Deaf culture and the cochlear implant debate: cyborg politics and the identity of people with disabilities.

• Author: Cherney, James L.

"I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess."

--Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (181)

One of the more provocative ideas about the body to arise in recent years is the notion of the cyborg as a radical political identity. Launched by Donna Haraway in her "Manifesto for Cyborgs" in 1985, the theoretical investigation of "cyborg politics" has culminated in several books, including Haraway's own Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Constance Penley and Andrew Ross's Technoculture and an impressive collection of essays by over 40 different authors called The Cyborg Handbook. In this work, cyborg politics describes a mode of advocacy that transcends the conventional relationship of agency and body. While the majority of this work focuses on developing the cyborg in the context of feminist theory, a recurrent theme stresses the applicability of cyborg politics for a variety of oppressed and subaltern identities. Indeed, at its core the cyborg represents a radically new subject position for a postidentity politics world, and seeks to embrace within its fold those various groups that currently advocate "identity politics." Among these, people with disabilities have been explicitly addressed as potential advocates of and adherents to cyborg ideology, yet little work has critically examined the value of cyborg politics for the political and social goals of the Disability Rights Movement.

People with disabilities have always had a complicated relationship with technology. As technology is built for and by bodies, many technological advances reify and affirm notions of normalcy that disable people who do not conform to the norm. Stairs and telephones, for example, are technological advances that have historically allowed and supported "progress" in architectural and communications design. Yet to those in wheelchairs or people who are deaf these can present serious difficulties. On the other hand, technology can provide aids and prostheses that allow many bodies to accomplish tasks associated with "normal" life. From the aforementioned wheelchair to the Kurzweil Reading Machine, technological advances have often made the lives of people with disabilities easier, more productive, and more fulfilling. Furthermore, technology often provides access to those areas that had previously excluded different people with disabilities. Ramps and elevators allow passage where previously only stair-users tread, and the teletypewriter (TTY) allows people who are deaf to use the phone. Finally, those who view disability as a lack, an insufficiency, or a challenge to be overcome often seek to "solve" the "problem of disability" through tech fixes. The medical community especially has developed therapeutic machines, surgical procedures, and drug regimens that attempt to (re)make disabled bodies. Because technology plays so many roles in the lives of people with disabilities, they view each new technological advance with close scrutiny.

This long and enduring relationship has suggested to many cyborg theorists that people with disabilities are in a unique position to exploit the cyborg identity for political ends. Penley and Ross, for instance, assert that "the highly developed technoculture of the handicapped and the complexity of their discussions around appropriate levels of technology" is an important area for future study of cyborg theory (xvi). Likewise, Haraway suggests in the Cyborg Manifesto that "Perhaps paraplegics and other severely handicapped people can (and sometimes do) have the most intense experiences of complex hybridization with other communication devices" (Simians 178). While this paper cannot hope to cover all the issues that arise in the disability community's discussion of the appropriate integration of technology with their lives, I investigate the potential of cyborg politics as a mode of advocacy for people with "disabled" bodies. First I will perform a brief archaeology of the vision of the cyborg as a solution to disability as articulated in science fiction stories of living spaceships. Such fantasies depict the systematic logic governing the appropriate relationship of cyborgs and normal bodies at the earliest appearance of the cyborg in our culture. In the second section, I investigate the controversy over a particularly cyborgian technology--the cochlear implant--that continues to take place between members of the Deaf and hearing cultures. These public arguments over the political and social function of the body identify the cultural constraints that limit cyborg politics. Finally, I offer some theoretical explanations for the cyborg's potential and limitations as a mode of political advocacy for people with disabilities, by investigating how the theoretical ground of cyborg and identity politics compete.

