Happiness disabled: sensory disabilities, happiness and the rise of educational expertise in the nineteenth century

Abstract

To date, the historical entanglement of disability and happiness has not been considered an object worth of historical inquiry. Nor has the intersection of disability and emotions been used as a lens to examine the history of disability. Our paper aims at filling this academic void by analysing a wide range of philosophical, anthropological, pedagogical, popular and poetic texts dealing with the following question: “Who is unhappiest, the blind or the deaf?” On the basis of a comparative study of Belgian, Dutch, German, Swiss, Austrian, British and American primary source material, we argue that the transformation of western concepts of happiness during the nineteenth century was reflected in attitudes towards people with sensory disabilities. If at the turn of the eighteenth century happiness was considered a sensory experience, it very soon became dependent on the intervention of an educational expert. On the basis of our source material we draw the conclusion that happiness has been an overlooked factor in the construction and problematisation of disability in western societies. Analysis of the ways in which nineteenth-century authors have dealt with this question also shows how happiness became connected to new ways of wielding power, and in particular to the rise of the educational expert.

Keywords:

• happiness
• disability history
• deafness
• blindness
• education
• expertise

Notes

¹ Harlan Lane, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf (London: Penguin, 1988), 158–60.

² Laffon de Ladébat, A Collection of the Most Remarkable Definitions and Answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb, to the Various Questions Put to Them, at the Public Lectures of the Abbé Sicard in London (Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Cox and Baylis, 1815).

³ The chapters on “beauty”, “thunder” and “government” might bring disability scholars/historians to reflect upon the history of beauty, naturalness and power from an inside perspective, as they contain clues for writing histories on the basis of definitions and answers given by persons with disabilities themselves. For the historian of education, the chapters on “the spoiled child” and “to examine thoroughly” will be of interest.

⁴ Other emotions that are discussed and explained in Laffon de Ladébat’s Collection (1815) are envy, jealousy, hope and gratitude.

⁵ Ibid., 29.

⁶ Ibid., 35.

⁷ In a passionate critique of right-to-die advocates, Paul Longmore has demonstrated how they in fact, in his view, build their arguments on hostility and fear towards disabled people. Longmore’s analysis (that social oppression, not the impairments in themselves, cause despair) is substantiated by research in social sciences. Longmore, “Elizabeth Bouvia, Assisted Suicide, and Social Prejudice,” in Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003), 149–74; cf. G.L. Albrecht and P.J. Devlieger, “The Disability Paradox: High Quality of Life Against All Odds,” Social Science and Medicine 48 (1999): 977–88; B. Fellinghauer, J.D. Reinhardt, G. Stucki, and J. Bickenbach, “Explaining the Disability Paradox: A Cross-sectional Analysis of the Swiss General Population,” BMC Public Health 12 (2012): 655, doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-655.

⁸ Rod Michalko offers an intriguing reinterpretation of “suffering a disability” in The Difference that Disability Makes (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), in which he questions that (only) the disabled person “suffers” disability. We address this particular reinterpretation in a manuscript on the history of disability and pity that is currently under preparation.

⁹ See for instance Naomi Sunderland, Tara Catalano and Elizabeth Kendall, “Missing Discourses: Concepts of Joy and Happiness in Disability,” Disability & Society 24 (2009): 703–14; Allan R. Meyers, “From Function to Felicitude: Physical Disability and the Search for Happiness in Health Services Research,” American Journal on Mental Retardation 105 (2000): 342–51, Dan Moller, “Wealth, Disability and Happiness,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (2011): 177–206, and Y. Söderfeldt and P. Verstraete, “From Comparison to Indices: A Disabling Perspective on the History of Happiness,” Health Culture and Society 5, no. 1 (special issue) (2013): 53–66.

¹⁰ Rosemarie Garland Thomson, “Feminist Disability Studies,” Signs 30 (2005): 1557–87. For a similar argument in the context of disability history see Catherine Kudlick, “Disability History: Why We Need Another Other?” American Historical Review 108 (2003): 763–93.

¹¹ Sarah Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 4.

¹² This field is now known by the name of Happiness Studies or Happiness Economics. The foremost interest of researchers operating in this field is establishing reliable research instruments and indices that can reveal levels of happiness, as well as looking for those procedures and techniques that can improve levels of happiness.

