Customer Reviews

The Deaf Mute Howls (Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies Series, Vol. 1)

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Albert Ballin's _The Deaf Mute Howls_ has been rightly rescuedfrom obscurity by Gallaudet University Press. Balllin offers usvaluable insight into the Deaf community of the 1930s. As a utopian thinker, Ballin argued that all people, deaf and hearing, should learn sign language, in order to end the isolation of deaf people in a hearing world. This was a powerful "howl" indeed in the '30s, a time when oral education had succeeded in banishing sign language from schools for the deaf completely. Ballin reveals the discontent bubbling in the Deaf community in this difficult period, and his book remains an important one today for anyone interested in Deaf history. Doug Baynton's introduction to this new edition is also quite useful.

In this book, Ballin offers his suggestion for a utopian society where the Deaf and hearing communities both thrive, where every individual is fluent in sign language. Ballin wrote from the perspective of what he considers to be the typical deaf experience, including fictional stories that were not his true life experience, but what he felt were common experiences of deaf children.

My biggest issue with this book is that Ballin constantly contradicts himself. He says one thing, then turns around and provides arguments against it.

On one hand, he is supporting and fighting for sign language to be accepted for the deaf community. He provides hypothetical situations where a person could better communicate through sign language than spoken language. Ballin wrote this book with the idea to showcase the value of sign language and ways to elevate the status of deaf individuals in society. However...

He uses common "oralist tactics", supports mainstreaming, devalues sign language and the deaf community all together. He refers to the deaf community as being unnatural, helpless, stubborn, vicious by nature, useless, etc. He describes the hearing community as being more fortunate, having ordinary intelligence, having an infinite number of subjects to discuss. He presents these ideas so much that I'd say this book, in the end, is pro-oralism.

Because the inherent discrimination in society, it would be incredibly hard for anyone to be truly and completely bias-free. Ballin's book provides examples of how the Deaf were socialized to view the deaf experience and to automatically, and subconsciously, dehumanize themselves.

I'm glad that Gallaudet decided to publish this book and it provides an interesting perspective of the Deaf experience in which to consider and study.