Blindness and Visual Culture: An Eyewitness Account

Abstract

In April 2004, I was invited to speak at a conference on visual culture at the University of California, Berkeley. Speakers were asked to respond to an essay by W. J. T. Mitchell titled, ‘‘Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture,’’ which offers a series of definitions of the emergent field of visual studies, distinguishing it from the more established disciplines of art history, aesthetics, and media studies. As an admitted outsider to the fieldof visual studies, I chose to comment on the following statement: ‘‘Visual culture entails a meditation on blindness, the invisible, the unseen, the unseeable, and the overlooked’’ (Mitchell, 2002: 170). In my last book, Sight Unseen, I attempted to show blindness through my own experience, and a survey of representationsof blindness in literature and film.At the same time, I wanted to show seeing, to sketch my understanding of vision, drawn from a lifetime of living among the sighted in this visual culture we share. I started from the premise that the average blind CHAPTER 31 person knowsmore about what it means to be sighted than the average sighted person knows aboutwhat itmeans to be blind. The blindgrowup, attend school, and leadadult lives among sighted people. The language we speak, the literature we read, the architecturewe inhabit,were all designedby and for the sighted. If visual studies entails a meditation on blindness, it ismyhopethat itwill avoidsome of the missteps of similar meditations of the past. Specifically, I hope that visual studies can abandon one of the stock characters of the western philosophical tradition-‘‘the Hypothetical Blind Man’’ (Gitter, 2001: 58). The Hypothetical Blind Man-or the Hypothetical as I will call him for the sake of brevity-has long played a useful, though thankless, role as a prop for theories of consciousness. He is the patient subject of endless thought experiments where the experience of the world through four senses can be compared to the experience of the world through five. He is asked to describe his understanding of specific visual phenomena-perspective, reflection, refraction, color, form recognition-as well as visual aids and enhancementsmirrors, lenses, telescopes, microscopes. He is understood to lead a hermit-like existence, so far at themarginsofhis society, that he has never heard this visual terminology before the philosophers bring it up. Part of the emotional baggage he hauls around with him comes from other cultural representations of blindness, such as Oedipus and the many Biblical figures whose sight is withdrawn by the wrathful God of the Old Testament or restored by the redeemer of the New. His primary function is to highlight the importance of sight and to elicit a frisson of awe and pity which promotes gratitude among the sighted theorists for the vision they possess. I will not attempt to survey every appear- ance of the Hypothetical throughout the history of philosophy. It is enough to cite a few of his more memorable performances, and then to suggestwhathappenswhenhe is brought face to facewith actual blind people through their own first-hand, eye-witness accounts. Professor Mitchell alludes to the passages in Descartes’ La Dioptrique where he compares vision to the Hypothetical’s use of sticks to grope his way through space. Descartes’ references to the Hypothetical are confusing and are often conflated by his readers. In one instance, he compares the way the Hypothetical’s stick detects the density and resistance of objects in his path, to the way light acts on objects the eye looks at. In a later passage, Descartes performs a thought experiment, giving the Hypothetical a second stick which he could use to judge the distance between two objects by calculating the angle formed when he touches each object with one of the sticks. Descartes does not explain how the Hypothetical is supposed to make this calculation or how he can avoid running into things while doing so. I doubt that Descartes actually believed that any blind person ever used two sticks in this way. In fact, the image that illustrates his discussion shows the Hypothetical’s dog sound asleep on the ground, indicating that theHypothetical is goingnowhere. Even so, Descartes’ description of the way a blind person uses one stick reflects a basic misunderstanding. He imagines that the blind use the stick to construct a mental image, or its equivalent, of their surroundings, mapping the location of specifically identified objects. In fact, then as now, a stick or cane is a poor tool for this kind ofmental imaging. The stick serves merely to announce the presence of an obstacle, not to determine if it is a rock or a tree root, though there are sound cues-a tap versus a thud-that might help make this distinction. Inmany situations, the cane ismore of an auditory than a tactile tool. It seems that in Descartes’ desire to describe vision as an extension of or hypersensitive form of touch, he recreates the blind man in his own image, where the eyemust correspond to the hand extended by one or perhaps two sticks. The most detailed depiction of the Hypothetical came about in 1693, when William Molyneux wrote his famous letter to JohnLocke.Heproposed a thought experiment where a blind man who had learned to recognize geometric forms such as a cube and a sphere by touch, would have his sight restored through an operation. Would he be able to distinguish the two forms merely by looking at them? The Molyneux question continues to be debated today, even though the history of medicine is full of case studies of actual blind people who have had their sight restored by actual operations. Apparently, Molyneux was married to a blind woman, which has always led me to wonder why he did not pose his hypothetical question about her. Perhaps he knew that others would object that marriage to a philosopher might contaminate the experimental data. There was a risk that the philosopher might prime her answers or otherwise rig the results. Certainly in commentary on actual cases of restored sight, debaters of the Molyneux question are quick to disqualify those who were allowed to cast their eyes upon, for instance the faces of loved ones, before directing their gaze at the sphere and the cube. Denis Diderot’s 1749 ‘‘Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See’’ is generally creditedwithurgingamoreenlightened,and humane attitude toward the blind. His blind man of Puiseaux and Nicholas Saunderson, the English mathematician, were both real rather than hypothetical blind men. As he introduces the man from Puiseaux, Diderot is at pains to supply details of his family history and early life to persuade his reader that this is a real person. Significantly the man from Puiseaux is first encountered helping his young son with his studies, demonstrating both that he is a loving family man, and capable of intellectual activity. But the questions Diderot poses generally fall under the purview of the Hypothetical. Certainly, many of his remarks help support Descartes’ theory relating vision to touch: Diderot praises the blind man’s ability to makephilosophical surmises about vision, but does not have a high opinion of blind people’s capacity for empathy: The phrasing of the question here suggests an afterthought. I imagine Diderot, at his table, conjuring up two men, one pissing, one bleeding. While his visual imagination is practiced inmaking these sorts ofmental images he is less adept at tuning his mind’s ear. He recognizes that for the blood to be spilt at a rate sufficient to create the same sound as the flowing urine, the bleeding man would normally cry out in pain. So he imagines, in effect, a bleedingmute. But he fails to take into account the relative viscosity, not to mention the different odors, of the two fluids. But Diderot cannot think of everything. Now I imagine a blind man wandering onto the scene. My blind man is not quite the one Diderot imagines. For one thing he is a bit preoccupied; the philosophers have dropped by again. They talk at him and over his head, bandying about names that are now familiar to him: Locke, Molyneux, Descartes. They question him about his ability to conceptualize various things: windows, mirrors, telescopes-and he responds with the quaint and winsome answers he knows they have come for. Anything to get rid of them. Distracted as he is, the sound of the bleeding mute’s plashing blood registers on his consciousness. Lacking Diderot’s imagination, however, the thought does not occur to him that this sound emanates from a bleedingmute. His reason opts instead for the explanation that the sound comes from some man relieving his bladder-a farmore commonplace phenomenon, especially in the mean streetswhere theblindman resides. It is not that the blind man has no fellow feeling for the mute. Come to think of it, the mute would make a good companion. He could act as a guide and keep an eye out for marauding philosophers, while the blind man could do all the talking. But the blind man does not have enough information to recognize the mute’s dilemma. The only hope for the bleeding mute is to find some way to attract the blind man’s attention, perhapsby throwing something. But surely, such a massive loss of blood must have affectedhis aim.While theblindman, living as he does at the margins of his society, is accustomed to being spurned by local homeowners and merchants who find his presence unsightly, and so might flee the bleeding mute’s missiles without suspecting that his aid is being solicited. The blindman quickens his pace as best he can. The mute succumbs at last to his mortal wound. And the philosopher shifts to another topic. I am wrong to make fun of Diderot, since his treatment of blindness was at once far more complex and farmore compassionate than that of other philosophers.And it is not as if his low opinion of the blind’s ability to empathize with others’ pain has ceased to contribute to attitudes about blindness. Consider this anecdote from recent history. Some weeks after September 11, 2001, the blind musician Ray Charles was interviewed about his rendition of ‘‘America the Beautiful,’’ which received a good deal of air time during the period of heightened patriotism that followed that event. The interviewer, Jim Gray, commented that Charles should consider himself lucky that his blindness prevented him from viewing the images of the World Trade Center’s collapse, and the Pentagon in flames: ‘‘Was this maybe one time in your life where not having the ability to see was a relief?’’ Like Diderot, the interviewer assumed that true horror can only be evinced through the eyes. Many eyewitness accounts of the event however, were strikingly nonvisual. Many people who were in the vicinity of Ground Zero during and soon after the disaster found it hard to put what they saw into words, in part because visibility in the areawasobscuredby smokeandash, and in part because what they were seeing did not correspond to any visual experience for which they had language. People described instead the sound of falling bodies hitting the ground, the smell of the burning jet fuel, and the particular texture of the ankle deep dust that filled the streets. But for the majority of television viewers, eye-witnesses froma distance, those events are recalled as images, indelible, powerful and eloquent. To many, like the reporter interviewing Ray Charles, it is the images rather than the mere fact of the events that produce the emotional response. The assumption seems to be that because the blind are immune to images they must also be immune to the significance of the events, and therefore must be somehow detached from or indifferent to the nation’s collective horror and grief. It is fortunate for anyone interested in dismantling the image of blindness fostered by the Hypothetical Blind Man, that we have today a great many first-hand accounts of blindness. In recent decades, memoirs, essays, and other texts by actual blind people attempt to loosen the grip the Hypothetical still seems to hold on the sighted imagination. Thanks to work by disability historians, we are also beginning to have older accounts of blindness drawn from archives of institutions and schools for the blind around the world. One such account is a text written in 1825, by a 22year-old blind French woman named The´re`se-Ade`le Husson. Born in Nancy into a petit bourgeois household, Husson became blind at nine months following a bout of smallpox. Her case attracted the attention of the local gentrywho sponsored a convent education for her, and encouraged her to cultivate her interests in literature and music. At the age of 