Deaf President Now

ED AYERS: You know, guys, I noticed from those interviews with Douglas Baynton and Brian Greenwald how in the 19th century reformers categorized and labeled and institutionalized people with disabilities, and now, obviously, these reformers had good intentions, but it seems to me that something was lost from earlier times. So, Peter, what was gained and lost from the 18th century to the 19th century world in which people were institutionalized?

PETER ONUF: Well, in a way your question says it all, Ed. There aren’t institutions, and everything that’s done [laughs] in terms of social welfare has to be done literally at home or in your hometown or village.

ED AYERS: That sounds good.

PETER ONUF: It is good in the sense that you have a place. Whatever you’re born with, however you’re born, whatever marks you as different is accepted. One of the reasons it can be accepted is that 18th century society, even in British America, is hierarchical. There is a culture of caring because without that care people can’t survive, and the survival—

ED AYERS: It’s kind of a culture of responsibility, right?

PETER ONUF: Yeah, exactly. You know that phrase about “it takes a village” to do this, that, and the other thing, and that begins with taking care of small children and anybody who needs help.

BRIAN BALOGH: Peter, did it matter that so many people in the, let’s say, late 18th century worked in the home?

PETER ONUF: Yeah, Brian, I think that’s a great point. We think of work as an activity that we’re slotted into once we join the labor force.

BRIAN BALOGH: Right, you commute off to work.

PETER ONUF: But let’s just say you can’t go out into the fields anymore. Well, there’s something for you to do in a household economy. [laughs]

BRIAN BALOGH: There’s plenty to do.

PETER ONUF: Right, there is plenty to do, whether it’s child care, whether it’s food preparation, whether it’s simply watching the world go by and reporting on that to your neighbors, you’re a part of an organism, of a community.

ED AYERS: So, wasn’t that better?

PETER ONUF: Yeah, that’s better, Ed, but what’s not better is the sense that your destiny is fixed with those marks at birth, whatever it is that distinguishes you, and the whole [laughs] range of things that we now call disabilities—mental, physical, whether they happened as a result of an accident and you’re “dis-abled”—all of those things lead to a fixed and permanent outcome.

That idea that you cannot pursue happiness—and we understand happiness to be the aspiration to be a full and complete human being—because you happen to be in this category, then it’s different being disabled. Then, to be disabled is not to participate.

BRIAN BALOGH: Peter, were the categories of what today we call disabilities, were they the same back then, or are these inventions of the 19th century, or the 20th century?

PETER ONUF: Well, I think they are largely inventions of the 19th and 20th century, and part of that is based on the idea that you can do something for somebody with what we call a disability, you can enable that person, whereas I think in the 18th century you are what you seem to be. I mean, if you can’t do something, you can’t do it. There’s no probing question because there’s no hope that the diagnosis is going to lead to any kind of outcome.

BRIAN BALOGH: That’s what strikes me as different from my 20th century purchase: the presumption shifts to being whole, enabled, fully entitled citizens with certain barriers. You might even think about those curb cuts that we have today. If you can only put cuts in the sidewalk, they can function like anybody else, and that seems very different than your period.

PETER ONUF: And I think the neologism “ableism” suggesting prejudice against those people with disabilities that is that they can’t overcome the effects of those disabilities, and an ableist is simply going to consign those people to the fate of not being able to participate. Well, that would be to return to the 18th century.

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