Siddhartha, 563-483 B.C.
Plato and the Prophets are
the most important
sources of modern culture.
--HERMAN COHEN (1924)
Beginning in 1864 with the inception of what is known today as Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., Deaf people could entertain the cultural evolution of higher learning and teaching in such a language they know the best, American Sign Language (ASL), which is, in the broadest sense, the linguistic revolution. Both the evolution and revolution are a progression in which Deaf people construe their experience and then change it to make "all the difference."
Of course anyone uses a variety of "forms of communication" in construing different areas of his or her experience, but the validity of Deaf experience needs ASL to support and address what we the Deaf know, value, and be responsible for our own intellectualism. Our knowledge as Deaf people is chiefly derived from pure reason, which is the final principle of reality. Our being Deaf is real and true without any consideration for emotions.
Higher learning and teaching has awakened reasoning in Deaf mind and our search for knowing (ancient Greece), our desire for wholeness (Jerusalem), and our enlightenment of this vast universe (Buddhism) are but the fabric woven in these strands for many centuries, from Socrates and his colleagues in Plato's Cratylus to Deaf people in the 18th century A.D. Paris Deaf School to graduates from Gallaudet University.
Socrates brings the philosophy of Athens to a sharp focus; Jesus does the same for Jerusalem; Siddhartha does the enlightenment of the universe. These three people are known to be in the pursuit of arete, in Greek meaning reaching the highest human potential, even at the cost of their own life.
Can we say that Laurent Clerc, Deaf French intellectual and educator, brings the language and culture of the Deaf to America?
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