20 she left home for Paris where she hoped to pursue a literary career. Her first text, ‘‘Reflections on the Moral and Physical Condition of the Blind’’ seems to have been written as a part of her petition for aid from theHoˆpitaldesQuinze-Vingts, an institution that provided shelter and financial support to the indigent blind of Paris. For the most part, her text follows the example of comportment and educational manuals of the time, offering advice to parents and caretakers on the correct way to raise a blind child, and to young blind people on their role in It is by and since she from the for the her first-hand experience of blindness her a of that or that of the sighted While it is that convent education would have her to the work of Descartes or Diderot, she some of the same questions to the Hypothetical. It is that the who up her have in For instance, like Diderot’s blind man of Puiseaux, she her of to the sight she at the time of her first her her a of as a or in an attempt to the young Husson the through touch, her in her and even brought in to with the or as a of her attempt to her, Husson In a later discussion of her ability to recognize objects through touch, her seems out of we imagine that she found the object of philosophical by Her on versus objects as well as her and her with the eyes of suggests an that come from question one is also the that such as and visual to which the blind have no and therefore no to use these a to a similar at readers. In her book, The World I she a detailed account of her experience of she her use of the in the was to see a good use of her education to show that the more one knows about language the it is to find that does not have some in sighted or she to her the use of would be to her the ability to at In their two one sighted and one an to put to all the hypothetical the blind before the discussion was If he had we can not only that he and his sighted would have with their but also that about which to use and which of is more who in and an in blind in the the to the discussion to far from the and that the lives of real blind people. For instance, he an from his early before he found an when he was for a as a on a because the assumed that he would not be able to the in the He this as one of of of the sighted people on person has to recognize that sight is not to that the that it would him around with He that vision might him some while viewing a or but that he can what he to about the world from and that this is for his and only different from the of sighted people. He of what I might call that the between the sighted and the blind must be and that vision is a of that these to cite his own early work on and as of his as a He also about the first months of life when his vision was to be might disqualify him as a for the since he might some of a visual from that with a who him that the loss of sight at such an early age would make from that of a person blind. And so the discussion the some about sight that to me to be far from For instance, he that when sighted people are to keep their eyes even for a time, it a kind of To his he that a of is to keep and this can lead to and I that his example is by that blindness with a a blind accustomed to the of sight, might still have similar of and to the or of To his does that some blind are by the people and can the presence of objects even without as of that when he and in a few other in the and to be in a It is not merely that they a experience, but one that is not to as to one of the a is not the experience of texture or form through but an of an and by the as a seems to toward a for a theory of senses where each of the could be into a of which function in with and in to identified at different of that she and In fact, she sound as that the in their while the can through other of their she could by the of her hand a or by the of her these blind have in is an desire to their of blindness as the of the they do not to be or people who have learned to attend to their senses in different I have to my discussion here to by people who became blind early in One of the most of the Hypothetical Blind is that he is always assumed to be both and blind. blindness, today as in the this about of people as in there is are without any visual at It is hard to come by on people who are in part because it only an when the child, or her for the which to occur only when the can that more were blind in the since some of the most of by in the and in the as now, the of blindness occur later in some Some the ability to distinguish light from while others to color, and to some Some people the to or while the vision that through space. And of the or of vision, blind people in the they attend or these theHypothetical is his are quick to anyone with any sight or with even the of a visual In of blindness, only blindness will In a of my Sight Unseen, that I had sight to to be blind He a blind he once knew who that he could not conceptualize a and that he was learned face is to it does not in fact light like an light does not what became of this or even his him only as a of the Hypothetical. he on to the history of the Molyneux If only the blind can speak of blindness with should we make the same on those who talk about there such a thing as a is merely average There are whose than or even can every of the familiar eye as in the case of can the on a toward their at a to many of visual I wonder but can such a of visual visual studies can bring to these is an of the between blindness and It is more to think in of a of in visual as well as a of in of visual or The visual studies in understanding images, who some or even all her sight, will not the ability to images and to her In his ‘‘Showing W. J. T. Mitchell a where or some of visual culture as if to an that has no experience of visual The that some will be at the while others might their with and in all cases their would have if to their visual as it, is in the as it is in the ability to images in all their and into And as we the blindness versus sight I hope we can also abandon the that use the as a for or If the is for others to see what we mean it to what we the in this way seems a to the to the same frisson of awe and It on some to the of blindness as a to which in to among those who and the blind. It also to the among the blind that the only to their is to from