provided your brain is wired in such a way as to be capable of processing all of the input." I was specifically thinking of things like David Brin's novel The Hollow Man, in which the main character can perceive the thoughts of those around him, but can't drown them out (not a unique sci-fi dilemma, but an interesting handling of it) and is miserable. He would give up that sense, if he could, because of its disruptive effect on his life.
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posted
I reckon we won't. Interesting to read different perspectives, though.
Note too that I said it is always about context. Nobody is ever exactly like anyone else, so which context is the privileged one will always be up to negotiation.
(BTW, I just read your Other Side thread. I just about died laughing. Woke my husband.)
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One context: "provided your brain is wired in such a way as to be capable of processing all of the input" --> more senses is better
Another context: "provided your brain is wired in such a way as to be capable of processing non-sensory structure in its fullest detail" --> fewer senses (distractions) is better
A third context: "provided your brain is wired in such a way as to be capable of appreciating a less detailed discrimination of a sense" --> having blurred vision from cataracts is better, as opposed to seeing in crisp detail [think Monet, as per hypothetical in the poem above]
[ January 07, 2005, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote: Regarding your first two contexts: are they mutually exclusive? You seem to take it for granted that they must be.
I'd guess that in some metacontexts they are mutually exclusive, and in other metacontexts, they are not. (How's that for weaselly? ) Seriously, humans do not have limited potential. We are finite, bounded creatures. Some can do one, some can do both, some can do neither. And placing any of these in a given situation would make any one of them "better," depending on the constraints of the situation.
quote:Regarding your third context: this is circular, neh?
How so? (I really don't understand -- where is the circularity here, as opposed to any of the other examples?) I think that what makes a characteristic "better" is relative to context of what is possible and what is valued. That is always true, though, for any example of the like.
quote:Regarding my Other Side thread: Thanks!
Well, it is self-referentially brilliant. Dare I say ... cunning?
[ January 07, 2005, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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"And placing any of these in a given situation would make any one of them 'better,' depending on the constraints of the situation."
It is certainly true that a child born without legs is at an advantage when he and his friends are attacked by the Leg-Eating Monster.
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Well, if he were in a situation where one's toenails are particularly prone to Flesh-Eating Gangrenous Crud, he sure would be.
Look, I understand that currently we operate in a situation where many standardizations are assumed. E.g., it is undoubtedly more difficult to get through life as a left-handed person, since so much (from schoolchairs to scissors to can openers) is designed for right-handers. Not a severe disability, but yes, a disadvantage in this context. But really, that is on the level of red=stop and green=go.
Once we settle on a convention, bucking the convention puts you at a disadvantage. But there is nothing intrinsic about the convention itself.
The world as we have it now presents us with certain standardized conventions. We can change some of them, and some of them we can't. Still, the "betterness" is relative to the convention.
[ January 07, 2005, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
There is a Flesh-Eating Gangrenous Crud of the toenails, BTW. That isn't its scientific name, but it exists. Scout's Honor.
*fingers crossed (well, there are parasites and things which have a prediliction for the area under the toenail)
But for a less silly real-world example, there is the classic case of sickle-cell disease. Why would we ever have selected for a propensity to undergo painful crises of clumped blood cells in the extremities, lungs, etc., leading to autosplenectomy (and subsequent vulnerability to all the nasty encapsulated bacteria) and, in a not insignificant number of cases, death?
Well, if you live in an area endemic with malaria, it is protective. Context matters. There are very few things that we as humans all share which would ground any sort of "betterness" intrinsic to any member of us (as a species) that are not heavily moderated by the environment we are in.
And most of those environmental factors can be changed. We may decide not to change them, but that doesn't negate the essential arbitrariness of chosing that convention.
[ January 07, 2005, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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Circular because you are saying an inability to perceive sharp edges is advantageous in the context of a person who is capable of enjoying that. Come on . . . if I take that to an extreme, an inability to defend oneself is advantageous in people with the capacity to enjoy being victimized, and it is incorrect to say that this inability is intrinsically worse, since, depending on your perspective, it is better.
-o-
This isn't the same as left- and right-handedness, where both are abilities, they are merely different ones. You are comparing the presence of an ability with its lack, and with a few caveats, I say the presence of a ability is always preferable to its absence.
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posted
I don't like music either, Sara. I think it's because I'm not a naturally outgoing person, so my neurotransmitter exhaustion manifests as OCD instead of ADD. But society kind of caters to extroversion. I guess I have noise in my head a lot of the time, and noise in the environment is just annoying.
