Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh. When I came across a post on Facebook showing a pretty gruesome picture extolling the evils of cochlear implants, I was appalled at the sentiments expressed in the comments beneath it. But sometimes, life likes to remind you that there’s always a bright side to such things.
“Wow! It reminds me of the TV series Star Trek: Next Generation: Best of Worlds. Captain Picard became part of The Borg against his will.”
Obviously, this being Facebook, I’ve altered that comment to make it look halfway legible. But that’s not the point. A lady kindly compared people with cochlear implants to The Borg.
If you don’t know who The Borg are, they’re a recurring enemy for Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Think of them as Star Trek’s version of the Cybermen from Doctor Who.
But I disgress, a lady compared us CI users to The Borg. Now, I’m sure you’re expecting outrage at the lady for comparing us to soulless, evil cyborgs from outer space bent on adding more soulless, evil cyborgs to their soulless, evil floating empire.
But actually, I found it hilarious. Quite frankly, the idea of CI users walking down the streets assimilating poor deaf people into their soulless, evil floating empire is just comical.
And it’s quite telling how cochlear implants, in some quarters, are built up to this image of a terrifying procedure devised by doctors hellbent on destroying deaf culture as it exists today.
So we’re just soulless, evil cyborgs brainwashed by our Audiologist Masters looking for poor unsuspecting deaf victims to drag back to our Hive hospitals to undergo the procedure and create even more soulless, evil cyborgs.
Obviously it’s stage one of The Borg’s master plan to destroy deaf culture. We’re hellbent on assimilating deaf culture into the The Borg. Then we take on the blind.
But we are rational people aren’t we? People commenting on a picture of a painting on Facebook aren’t all going to be intelligent people capable of rational thought. It is Facebook after all.
I know that the vast majority of deaf people have come to accept cochlear implants as just another way of being. Just another part of deaf culture.
So when posts like Winship Creations’ painting crops up, people can be appalled. Just like in issues of racism, homophobia, discrimination and all the other illnesses of society which shouldn’t exist today.
But then you remember, these people are a minority and they shout the loudest. The best counter to all of that is to laugh at them and ignore their delusions.
Just think of that poor lady and her belief that cochlear implants are members of The Borg and laugh. Because it’s all true.
WE ARE THE BORG. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
*Disclaimer: that last bit, and other selected bits of this article, were tongue-in-cheek*
Callum Fox is walking the divide between the hearing and deaf worlds. Profoundly deaf since birth and CI user. In his spare time he balances being 22 years old, being a football fanatic and trying to make it as a writer, journalist and human being. Follow him on Twitter as@WalkTheDivide
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Andy not Mr Palmer but another one
May 28, 2013
How dare you do a daring exposay of my clandestine evil empire!
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
May 28, 2013
Haha! Are you the Borg Queen by any chance?
Cheryl
May 28, 2013
I chuckled all the way through your blog, thanks!
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
May 28, 2013
No bother at all, thanks for reading!
bozothewondernerd
May 28, 2013
Maybe FaceBook should provide a, ‘Green Ink’ option 🙂
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
May 28, 2013
@Jen Dodds Why not? While we all have different circumstances, we’re all deaf at the end of the day.
Jen Dodds (@deafpower)
May 28, 2013
Um, cochlear implants are “just another part of deaf culture”?! I think not. Please explain, just in case I’ve missed something vital. I need to know…
Andy not Mr Palmer but another one
May 28, 2013
About 60% of pupils currently at Mary Hare school have at least one CI and many have two.
I can sign, speak, lipread and listen to the radio. Not all at once mind, but I am working on it. Not bad for a lifelong Deafie and makes a nice change
The Deaf person of the future will probably be able to hear quite well.
vickyvixen24@yahoo.co.uk.
May 28, 2013
Well people with implants are still deaf …
Perch
May 28, 2013
Jen, you need to get out more … or live in the now.
Jen doesn’t want people with implants to be in her gang. Only purebloods are welcome in Slytherin.
Jen Dodds (@deafpower)
May 28, 2013
@ Callum Fox: I was simply wondering how a piece of equipment (which is essentially what a CI is) can be a part of a culture, and hoped you could explain that to me, is all. I am genuinely interested.
@ Perch: I don’t usually reply to anonymous comments, but I thought I should point out that you obviously don’t know me. If you did, you’d know that a) I don’t do gangs; I’m far too old, and b) I spend most of my time with hearing, speaking people. And, as I sometimes have to remind my four year old son, it isn’t nice to call people names.
Perch
May 28, 2013
@Jen Clothing is equipment and that is very much part of different cultures around the world. Musical instruments are equipment and they are form strong elements in many different cultures. Guns are part of American culture. Ipods are part of youth culture. Objects become part of a culture when they are used by the people in that particular grouping but that’s blatantly obvious and I doubt that’s what you really meant.
I think it can be inferred from your original reply that you had taken exception to the view that cochlear implants were part of deaf culture, not on the basis that they are equipment, but because you have some kind of prejudice against them or the people who use them. Otherwise you could have asked: ‘I don’t understand how a piece of equipment can be part of a culture – please explain?’