¹³ H. De Ziegler, D. Dubarle, D. Lagache, A. Schaff, and B. Dejouvenel, Les conditions du bonheur (Neuchatel : Editions de la Baconnerie, 1963); Louis Trénard, Pour une histoire sociale de l’idée de bonheur au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Société des Etudes Robespierristes, 1963); Robert Mauzi, L’idée du bonheur dans la littérature et la pensée Française au XVIII siècle (Paris: Slatkin, 1979); Hans Achterhuis, De markt van welzijn en geluk (Ambo: Baarn, 1988); Pascal Bruckner, L’euphorie perpétuelle. Essai sur le devoir de bonheur (Paris: Editions Grasset et Fasquelle, 2000); Michel Faucheux, Histoire du bonheur (Paris: Edition Philippe Lebaud, 2002); Dieter Thomä, Vom Glück in der Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2003); Darrin McMahon, Happiness: A History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006); Gilles Lipovetsky, Le bonheur paradoxal: Essai sur la société d’hyperconsommation (Paris: Gallimard, 2006); Peter Buijs, De eeuw van het geluk; Nederlandse opvattingen over geluk ten tijde van de Verlichting, 1658–1835 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007); Peter Stearns, “Defining Happy Childhoods: Assessing a Recent Change,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 3 (2010): 165–86.

¹⁴ Quoted in Helene Guldberg, Reclaiming Childhood. Freedom and Play in an Age of Fear (London: Routledge, 2009), 153. Richard Layard is the author of the 2005 book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (London: Penguin Books, 2005).

¹⁵ MacMahon, Happiness: A History.

¹⁶ Jonathan Rée, I See a Voice: Deafness, Language and the Senses – a Philosophical History (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999); Zina Weygand, Vivre sans voir. Les aveugles dans la société française, du Moyen Age au Siècle de Louis Braille (Paris: Créaphis, 2003); Joachim Gessinger Auge & Ohr. Studien zur Erforschung der Sprache am Menschen 1700–1850 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1994).

¹⁷ Michael Morgan, Molyneux’s Question: Vision, Touch and the Philosophy of Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

¹⁸ Sebastian Guillié, Essai sur l’instruction des aveugles, ou exposé analytique des procédés employés pour les instruire (Paris: Imprimé par les Aveugles, 1817); A. Hartman, De l’état de l’aveugle-né, comparé à celui du sourd-muet, soit qu’on les suppose l’un et l’autre isolés et abandonnés à eux-même sur une île déserte, soit qu’ils se trouvent au milieu de leurs concitoyen dans l’indigence ou dans l’aisance (Bruxelles, Imprimerie P.J. De Mat, 1817); J.H. Keseman, Over den staat van den doofstomme, vergeleken met dien van den blindgeborenen (Groningen: R.J. Schierbeek, 1824); Alexandre Rodenbach, Coup d’oeil d’un aveugle sur les sourds-muets (Bruxelles: Louis Hauman & Compagnie, 1829); Charles Edward Herbert Orpen, Anecdotes and Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, 2nd ed. (London: Robert H.C. Tims, 1836); Charles-Louis Carton, Le sourd-Muet et l’aveugle, tôme premier (Bruges: Vandecasteele-Werbrouck, 1837), 43–54; Ferdinand Berthier, Lettre à Pierre Armand Dufau, Le sourd-muet et l'aveugle 1, 49–54; Eugène George de Cherbourg, A monsieur Carton, Le sourd-Muet et l'aveugle 1, 89–90; Pierre Armand Dufau, Essai sur l’état physique, moral et intellectuel des aveugles (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1837), 82–90; Charles-Louis Carton, Comparaison entre un aveugle et un sourd-muet de naissance, Annuaire de l’institut des sourds-muets et des aveugles de Bruges 1, 69–70; Otto Friedrich Kruse, Ueber Taubstumme, Taubstummen-Bildung und Taubstummen-Anstalten; nebst Notizen aus meinem Reisetagebuche (Schleswig: Selbstverlag des Verfassers, 1853); Mathias Pablasek, Die fürsorge für die Blinden von der Wiege bis zum Grabe. Die Erziehung, der Unterricht, die Beschäftigung und Versorgung derselben. Vom rationellen, humanen und staatsrechtlichen standpunkt beleuchtet (Wien: Beck’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1867).

¹⁹ C. Guyot and R.T. Guyot, Liste littéraire philocophe ou catalogue d'étude de ce qui a été publié jusqu’à nos jours sur les sourds-muets; sur l'oreille, l'ouïe, la voix, le langage, la mimique, les aveugles (Amsterdam: B.M. Israël, 1842/1967) and Blätter für Taubstummenbildung.

