I do think that our community is somewhat reflective of society’s evolution, but I also think it has to do with our norms, values and with how much you’re educated.

I mean, when you think about it, we’ve been basically institutionalized to believe that we can only do so much. We can be only educated up to a certain point, and so on. So I think that has a factor in people’s attitudes regarding critical thinking. We as a whole, have not been taught how to use it properly.

A good, thoughtful post as always!

Very true. I just wish people would understand that our identities aren’t just WHAT we are, but WHEN we are what we are.

Another example: You’re Italian? I’m German. In fact my family is probably one or two generations removed from being about as German as you can get. My grandparents and most of my great uncles and aunts have since passed away but when I was a kid there was as much German flying back and forth at confirmations (a Lutheran thing) and family dinners as there was English.

Now… am I still German? It makes up a part of who and what I am, so that makes that part a “what,” technically… sort of an abstract… “thing” (in the noun sense) within me. But technically there should also be a TIME, or times, when I’m acting or being more German than at others (such as those confirmations or those family dinners of yore).

Think about it… everyone asks us: “Are you Deaf?” The very question limits the answer to “yes” or “no.” But since very few of us are ALWAYS something… isn’t the more honest answer to that question “no?”

But if a person asked: “Are you going to choose to be Deaf right here and right now?”, then many of us could quite honestly answer “Yes!”

I think your deaf identity comes from how you view your own deafness. I don’t view my deafness as something that’s pathological - something that has to be fixed, or something to be ashamed of, or something to ‘overcome’.

I view it as an integral part of what makes me, me. I don’t want to take it away, because to take that away, will have a drastic impact on who I am.

Fundamentally, I am who I am, deafness and everything else thrown in. And the world will have to deal with it one way or another.

~ Deaf Pundit

Yeah, it makes sense. True freedom is choice, and the more choices one has, the more truly “free” one is. The paradox, however, is that one is never truly free from the consequences of his or her choices, and the more choices you have, the more potential consequences there are.

Which is why I always find it kind of stupid when people sternly warn others by saying “You have to realize that choices come with consequnces.” It’s so true, it’s meaningless–especially as a threat. ALL choices come with consequences… including the choice not to make a choice. Therefore you’re ALREADY LIVING with the consequences of every previous choice you’ve ever made, and if you could truly tolerate that, you wouldn’t be looking for new options.

You can apply that argument to the abstract concept known as “Deaf Identity.” Why should such an identity consist of just one choice, and not a series of choices? Why should it consist of a choice in only one area (such as the language one will use) and not a series of choices in a number of areas (such as the type of language one will use in a particular setting at a particular time, but not in another setting in a different time)? When “Deaf” people (as if it is possible to establish a set of criteria by which a person can “choose” to be “Deaf” in ALL situations at ALL times) argue that they want people to embrace their culture and language, what do they mean? Does such embracing involve only one choice at on time in one place, or does it encompass several choices in various settings over time?

I SLOWLY, for example, gave up SIMCOM and turned my voice off in the classroom. Am I less “Deaf” because it took me about twenty years instead of one day? If you must know, it was literacy research that finally convinced me to do so, along with the arguments of several people I met over the course of my life.

However in the spirit of full disclosure I also have to add that I feel no real need to switch my voice off when talking to my wife in the privacy of our own home. Does that choice make me not “Deaf?” A question such as that is too narrow to cover the complexities of identity (and the freedom to constantly choose and therefore reinvent one’s identity). A better question might be: if I make that particular choice (to use my voice) in that particular setting (the privacy of my own home) at that particular time (when talking with my hearing wife, for example, as opposed to talking with a Deaf visitor), and the consequence of that choice is to be “not Deaf” in that particular time and setting, does making a different choice (to not use my voice) in a different time and setting (such as in my classroom during class time) render me “Deaf” again?

Complicated, hm? Yet not really.

BTW, I would love to see how your deaf teachers taught hearing kids to read, as I had been told that the phonetic approach is truly the “only” way. Do you know of any good sources that I could peruse?

Insightful comment, thanks for sharing.