Fred Arthur Fisher

ASLP 4045 Section(s) 900,950 (Fall 2019 1): Basic Rehabilitative Audiology

Module 3, Assignment 2:
Deaf Culture & Cochlear Implants
The TedxGeorgetown talk by Heather Artinian is about Heather’s experience as a Deaf person
who finds herself in-between the Deaf world and the hearing world. Heather is often asked
“Which world do you belong to?” This appears to be a form of Dualistic cosmology. One cannot
be both hearing and Deaf, so these two worlds appear diametrically opposed. Heather rejects
this notion and postulates that the world to which she belongs is “Heather World.” She has
adopted Hume’s Bundle Theory of the Self. What makes Heather, Heather, is not a unifying idea
of Deaf or hearing, but her many collections of personal experiences, both hearing and Deaf.
For many people, this theory of self is infuriating. People have such an investment in the
concept of a unified self, they believe unless there is an identifiable unifying concept, there can
be no such thing as the self. If I am not Deaf, then what I am in undefinable. If I am undefinable,
then how do I know there is a me?
Indeed, the concept of Heather is undefinable. This can make people very uncomfortable.
Heather makes an argument for building, or becoming, a bridge through this discomfort.
“Heather World” is a bridge between the Deaf world and the hearing world because she has
experiences in both. She has Deaf parents and Deaf brothers. She went to Deaf schools and has
Deaf friends. She also has hearing grandparents. She went to hearing schools and has many
hearing friends. In the pair of documentaries about Heather, there is much discussion about
how the Deaf community feels getting the cochlear implant is a rejection of the Deaf world. It is
giving up the identity of being Deaf in favor of being hearing. They see the underlying notion is
that hearing people believe being hearing is superior to being Deaf. The unfortunate thing is,
most hearing people would agree.
When considering the idea that the self must have a unified expression, consider that almost no
hearing person would identify themselves as hearing. They consider hearing as the status quo.
Hearing is, to the hearing, normal. It is in rejecting the idea of the bundled self, rejecting the
idea of “Heather World”, that they can no longer classify Heather as an “other”. A hearing
person is then confronted with Hegel's Master/Slave Dialectic. The hearing must be able to
identify an “other” before they can identify themselves, the “normal”. If Heather isn’t “Deaf”
they can no longer see her as a lesser. To the Deaf, if Heather isn’t “Deaf” she is no longer with
them in opposition to their “other”.
Heather states her goal is to "Grab the opportunity to bridge the worlds within your life".
Rather than accepting a label of a “them” or an “us”, Heather chooses to be both. She uses her
identity as an “us” to show that there is no “them”. There is only “us”. Heather knows ASL and
has experience in the Deaf world. She can communicate to them the similarities between them
and the hearing world. She can bring them a level of understanding and deescalate any innate
hostility. Heather can also communicate with the hearing world and educate them about the
Deaf world. She can demonstrate that someone who is Deaf is no different than someone who
speaks Spanish. By being able to use her bundled experiences, and by refusing to live on either
side of the bridge, Heather can utilize another one of Hume’s ideas: Moral Sense Theory.
Heather is able to create empathy not through Reason, but through personal experience,
emotion and understanding.
I’ve learned from Heather that we can all do this for all the various bridges we all span through
the world. I have experiences in many worlds who see themselves as diametrically opposed. A
bridge built has an exponential effect. Once people realize that they, too, are bridges in-
between worlds, they can create those bridges for others. Just as Heather did for me.