²⁰ Pieter Verstraete, “The Politics of Activity: Emergence and Development of Educational Programs for People with Disabilities between 1750 and 1860,” History of Education Review 38 (2009): 78–90.

²¹ F. Dreves, »…leider zum grössten Theile Bettler geworden…« Organisierte Blindenfürsorge in Preussen zwischen Aufklärung und Indistrialisierung (1806-1860) (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach Verlag, 1998); M. Rietveld-Van Wingerden, “Educating the Deaf. The Methodological Controversy in Historical Perspective,” History of Education 32, no. 4 (2004): 401–416; G. Phillips, The Blind in British Society. Charity, State and Community, c. 1780–1930 (London: Ashgate, 2004); F. Buton, L’administration des faveurs: L’état, les sourds et les aveugles (1789-1885) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009); S. Plann, A Silent Minority. Deaf Education in Spain, 1550–1835 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); P. Verstraete, “Savage Solitude: The Problemization of Disability at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century,” Paedagogica Historica, 45, no. 3 (2009): 269–89.

²² Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Volume II, p. 322.

²³ Ibid. (Translation PV).

²⁴ McMahon, Happiness. A History, 199–203.

²⁵ Colchester Philo, “A Comparative View of the Disadvantages Attending Deprivation of Sight and Loss of Hearing,” The Monthly Magazine or British Register, XIV (1802), p. 101.

²⁶ Ibid., 102.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Christian Heinrich Wolke, Anweisung wie Kinder und Stumme one Zeitverlust und auf naturgemäße Weise zum Verstehen und Sprechen zum Lesen und Schreiben oder zu Sprachkenntnissen und Begriffen zu bringen sind, mit Hülfsmitteln für Taubstumme, Schwerhörige und Blinde nebst einigen Sprach-Aufsätzen (Siegfried Lebrecht Crusins: Leipzig, 1804), 417–8.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 418.

³¹ The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol. IV, s. v. “Blind. Instruction of the” (London: Charles Knight, 1835), 516 (emphasis in original).

³² Johann Heinrich Kesman, Over den staat van den doofstomme, vergeleken met dien van den blindgeborenen (Groningen: R.J. Schierbeek, 1824), 3–4.

³³ Ibid., 7–8.

³⁴ Hartmann, De l’état de l’aveugle-né comparé au sourd-muet, 22–7.

³⁵ Ibid., 34 (Translation PV).

³⁶ Cf. Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010), 217–23.

³⁷ Gertrud Wyrsch-Ineichen, Ignaz Scherr (1801-70) und das Normal-, Taubstummen- und Blindenschulwesen seiner Zeit bis 1832 (Doctoral diss., Zürich University, 1986), 101–49, 264–83.

³⁸ Ibid., 282.

³⁹ Ignaz Thomasius Scherr, Zwei Abende unter den Zöglingen der Blindenanstalt in Zürich, im Frühjahr, 1826. Ein poetischer Versuch zur Beantwortung der Frage, ob der Blinde oder der Taubstumme mehr zu beklagen sey (Zürich: Orell, Füßli und Compagnie, 1827).

⁴⁰ Ibid., 28.

⁴¹ Ibid., 41–2 (Translation YS).

⁴² The oral, or German, method was invented by Samuel Heinicke in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It postulated that speech must be taught directly, without signs as an intermediary means of communication, and competed with the French, or manual, method, which used signs to teach written and/or spoken language.

⁴³ Ibid., 45.

⁴⁴ Robert Kinniburgh, “The Uneducated Deaf and Dumb,” The Scottish Christian Herald II, no. 75 (1840): 356.

⁴⁵ At this point it is appropriate to recall the anthropological analysis of disability described by Henri-Jacques Stiker in his pioneering 1982 book Corps infirmes et société. The analysis conducted here echoes Stiker’s emphasis on a particular trait of western societies: the urge and inclination to name difference and not just accept the fact that people are born with different mental and bodily characteristics. In a way our focus on happiness and emotions has to be considered as a step forward on the road Stiker has laid bare in his history of disability. Although he emphasised the importance of fear in the exclusion and stigmatisation of persons with disabilities in the introduction, he did not include an emotional approach in the historical narrative he ended up with. Our focus on happiness will hopefully encourage other scholars to explore this important aspect further. For a version in English see H.-J. Stiker, A History of Disability (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).