I've always said I'd rather be blind than deaf because I worked extensively with a blind woman, and seen how she was able to live independently. "Though the blind are reputed to have capabilities compensating for their lack of vision..." Funny that people believe this about the blind and not the deaf.
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I have a bizarre love-hate relationship with music. I find it elating, but it is so powerful that I choose not to listen to it 90% of the time. It hijacks my emotions and mood too much, sometimes in a way that has a net unpleasant effect.
When I do choose to listen to music it is either soothing and wordless or old and familiar.
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Dave worked with a deaf man in Winnipeg who was quite able to function perfectly well on his own. He, being of that age and sex, of course used it to his advantage: when eating out for lunch, he'd gesture at the menu with quizzical looks in order to get the waitress to lean closely over his shoulder.
Yes, the guys made a habit of going to Earl's, which is well-known for its shapely waitresses.
Yes, he did it on purpose.
Yes, the other guys dogged him because they were jealous. They were also appreciative.
(I have to work for awhile, but I'll be back later in the afternoon. )
[BTW, everyone who worked at that research center had gone through ASL training as part of their work orientation. The guys found this much to their advantage in larger provincial conferences, as they could sign wisecracks and snide remarks to each other during presentations without anyone knowing. For a while, Dave and I made use of ASL to talk across the room to each other -- e.g., in a Barnes & Noble cafe -- but my skills are rusty now. Shame, that.]
[ January 07, 2005, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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I'll never be able to think of cunning linguistics without picturing Robin Williams in drag. :retch:
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pooka -- I can't believe you revived that screen name after giving me such a hard time for calling you pooka instead of Trisha. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I also find it bizarre that you mocked me for calling you the "sex kitten" name "pooka", but your current name seems more more sex kitten than "pooka" does.
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I believe the phrase was "sexy pet name". "Sex kitten" is just perverted. And this name is from the StrongBad kid's book. How can it be bad?
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Deafness is not anything like homosexuality - a homosexual is still fully capable of engaging in sexual activity. A deaf person has lost something, a gay person has not.
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Deaf people do have some advantages though. They have a very good eye, and are quick to observe. The same is true of their sense of touch. (In fact their sense of touch is quite heightened, and goes hand in hand with their need for social interaction, so that the deaf community tends to be more sexualized than hearing people) When a deaf person is not looking at you, and you want their attention, you simply stomp on the floor unless there is someone they are talking to who can see you waving your hand. They can feel the vibration very well, and tell what direction it came from.
But I think there is another defecit of being deaf that isn't spoken of here. That is social development. You would be amazed at how much children learn just by being around the conversation of others, even in the simplest situations such as preparing something for dinner or hearing other kids on the bus. Deaf children are unable to recieve this particular input. All spontaneous communication they recieve must be within visual range. Among hearing families, it must also usually be directed at them. The problem is that ASL really is a second language for hearing people. It is much easier for us to communicate verbally. Even the hearing family dedicated to making their deaf member be included will let slide many things that were spoken but not signed. And this is even where all the children have learned sign from the beginning. Our family is good friends with a family that did carry a genetic trait for deafness. Three of ten children were deaf. But still, there was lots of translation rather than communication occuring.
This is a lot of why deaf people are so isolated. They cannot make the leap, and so for interaction with the hearing world they must rely not only on our tolerance, but our whim at deciding to learn ASL.
There are a lot of social niceties my sister hasn't picked up on because of this, and because deaf culture sometimes even goes so far as to pronounce itself superior to hearing culture, she has often excused herself from paying attention to us when we outright tell her that such behavior is not polite, and sometimes quite rude.
She went to a public school at first, but the translators were fairly incompetent and even rude sometimes. So my parents enrolled her in the deaf school they had already purposefully moved close to. We found the teachers were far too tolerant of poor behavior and study skills. We found hearing parents that literally dropped their kids off in the fall and didn't see them again until summer. When those kids got older, they would tend to not go home, but stay with a deaf friend instead. Their family hadn't even bothered learning sign. No wonder many deaf people feel no love for the hearing community. Most hearing people never go beyond a few moments of feeling pity for the deaf person.
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quote: Deafness is not anything like homosexuality - a homosexual is still fully capable of engaging in sexual activity. A deaf person has lost something, a gay person has not.
Foust, what is your take on the perspective offered by the poem (Monet Refuses the Operation)? When he lost part of his eyesight to catacts, was it necessarily a bad thing? Was it only loss?
(*honest question )
[ January 07, 2005, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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