THE CYBORG AS SOLUTION

An early assertion of the cyborg's potential for people with disabilities appeared in science fiction stories where living cyborg spaceships dwelt among the earliest fantasies of cyborg existence. These stories projected a future where technology would allow the physical integration of human beings and spaceships to create the ultimate space travelers. The idea of developing cyborgs for space exploration is rooted in the very concept of the cyborg. In 1960, Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline coined the term "cyborg" to describe their vision of a human being that would be able to survive unassisted in the radically different environment of outer space. In a prophetic assessment of their work, the two scientists commented that some of what they proposed "are projections into the future which by their very nature must resemble science fiction" (30). Within a year, cyborg rocket ships began appearing as characters in science fiction stories. Anne McCaffrey's 1961 story "The Ship Who Sang" introduced the "brainship" Helva (designation XH-834), while Larry Niven's first published story "The Coldest Place" featured a similar cyborg spaceship named Eric in 1964. These characters realized Clynes and Kline's vision in an ultimate fashion, leaping past mere "electronic modifications of man's existing modus vivendi" (29) to become living ships: human brains and nerves wired into "prosthetic aids," "ramjets," and "permanent titanium shells." While different manifestations of the cyborg would continue to appear in sci-fi literature, the cyborg ship would remain a popular figure in the genre. McCaffrey combined "The Ship Who Sang" with other stories about Helva to form a book by the same title, and she continued to write a popular series of novels centered on "brainship" characters. (1) An interesting subtext links all of these stories: Eric, Helva, and the other brainships in McCaffrey's books are all cyborgs created out of people with disabilities.

The history behind Niven's Eric was told in the sequel, "Becalmed in Hell," written in 1965. There we learn that Eric was once an astronaut who had heroically "tried to land a moonship without radar" (15). When technicians had scraped together what was left of him, and installed it into a permanent life support system built into a spaceship, Eric became the "ideal spaceman." More machine than man, Eric retained the intellect, curiosity, and adaptability of the human mind, making him the perfect operating system for his partner/passenger, a fellow astronaut named Howie. Once repaired by technology, however, Eric lost his status as a disabled person. "Space leaves no cripples; and don't call Eric a cripple, because he doesn't like it," Howie admonishes us quickly after Eric's cyborg status is revealed (9). On its face, then, the story suggests that Eric's cyborg existence is a powerful and empowering experience, which frees him from the stigma associated with being disabled as well as from the limitations of being a human.

Similarly, McCaffrey's hero Helva was developed from a disabled person. In this case, however, Helva's status is fore-grounded in the text. The first paragraph of the story states unequivocally:

She was born a thing and as such would be condemned if she failed to pass the encephalograph test required of all newborn babies. There was always the possibility that though the limbs were twisted, the mind was not, that though the ears would hear only dimly, the eyes see vaguely, the mind behind them was receptive and alert. (1)

After several operations and a youth spent training for her existence as a cyborg, Helva is incorporated into a ship and bonded into service to Central Worlds, the primary government of McCaffrey's future. Like Eric, Helva is paired with an able-bodied human (called a "brawn" to match Helva's status as a "brain") who acts as her partner on the various missions she performs. Instead of using this relationship to explore human/ cyborg interaction, McCaffrey writes the brain-brawn relationship as a metaphor for traditional marriage. Helva is courted by and falls in love with her first brawn, Jennan, and she is nearly driven to suicide when he is killed during a rescue mission. This narrative, which is the central plot of the first story/chapter, sets the stage for the recurring pattern of the Helva stories, which are more an exploration of Helva's humanity than anything else. In subsequent stories Helva develops close personal relationships with other brawns and brains, gets divorced, and metaphorically experiences motherhood. As N. Katherine Hayles put it, "In The Ship Who Sang, there is essentially no difference between a cyborg and a woman" (331).

On one hand, this depiction of the cyborg as essentially human supports the political goals of the disability rights movement. McCaffrey's treatment of Helga suggests a cyborg that is really, in all significant ways, a human being. It does not matter that the body has been altered, for the central quality that defines human existence lies in the experiences of growing, developing relationships, and facing the challenges of life...