329: pregnancy

My sister is great with child. She looks beautiful, but also strange, like a soft and inflated doll. But when I touch her skin and arms I feel hardness, and she orders us all around like a Captain Commander, with blase directness.

Pregnancy has been a great part of my life, lately. I dream of being pregnant, which I know means an idea is coming or a project is in progress in the back of my head. My friend Regan recently gave birth; and there are other omens.

For myself I wait for what must come.

The world too is pregnant with change. And so is the Deaf community.

Deafhood is a process of pregnancy. It is a gestating idea. What most people don't understand - or wilfully misunderstand - is that this idea came from another country and reflects the problems that country had in terms of Deaf people. Dr. Ladd, the author of "Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood," was not trying to make a universal philosophy of Deafhood. Rather he, like a scientist, approached trying to come up with facts. There is, indeed, a universal philosophy, but it must be applied. This is where American Deaf people have made their mistakes. Rather than looking for the basic principle, and using it to interpret the American Deaf experience, they have looked at the conclusion, and used it as if it were a basic principle. This is like - ok, we have a basic principle, called Gravity. We always start with gravity, then use gravity to interpret how planets interact with each other. What American Deaf have done so far with Deafhood is to take the conclusion - is to see how planets interact - and apply this universally. All planets must interact the same way!

But what American Deaf people have done is wrong. Not all planets interact the same way. The thing to do is find the theory, then use it with the variables. You can't say that another solar system will have the same planets, the same mass, the same stars. You can use the theory of gravity to interpret where planets in another solar system, with different mass, will move.

Our country is not England. I wish it were sometimes, if only so there would be chips with vinegar all over the place, but it isn't. To use conclusions drawn by a British person about a mostly British experience and apply it to America directly is as silly as using ketchup and expecting it to be mustard. Again and again and again. More on this later. I'm pregnant with ideas.