The Mask Of Benevolence Summary

The Mask of Benevolence was honestly shocking to me and made me rethink a lot. I thought it was interesting and intriguing that it discussed the views of most hearing people and talked about why they aren’t necessarily right. Many of the facts, opinions, and details of how things had been dealt with in the past completely surprised me. One of the most surprising things for me was how each culture viewed one another; which was almost all negative. Of course, not all people in each category have those thoughts. The book was an amazing read for me because I was able to see and understand some things as the deaf culture does because the author, Harlan Lane, was so specific and explained things through the thoughts she heard from people within the deaf community.
In the beginning of the book, Lane discusses how the deaf culture views cochlear implants and the oral communication of deaf people. And though I was unsure why there was there was such a strong dislike of these things,
And those that deny it as a language are simply just incredibly uneducated. Something I found interesting was when Lane discussed storytelling in the deaf community on page 16. She explained how deaf children learn the importance of storytelling and they practice at a very young age. Lane states that “clear communication is highly valued; stories should be rich in detail, start at the beginning and end at the end, and contain plain talk; hinting and vague talk in an effort to be polite are inappropriate and even often offensive” (p16). How is that not talking about a culture with a rich language? In fact, I feel as though the deaf can actually communicate more than the hearing. Because not only do they have the language like we do, their facial expressions and attention to detail are way beyond the average hearing