kajarainbow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kajarainbow) wrote2004-06-26 07:53 pm
kajarainbow) wrote2004-06-26 07:53 pm
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A little bit of deaf history related to current events.
I forgot about this little tidbit for a long time, but let me mention it: Alexander Graham Bell wanted legistration passed to prohibit deaf people from marrying each other
Now, a summary for those of you who might have known about Mr. Bell's connection with the telephone, but not his connection with deafness: he had a deaf mother and he married a deaf woman. His biography is full with instances of his involvement with deafness (he formed a school for the deaf, also open to hearing people, and did the first survey of deafness, things like that).
Bell advocated oral teaching methods (teaching based primarily on teaching the deaf person in spoken English). This can be successful for some deaf students, but it isn't for all, and it can be difficult for the deaf person. The people it tend to work the best with is the "hard of hearing"--those who have the most hearing. I've often wondered if I would've been a better speaker and lip-reader if I'd been brought up in such a program, but with the severity of my deafness (pretty damn close to complete, utter, and total), I strongly suspect it would've been a horrible failure. Bell also pushed to oppose the use of sign language.
And as I said, he pushed to outlaw the marriage of deaf people to each other. This was based on eugenics, back then a rather more popular topic. Now, just maybe there might've been some faint pretext for reasonable objection to deaf people's intermarrying if deafness was mostly hereditary. But it mostly isn't. Most deafness either is a result of random birth defects not really related to genetics or occurs later in life (like in my case, I became badly sick at the age of one).
I think the correlation of this to current/recent events is obvious. Many people made similar objections about interracial marriages and interreligious marriages, too, born out of ignorant assumptions about the probably results. Let me repeat it again. They assumed it would have negative impacts without actual data. It is possible that those negative impacts might exist (though I've heard of a number of studies showing that they don't), but those people seem to be just automatically believing they do.
I recently saw an editorial in the newspaper about how some pro-same-sex marriage researchers had reviewed the data from various studies on the children of same-sex parents. It was all, "See, there're differences!" Which is certainly what those researchers found, but misses the point entirely. How actually harmful are the differences. The only potentially harmful one I remembered were increased sexual activity, and that's primarily harmful primarily because of the side effect health risks. The children were also more likely to have experimented with homosexual sex, which actually makes sense, since they have more experience with the concept than most children of opposite-sex parents. The editorial made absolutely no mention of whether the children actually had higher rates of homosexual or bisexual sexual orientations, only that they were more likely to have flirtations with the concept.
The article's tone was obviously, "Just wait, we just need to do more of those studies, and then we'll see all the bad effects it has!" But the thing is, she assumed worse results would be found, it seems from her tone.
Yes, there were deviations from the norm. But... is that in itself actually a freaking bad thing in itself? To just say that those children are different isn't very meaningful. Children of deaf parents for the most part aren't more likely to be deaf, but they're more likely to know sign language (and likely to look at the hearing world just a little differently than one who's been raised without any close exposure to deaf people). Is this a negative thing? Children raised within different religions will have differences. Children raised by parents from different cultures will have differences. Is this really a problem?
Part of the reason why this editorial writer was gloating so much is the rather stupid political strategies taken by so many activists. They insist that it won't make any difference on children, as if simply making differences is a problem. More activists should get at the root issue and talk about how it won't make truly significant negative impacts on children.
I mean, deafness is a very major handicap, a much more serious issue than homosexuality, and yet it's not considered politically correct today to argue that handicapped people shouldn't marry each other because this would result in handicapped children. Of course, a good part of this is in related to the better understanding we've gotten of how and why people are handicapped... which is part of my point, actually. Eugenics is no longer popular, except in reguard to homosexuality.
All that junk that's considered stupid and quiant to believe in nowdays? It had life in the first place because people believed in what to them was the plain, obvious thing, they assumed facts without actually having the means to verify them or without bothering to use those means.
Now, a summary for those of you who might have known about Mr. Bell's connection with the telephone, but not his connection with deafness: he had a deaf mother and he married a deaf woman. His biography is full with instances of his involvement with deafness (he formed a school for the deaf, also open to hearing people, and did the first survey of deafness, things like that).
Bell advocated oral teaching methods (teaching based primarily on teaching the deaf person in spoken English). This can be successful for some deaf students, but it isn't for all, and it can be difficult for the deaf person. The people it tend to work the best with is the "hard of hearing"--those who have the most hearing. I've often wondered if I would've been a better speaker and lip-reader if I'd been brought up in such a program, but with the severity of my deafness (pretty damn close to complete, utter, and total), I strongly suspect it would've been a horrible failure. Bell also pushed to oppose the use of sign language.
And as I said, he pushed to outlaw the marriage of deaf people to each other. This was based on eugenics, back then a rather more popular topic. Now, just maybe there might've been some faint pretext for reasonable objection to deaf people's intermarrying if deafness was mostly hereditary. But it mostly isn't. Most deafness either is a result of random birth defects not really related to genetics or occurs later in life (like in my case, I became badly sick at the age of one).
I think the correlation of this to current/recent events is obvious. Many people made similar objections about interracial marriages and interreligious marriages, too, born out of ignorant assumptions about the probably results. Let me repeat it again. They assumed it would have negative impacts without actual data. It is possible that those negative impacts might exist (though I've heard of a number of studies showing that they don't), but those people seem to be just automatically believing they do.
I recently saw an editorial in the newspaper about how some pro-same-sex marriage researchers had reviewed the data from various studies on the children of same-sex parents. It was all, "See, there're differences!" Which is certainly what those researchers found, but misses the point entirely. How actually harmful are the differences. The only potentially harmful one I remembered were increased sexual activity, and that's primarily harmful primarily because of the side effect health risks. The children were also more likely to have experimented with homosexual sex, which actually makes sense, since they have more experience with the concept than most children of opposite-sex parents. The editorial made absolutely no mention of whether the children actually had higher rates of homosexual or bisexual sexual orientations, only that they were more likely to have flirtations with the concept.
The article's tone was obviously, "Just wait, we just need to do more of those studies, and then we'll see all the bad effects it has!" But the thing is, she assumed worse results would be found, it seems from her tone.
Yes, there were deviations from the norm. But... is that in itself actually a freaking bad thing in itself? To just say that those children are different isn't very meaningful. Children of deaf parents for the most part aren't more likely to be deaf, but they're more likely to know sign language (and likely to look at the hearing world just a little differently than one who's been raised without any close exposure to deaf people). Is this a negative thing? Children raised within different religions will have differences. Children raised by parents from different cultures will have differences. Is this really a problem?
Part of the reason why this editorial writer was gloating so much is the rather stupid political strategies taken by so many activists. They insist that it won't make any difference on children, as if simply making differences is a problem. More activists should get at the root issue and talk about how it won't make truly significant negative impacts on children.
I mean, deafness is a very major handicap, a much more serious issue than homosexuality, and yet it's not considered politically correct today to argue that handicapped people shouldn't marry each other because this would result in handicapped children. Of course, a good part of this is in related to the better understanding we've gotten of how and why people are handicapped... which is part of my point, actually. Eugenics is no longer popular, except in reguard to homosexuality.
All that junk that's considered stupid and quiant to believe in nowdays? It had life in the first place because people believed in what to them was the plain, obvious thing, they assumed facts without actually having the means to verify them or without bothering to use those means.
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