Here’s a short Youtube video of baby having his cochlear implant turned on for the first time, allowing him to hear sound. The baby’s reaction is pretty adorable, but I imagine that a substantial number of deaf people might find this video troubling. Deaf culture is premised on, well, deafness; sign language and the entire cultural ecosystem surrounding sign language is a response to the inability to hear and communicate in the traditional sense. Introducing an artificial means of hearing to this kid at an early age is going to short-circuit his introduction to and immersion in deaf culture. Whether that’s an objectively bad thing is difficult for me to say. While no particular culture is associated with my disability, I’m pretty confident that technology will make people like me historical curiosities in the next few decades. Deafness probably has a similar fate awaiting it and, given rapid advances in implant technology, the timeline might even be shorter. I’d be curious as to whether the deaf community has considered how to respond to families and medical professionals who are going to find such technology irresistible.
beautiful š