Hartmut Teuber
June 1, 2013
Perch and other audists,
you are talking about the material aspects of “culture”. Truly, they are most obvious and easily given as determinants of a culture. They are trivial. A culture worthy of discussion goes much deeper. It concerns a mindset, world view, and set of behaviors, much of them very subtle (language, group norms, values, collective or individualistic mindset, homogeneity, arts and lore, etc.). For the Deaf Culture, in addition to them, there are Deaf Experience – our multi-faceted experiences of living within the hearing environs – and Deaf History – the educational history of oralism with its accompanying suppression of sign language and pushing deaf people to become Borgs of being pseudo-hearing, of denying them to be naturally Deaf (see Genesis 4:10)..Borgs are metaphors of being strange and unnatural as human beings, not of “enemies” to fight against.
The CI is just an innocent device, a ware that a few people are trying to become rich from and who are not giving a damn about Deaf people as an ethnic entity. CI is medically not as necessary as a heart pacemaker. But what behind this innocent “equipment” lies, is much more serious. Nobody in this industry has shown any respect and acceptance of the idea of the inability to hear being OK and good and which enriches mankind. Hearing loss has been named as the scourge of mankind by a leading aural educator, a university professor. CI has been pushed to be on the same pedestal as the heart pacemaker. The ENT folks have behaved like used car salesmen (I can quote horrendous pronouncements from leading ENTs) and some CI-users walk around like proselytes or Jehovah Witnesses, trying to convert people with a “hearing problem” to get a CI .I know of noone with a heart pacemaker walking around like that. That is what underlies the nature of the problem and why they are not liked in the Deaf Community. It is not because of wearing a CI, but of certain behaviors that are not acceptable. I have several friends, who wear a CI and have been accepted in the Deaf Community. They are not proselytizing and do not exhibit any audistic behavior, and continue to support the political, and cultural agenda of the Deaf Community professionally and personally. They have learned to behave like any deaf person with a hearing aid.
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
May 28, 2013
@ Jen Dodds: While it is a piece of equipment, it doesn’t define us as people. We’re deaf just like any other. I think deaf culture will grow to include CI users as a ‘type of deaf person’, if that isn’t already the case.
The fact that it’s a piece of equipment has nothing to do with it, I personally feel that it’s become a characteristic of a group of people, which fits under the umbrella of ‘deaf culture’.
After all ‘culture’ is defined as a group with a specific characteristic, deafness in this case, and can contain different groups of people with the same characteristic within it, ie. CI users, signers etc.
That’s my opinion though, you may feel otherwise. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a hard and fast answer.
Hartmut Teuber
June 1, 2013
Callum,
deafness is only a triggering, but not the most defining aspect of the Deaf Culture. What happens with the CI is the assault of the mighty hearing part of the society against being Deaf and strengthens the audism in the society, which in turn discriminates deaf people economically, politically, culturally, and socially.
One needs to distinguish between deafness as one platform of being human and as hearing loss. For a deafened person, deafness is a hearing loss. No question about it and we always respect this sentiment, when he seeks a medical solution for it. There have been no proclamations by any Deaf intellectual or Deaf organization of any country that question his decision for a medical or technological solution. But for someone deaf born or deafened in childhood, deafness is not hearing loss. They unfortunately continue to be victimized like those in earlier times by oralism as part of the schema of hearing loss.
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
June 1, 2013
@Hartmut Teuber: As someone who was born deaf, I totally understand where you’re coming from. But I resent the idea that somehow I’m a “victim” of the cochlear implant company when they’ve been extremely good to me. Audiologists are not seeking to destroy deaf culture, but simply offer a path for parents not willing to trust in the ideal of deaf culture (understandably so in many cases). It certainly isn’t an ‘assault’ on the deaf as you claim.
You speak of knowing people with CIs who are ‘accepted’ into the Deaf community as long as they support the “political and cultural agenda” in both a “professional and personal “capacity. You’re effectively saying that if I don’t support your beliefs, I’m not part of deaf culture. That’s utter rubbish. I’m my own person, and I have the right to my own opinion, not opinions forced onto me by others.
I’m deaf, and presumably you are too. Yet we have different opinions. That right there is culture. Culture brings together people with a shared characteristic (deafness in this case) but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to be exactly the same. The differences between individuals gives a culture diversity and from that comes strength.
I’m a firm believer that people with CIs add to deaf culture, rather than destroying it. It diversifies deaf culture, because at the end of the day CI users are also deaf people.
P.S. I was born deaf, not deafened. Just in case you mistook me.
Jen Dodds (@deafpower)
May 28, 2013
Perch (why don’t you use your real name? I can probably guess who you are anyway)… that’s an interesting point about culture, and food for thought indeed. I hadn’t thought of that.
Robert Pensa
May 28, 2013
…. What the difference between cochlear implants and Borg?
The Borg became one with the hive mind and had cybernetic devices implanted throughout his body and could still “feel” the Collective own physical system.
