Apathy Sketchpad

Before I start, I want to explain to anybody who has so far failed to notice, that I have no interest in being politically correct. I think it is an irrelevance. It really bugged me, for example, when the TV Times referred to someone (a fictional character, no less) as “a short person with hypermobility syndrome”. I mean, yes, it’s true, but I have friends whom that could be describing. The person in question was a dwarf, which is entirely different from being short. Dwarfism is a genetic condition — it is also known as nanism, but I prefer the term ‘dwarfism’ because as a physicist the word nanism to me implies a height not much greater than that of a large molecule. I think you should call a spade a spade, and if the spade is offended by this then it should get over itself and possibly seek counselling, because being a spade, it is unlikely to be able to avoid hearing the word spade and it clearly isn’t healthy to shield it from itself like that.

Right, now that’s out of the way, the point I wanted to make has nothing much to do with any of the above. I recently (on the admittedly rather stunted scale this site seems to update over) heard about a new thing they can do to help deaf people hear. It involves a microphone, a tiny radio link, an electrode, and the person’s cochlea. Apparently it can restore a good amount of hearing to a totally deaf person. Which is good. Obviously it’s good. There is, however, one group of people who are against it: the deaf.

I was as suprised as I choose to assume you are by this news. The deaf don’t want to be able to hear. I don’t know why, but it seems to me that being deaf has sort of become part of their identity. The deaf community is just that — a community. But the point I would make, were there any deaf people who felt this way here, and were I able to communicate with them without spending all my money text-messaging them, is that being deaf is not part of who you are; it’s part of your body.

Phrases you are unlikely to hear in the future:

• “I don’t want liposuction because I’m afraid the fat community would shun me.”
• “I don’t want laser eye surgery because being myopic is part of who I am.”
• “I don’t want a wheelchair. It’s a form of genocide.”
• “Please don’t cure my disease; being terminally ill doesn’t make me worse than any of you.”

And it’s largely all true. All those opinions have been expressed by the deaf to justify not wanting the ability to hear things. I swear the word genocide was used to describe restoring people’s hearing. But I would make one simple argument: “Being able to hear is demonstrably better than being deaf”. Now, I realise that having never been deaf one might argue it isn’t my place to make these arguments, but then, many deaf people have never been able to hear, so I figure that I have as much information as them on this issue. I also have some experience of being hard of hearing, because I have been to the Revolution in Leeds, and you can’t hear a bloody thing in there, and I would love to know sign language for that place.

I can enjoy music and use telephones. I can hear if a car is hurtling towards me and leap to the relative safety of a ditch. I can communicate with most of the people I meet on any given day. If I lost my hearing I could do none of those things. And that’s how I would think of it. I wouldn’t think “I have gained a wonderful disability!” or “I have swapped an ability for an equally desirable trait. Ho-hum”. I would think “Oh, shit. I wonder if it’s too late to return that CD”. Then I would add music to the list of things I hate people talking about, along with sports, cars, and my hair.

But the worst thing is people who inflict this irrational belief on other people. One couple who couldn’t concieve naturally decided to find a deaf sperm donor to minimise the chance that their child would be able to hear. You could have had a child with no disabilities but you decided to add one. You bastard. You have, in effect, deliberatly disabled another person.

You’re all a bunch of totally bloody loonies.