Arguments Against Impairment Disability

Is Impairment Disability? Society comprises individuals and communities of remarkable diversity. In addition to racial, ethnic, social, economic, and religious differences, people also have physical differences, which include a wide spectrum of abilities. Along this spectrum lie a range of impairments, or disabilities, and to fully understand the implications of impairment and disability, it is important to define the two terms. In an effort to accomplish this, and to illustrate two opposing views on impairment and disability, the ideas of artist-activist Liz Crow and film director-producer Josh Aronson will be examined. In doing so, the argument will be made that in order to move toward a society where prejudice and barriers no longer
exist, patience and an open minded attitude, not segregation, must be adopted. According to Crow, author of “Including All of Our Lives: Renewing the social model of disability” in 1996, “while impairment is the functional limitation(s) which affect a person’s body, disability is the loss of opportunities resulting from direct and indirect discrimination” (Crow 3). By this definition, when impairment exists, disability follows only when discrimination occurs in the face of that impairment. In the case of the Artinian family in Aronson’s 2000 film documentary Sound and Fury, however, many, if not all, deaf people insist that their inability to hear is not, in fact, an impairment. Peter and Nita Artinian, the deaf parents featured in Aronson’s work, insist that being hearing would not improve the life of their daughter Heather, who wants to correct her deafness with a cochlear implant, an electronic device that is surgically implanted in the inner ear to provide a sense of sound to the deaf person. The Artinians’ deaf pride affects both their judgement and their decisions when it comes to the medical procedure; they are proud to be deaf and do not want to change this part of their lives, as is clearly established within the first scenes of the film when Peter Artinian states, “I want to be deaf, so when my three kids were born deaf, I thought ‘great, my kids are just like me!’” The patriarch believes that their deafness is integral to their identification as productive members of society, and that by living in a community of deaf people, this identity is strengthened. This pride and desire to belong almost exclusively to the deaf culture contradicts Crow’s contention that “our pride comes not from ‘being disabled’ or ‘having an impairment’ but out of our response to that” (Crow 18). In other words, according to the author, only by breaking down the attitudes and external barriers that limit opportunities can people with impairments be free of the prejudice that defines disability. Although Peter and Nita Artinian hold fast to their beliefs and act in accordance with them, the outcome of their decision to live in a largely segregated community may prove limiting, which is exactly what they are fighting to avoid. Opportunities for their children to experience life in a way that allows them to face challenges and to grow through those trials are significantly reduced. Allowing their daughter, and perhaps her brothers also, to have the cochlear implants would not necessarily mean that they would turn their backs on the deaf culture or take less pride in being deaf. It would result in a new way to communicate with others and to experience the world. They would be able to straddle the deaf and the hearing worlds. Segregation would take this away from them. The Artinians’ denial of deafness as problematic directly opposes Crow’s proposal for a renewed social model of disability in which the importance of impairment must be recognized in order to confront disability.
Crow insists that acknowledging the positive aspects as well as the negative implications of impairment in impaired people’s lives will lead to a more inclusive and successful disabled people’s movement. Throughout her article, Crow argues that despite the importance of being honest about impairment, this acknowledgement is lacking in the current social model. The Artinians, however, wholly stand by and reinforce this flawed social model by consistently refusing to recognize deafness as an impairment, actively contradicting Crow’s arguments. Moreover, not only do the Artinians, and many other deaf people in Sound and Fury, not think of deafness as an impairment, but they also insist that they are not disabled. Throughout the film, deaf people repeatedly deny the potential benefits of giving a deaf child the ability to hear, maintaining that they live successful and happy lives, unhindered by their inability to hear. Although these claims may be true, the deaf characters in the film fail to admit the reality of their situation: they are limited by this inability to hear. The belief of the Artinians and the others in the deaf community that they are neither impaired nor disabled consequently hinders the movement toward the social change for which Crow is
advocating. Crow’s belief that impairment must be recognized has the objective of the amelioration of the disabled people’s movement. In her words:
The logical outcome of a successful disabled people’s movement is a reduction in who is perceived as having an impairment. An absence of disability includes the widespread acceptance of individuality, through the development of a new norm which carries an expectation that there will be a wide range of attributes within a population. (Crow 17)
This view of society as accepting and non-judgemental may seem utopian at the outset; however, with time and education, both formal and informal, working to change attitudes from within would appear to be more realistic than the option of avoidance and segregation. Rather than sharing Crow’s belief that different impairments must be recognized in order to end disability, the Artinians seem to believe that disability is reduced if impairment is overlooked. They believe that by surrounding their children with people who share similar impairments to them, they will be accepted and made to feel safer. Their motivation is clear when, in an attempt to do better for their children, Peter and Nita move their family to Frederick, Maryland, a small town with a large deaf community. By the Artinians’ logic, disability and its accompanying barriers are eliminated not by recognizing and including people with all types of impairments, but rather by segregating them to specific communities exclusive of the larger society, which imposes attitudes toward disability. The Artinians recognize their impairment and use it to their advantage by banding with others and creating communities that are separated from the non-impaired world. This solution to disability directly opposes Crow’s proposition of inclusion, which is the foundation of her redefined social model. One could argue that only those who are deaf could ever have an intimate understanding of what it means to be deaf in a hearing world, and the Artinians are firm in their belief that living in a predominantly deaf community is the most effective way to hold onto deaf culture and its values and practices.
Sound and Fury shows how Peter and Nita, in order to provide their family with security and a bright future, make decisions about where they live and whether their children receive the opportunity to hear. In contrast to the attitude of impairment acceptance presented by Aronson, Crow claims that society needs to change the attitude of prejudice that results from the concept of disability. Via “Including All of Our Lives: Renewing the social model of disability”, she models a way to eliminate the very element that the Artinian family believes does not exist within the deaf
community. The dichotomy of the points of view taken in the film documentary and the scholarly paper examined here illustrates the complex nature of attitudes toward and understanding of impairment and disability in society. Although neither of their views is definitive, both Crow and Aronson make strong cases for consideration of two diverse outlooks. In the end, however, it is the idea of the Artinian family that living among the deaf is the best course that falls short. The disadvantages appear to outweigh the benefits of world where diversity in all its forms is diminished. In contrast, Crow’s goal of a society that accepts the impairment while eliminating the disability, may be idealistic, but it seems more desirable and in the long run, more achievable.