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Blindness and Social Meaning: The Baleful Tale of Blind Freddy

���ܳٳ�ǰ���:��Dr. Michael Steer and Dr. Gillian Gale (January, 2006). British Journal of Vision Impairment, 24(1): 34-36.

Abstract

The widely used Australian expression “Blind Freddy could see that” is proposed as an exemplar of the terms blind ���Ի���blindness in conveying social meaning. Examples of the expression’s popular use are presented, and the extraordinary origin of the term explored. It is concluded that the expression should cease to exist, and that the challenge of promoting ‘people-first’ language as its replacement should lie primarily with (a) Australians who are themselves blind or significantly vision impaired, and (b) with individuals and organizations who identify with the aims and aspirations of those who are sight impaired.

In a recent issue of this journal, Bolt (2004) focused on the terms “Blind” and “Blindness” as a social construct and asked what both might mean to the majority of the public. He pointed out, with regard to the complexity of the terms as each might interface with public perception that, for example, the Encarta World Dictionary provides 13 adjectives for ‘Blind’, only one of which refers to the medical condition.

An internet search of the words ‘blind’ and ‘blindness’ reveals an even broader array of meaning, ranging from the blind taste tests used in marketing studies, through such expressions as ‘blind fate’ and ‘blind alley’, to terms that imply difficulties in comprehending or ‘seeing’. Further, classical history provides evidence of a pejorative association. As an example, in June 2005, New York’s Theatre By The Blind presented a contemporary version of Seneca's Oedipus in an adaptation by playwright Ted Hughes. The play told the story of the Greek king whose tragedy was prophesied by an oracle: he would kill his father, then marry his mother. The play was littered with pejorative blindness references. It also included a characterization of the blind prophet Tiresius, who was gifted with a second sight, and who therefore, in a sense, projected a valorized blindness, even though his blindness had resulted from the goddess Athena’s curse (Hunter, 1999). As Marks (2005) has pointed out, the eponymous hero’s (Oedipus) blindness was also a punishment, a physical bleakness inflicted to properly reflect the bleakness of his soul.

Neither does blindness as a conveyor of social meaning seem to do particularly well in the Old Testament. It is generally symbolic of the lack of moral and intellectual light (Hunt, 1984).  The Judeo-Christian scriptures abound with stereotypic examples of blindness used as a tool of affliction by the God of the Old Testament on those who had offended Him or His chosen people. The New Testament provides examples of Christ healing the blind, as though blindness was an affliction that could be cured. There are in it, also references to the affinity of blindness with notions of helplessness.  For example, Matthew 15:14 states “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch”. There seems little comfort for our blind fellow citizens with regard to the psychosocial implications of their particular disability in the majority of these scriptural references. The terms “Blindness” and “Blind” have typically been regarded over the centuries, Bolt (2004) suggests, as words that convey notions of psychosocial burden. To this proposition might be added Kant’s assertion that "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." (Sorter, 1979).