Cochlear Implants ( C.I) the development of listening from sound awareness to auditory and C.I research are followed systematically with regard to their development of communication skills.
The Borg are said to be more interested in assimilating technology than people.
Hartmut Teuber
June 1, 2013
Yes, the image of a Borg has been used in the debate to convey the unnaturalness of human being enhanced by implanted technology. It is to address how much we are willing to lose humanity to technology.
Audists regard hearing and speech be the sine qua non of human communication. They put CI to ensure that they remain the only means of communication. Oralism have tried that too.
Oh Dear
June 3, 2013
‘What the difference between cochlear implants and Borg?’
CI – Non-fiction.
Borg – Fiction.
Andy not Mr Palmer but another one
May 28, 2013
The definition of a Cyborg is that it is a human with one or more functions replaced by machinery. Oscar Pistorius is a cyborg and so am I. Cyborg is in fact a contraction of Cybernetic Organism.
You will be assimilated. There is no escape, puny humans!
Sam
May 28, 2013
I would agree with @Jen in that its not another part of deaf culture given that you don’t need a CI to be part of the culture which is the implication of that statement. Instead we should say that having a CI doesn’t mean that you can’t belong within that culture if you choose to get involved.
Jen Dodds (@deafpower)
May 28, 2013
I think that’s a good explanation, Sam!
deaflinguist
May 28, 2013
I don’t think you can have two mutually exclusive circles with BSL users in one and CI users in the other. It’s more like a Venn diagram – and I know I am not alone in being in that bit in the middle.
We could be seen as aliens pretending to be human stalking the streets . . .
. . . or maybe we ARE just human.
Liz Ward
May 29, 2013
I know this is slightly unrelated – but thanks for having a rather geeky article up! (my fiance and I actually watching the last series of Star Trek Voyager at the moment and of course the Borg are in it).
More and more I think that deaf identity isn’t one or the other – far more of us are somewhere in the middle. Having a CI doesn’t exclude you from using BSL for example, in fact quite a few of the people I know who have CI use BSL and have strong deaf identities. I think CIs are an aid, a more permanent hearing aid, and it would be like saying people who choose to wear hearing aids are Borgs-in-training (!!)
I know there are those who feel that CIs are somehow taking over the world and pander to audist ideas of deafness (as needing to be cured), but at the end of the day I feel that its a personal decision and isn’t entered into lightly by either the person undertaking the procedure or the doctors involved. You are still deaf with an implant. Not all of us are eligible for implants anyway. Some people feel it’s too invasive, but that’s okay too because after all, people have different approaches. What isn’t okay though is like you say, people discriminating against and excluding people.
Michael Cardosi
May 30, 2013
perfect – I was thinking the same where is number 7 of 9? she should be somewhere out there!
Andy not Mr Palmer but another one
June 1, 2013
There is an awful lot of cattle manure talked about Deaf culture. The fact is there are lots of kinds of Deaf culture just as there are lots of kinds of hearing culture. Anyone who thinks that they can simplify the issues down to just one version of the culture is thinking on similar lines to the Communists.
In Communism people are forced to believe the Party ideology by being excluded if they don’t. That is exactly what I keep seeing in the constant barrage of propaganda for a certain type of Deaf culture.
Mostly what I see is angst ridden diatribes from people who can’t really handle being Deaf so they attack other Deaf people who can. Deaf chip-on-shoulder-itis.
Oh Dear
June 3, 2013
@Perch. ‘Guns are part of American culture. Ipods are part of youth culture. Objects become part of a culture when they are used by the people in that particular grouping.’
What a load of utter tripe. If I buy a gun, do i become part of American culture? Being old, if i buy an Ipod, do i become part of youth culture?
Culture is a framework of behavioral patterns, values, assumptions and experiences shared by a social group and relies on emotions and senses. Objects IS a physical thing and has no bearing whatsoever on culture.
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
June 3, 2013
I disagree. It is true that if I bought a gun, I wouldn’t automatically become part of American culture. But objects can be an integral part of a culture.
American culture centres on the bill of rights, the rights of the people hard won after the American Civil War. One of those rights is the right to bear arms, in other words guns. That is why guns are such an integral part of American culture and not just a physical object. It’s the traditions centred around the gun. and it certainly has a huge impact on culture. Objects can be an essential part of cultures everywhere.
Just look at religious idols, traditional clothing, and even the very earth itself in form of territory. Christianity, one of the oldest forms of culture is based on two obvious physical objects – the cross and the Bible – which you can find in schools and churches across the world.
Oh Dear
June 3, 2013
‘American culture centres on the bill of rights, the rights of the people hard won after the American Civil War.’
Oh dear……It was after the American War of Independence……ACW happened in the following century.
Why do you and others link physical objects to culture? It’s all nonsense. You believe it because you were told it? By parents? By TV adverts and corporation’s marketing campaign?
Callum Fox (@WalkTheDivide)
June 3, 2013
My point stands. Explain to me why you believe physical objects can’t be part of culture. There’s countless examples that prove it to be the case.