Should Deaf Culture Be Preserved?

“Some Deaf Advocates Denounce Ear Implants That Reproduce Sound; Medicine: They contend that being unable to hear is no handicap and oppose ‘invasive surgery.’ Doctors say they’re mystified by that view.”
Author: Scott Maxwell
Publication: Lost Angeles Times
Date: October 31, 1993

It is admirable that, in spite of prevalent prejudices, the deaf community has stood fast and built an effective support network. This network has become so dear to many that they cannot accept its ever becoming obsolete. Thus, the mounting use of cochlear implants represents, to them, a subtle form of genocide. However, I must respectfully disagree with their viewpoint because this general conversion to cochlear implant use is nothing like the systematic extermination of a people. This trend simply represents the inexorable push toward greater technological heights. Since sign language was an invention born of necessity, it should be subject, like any other outmoded model, to replacement by a better one. No coercion or hostility would be involved if sign language—and the deaf culture itself—grew obsolete through disuse or abandonment. And, in my estimation, there is a huge difference between full-blown cultural genocide and natural assimilation into the mainstream world.

It is bewildering that the deaf community should even prevent its own members from receiving implants since other handicapped groups do not intervene so fiercely in similar circumstances. In the words of Dr. Karen Jo Doyle, an otolaryngologist at UC-Irvine, “You wouldn’t expect people who have a handicap to not want others with handicaps to get help. You don’t see the blind coming out against surgeries and treatments that help improve vision and you don’t see quadriplegics coming out against the new technology in electronic limbs.” It does not seem fair for staunch deaf advocates to bar others from new technology simply because they themselves boycott the implants.

Although deaf advocates claim one can lead a fulfilling life without hearing, I do not believe anyone should lose sight of the fact that human beings were intended to hear. Why else would we have evolved such sophisticated auditory organs? Therefore, deafness—like any other genetic or acquired defect—should not be received as a natural state. It should be understood as an atypical state that can and ought to be remedied. In Maxwell’s article, one deaf advocate protests that professionals treat deaf Americans "as though they’re hearing people who don’t hear. It’s like treating black people as white people with a skin disease.” I contest the accuracy of this analogy because a claim that black people are supposed to have pale skin would not make any biological sense, whereas the claim that deaf people are supposed to hear corresponds with evolutionary history. The fact that deaf people have ears—structures specifically formed to transmit auditory signals—proves that they were intended to hear, but were prevented by some physical impairment.

I began this investigation without any prior knowledge of cochlear implant technology. Even if I had known of the device, it would never have occurred to me that anyone could oppose giving the gift of sound to the deaf. Of course, even the way I phrased that sentence betrays how favorably disposed I was towards the implementation of cochlear implants. Even now, I remain unshaken in my belief that deafness is a deficiency which requires correction.

While sign language was an immediately viable solution to the communication problem, its scope of efficacy was limited to those who knew how to sign. Now that cochlear implant technology is available—enabling deaf people to communicate by spoken word—the scope of efficacy has expanded to the larger hearing population. The ability to interact—even if on an unequal footing—with a larger population must be preferable to interacting with a smaller group. Moreover, as technology becomes more refined, this slight imbalance will eventually be eliminated. The difference, then, is of leading an insulated life versus leading one with a greater potential for discourse and exchange of knowledge. The choice, to me, is an easy one to make.