Symbolism vs. Reality

Visioneers Lead Founder and President Daniel Kish has long been called “The Real-Life Batman” by various media outlets, because Daniel echolocates like bats, not because of any correlation with the DC Comics superhero.

In more recent years following the release of Marvel Entertainment’s “Daredevil” movie, many people have suggested it would be more accurate to call Daniel “The Real-Life Daredevil”, since Daredevil uses a kind of sonar or radar echolocation to “see”. Some fans even go as far as to suggest Daredevil should be named “Batman”. According to Daniel, “I am a bit more like Dare Devil, I guess, in the sense that he and I both echolocate, whereas Batman actually doesn’t. However, my echolocation capacities were never instantly enhanced by radioactive substances. I had to work for whatever capacities I have, which at its essence relates more to Batman.”

The Reluctant Bat Man

As you’ll discover in the “SonarVision: The Science of Seeing With Sound” video below, Daniel was never really comfortable with the whole Batman thing, as he explained in a forthcoming interview:

“I was initially resistant to the moniker, because it confuses me with an icon that is very unlike me in most respects, and who wants to live up to that level of “superherodom”? The reality always falls short of the legend. It doesn’t help to further amp up the legend.

That said, Batman has stood out as my favorite superhero, and one with whom I have an affinity. There are some important commonalities between myself, bat man, and Batman the comic character.

The most important of these I think is that, Batman is one of the few superheroes who isn’t augmented artificially by some contrivance. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive something; he didn’t come from another planet or dimension; he wasn’t the result of some scientific experiment; he wasn’t touched by gods or aliens; and in the original incarnation, he wasn’t wrapped in hyper technology. His heroic abilities come from his painstakingly developing his own capacities out of his own humanity and personhood. He made himself who and what he is, which I think is something we can all do. I feel like I was inspired to do this insofar as developing my own brain and perceptual-navigation system to find new ways to see, new ways to access and interact with the world in my own way on my own terms.

The Shared Drive For Social Justice

The other quality I guess I as bat man share with Batman is a drive for social justice and fair equity. The systematic ways in which blind people, especially blind children are marginalized, disempowered, isolated, conditioned to dependency, limited, and denied access to the community exchange of goods, services, and companionship is unjust and unfair, and therefore nothing short of criminal. The most insidious part is that it is all often done in the name of kindness, and “for your own good”, if you will.

The other insidious part is that the blind population at large has drunk the kool-aid, so to speak, and inculcated many of the very conventions, perspectives, and practices that limit and disempower us. In a way I guess one could say I am on something of a crusade, but it is not really a crusade to save, protect, or rescue people. It is more a crusade to help make sure that we as a population can empower ourselves to turn this around for ourselves by our own strengths and capacities as equal and able citizens. It is we who need to step up to the plate to find and claim our own freedom. at every point in history repressed populations have found their freedom by claiming it for themselves.

It is rarely granted out of kindness or clemency without it being earned by toil and hard work at the very least. We as blind people cannot wait until freedoms are handed to us from on high. Freedom granted always comes with conditions and provisions that belie the very essence of freedom. I just want to help bring this about.”

“I Don’t Do Helpless”

When asked if he had a favorite Batman quote, Daniel replied, “Yeah, but its full meaning needs a context: On one of the 90’s animated series episodes, Batman and an associate are trapped in some mad man of choice’s lab. The mad man activates a contraption that scrambles the visual field somehow such that everyone just loses balance and can’t function. His lab is riddled with traps so they can never get out. The partner says, “We’re helpless!” Batman stalwartly states, “I don’t do helpless.” and he closes his eyes and leads them through all the traps by responding to sound and touch.

All that said, “I don’t do helpless” maybe stands strongly enough on its own.”

BLINDNESS, BATS, AND BELIEF AS THE ONLY SUPERPOWER WE NEED: ON DAREDEVIL AND BEYOND

BY SHOSHANA SEIDMAN  thefanzine.com 

26.05.15

The dark can be a terrifying place to be. In love, in grief, in sight: there is a disorienting fear of blindness. The term itself is used with a negative connotation almost universally, and blindness has been enacted as a punishment in societies from ancient Greece to modern Pakistan. We depend heavily on visual cues even if we truly see only what’s on the surface. Though there are five senses, sight seems to hold a special value in society.

Every morning that I wake up, the world is a blur, objects resembling those in Renoir’s Impressionistic paintings, soft edges and strokes. I’m fairly nearsighted, and have worn contact lenses since I was ten years old. Now I am thirty-two, and have begun to develop floating black shapes in my line of vision. These floaters are caused by bits of collagen detaching from the retina as you age. They’re small and I’ve learned to ignore them for the most part, but they’re also a constant reminder that vision is not stagnant or certain. As I get older, vision becomes more precarious, more difficult to bank on. I begin to doubt the pictures I see, sometimes covering one eye and then the other to notice the subtle differences in color, in shades, in clarity of detail. I begin to realize in terror that my sense of smell is underdeveloped, that my hearing is dulled. My alternate tools of survival do not seem favorable in Darwin’s model of the fittest.

When I was twelve, I accidentally fell asleep with my contact lenses in and almost went blind. Luckily I got to the eye doctor just in time, and as a child this did not have such an impact, even though I was in a lot of pain and it took months to heal. I never truly thought about it in the bigger picture, but at age thirty-two my slowly devolving vision reminds me of mortality. I am terrified of the darkness I fear, of not being able to trust my eyesight as I get older. I take pictures fervently, obsessed with producing images, of curating a visual narrative.

Yet what if blindness is not something to be feared at all? What if it is, in fact, a social construction? If we posit blindness as a negative, a void, a lacking, that is what the blind will come to be. And yet what if having high expectations of the blind could completely turn this perception, and thus reality, around? We often hear that cultivating a high expectation of students in the classroom leads to better results. So what if we apply this principle to the condition of blindness?

This is exactly what Daniel Kish believes. Featured on NPR’s podcast “Invisibilia” [Embedded below this article] with co-hosts Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller, Kish relates his story of blindness and how he learned to excel despite this physical handicap. He became blind at the age of thirteen [Editor’s Note: Should read 13 months.] due to retinal blastoma. Yet from a young age, his mother developed a hands-off approach and allowed him to navigate the world around him even though he could no longer see. He continued to attend a regular school and began to learn to echolocate, in which he clicked his tongue to understand where he was in space, much like bats. Learning this skill allowed him to walk to school on his own, make his own lunches, climb, and eventually learn to ride a bike.

His classmate Adam Shaible, however, attended the School for the Blind for several years before coming to Daniel’s school. At the School for the Blind, Shaible wasn’t expected to do anything for himself, so he never learned how. People made him food, helped him walk, and never allowed him to engage in any activity that was remotely dangerous. When Daniel met him, he couldn’t understand why Shaible was so helpless. But now that he’s an adult, Kish knows that it was precisely because Shaible was given such low expectations of what he was able to do, and so he lived up to these lower expectations. As Kish states, “So this is what life will have in store for you – basically nothing, OK? Nothing.”

Today, Kish helps teach blind children how to do many things on their own by echolocation. He makes them climb trees, and cross streets by themselves. Some may view this as dangerous and irresponsible, but Kish firmly believes it’s necessary for these children to develop self-sufficiency. As he says, “Running into a pole is a drag, but never being allowed to run into a pole is a disaster.” Kish is attempting to undo the repercussions of societal low expectations, one child at a time.

In fact the concept of echolocation is not a new one, and has been studied by scientists since the 1950s. When left to their own devices, it has been shown that many blind children will intuitively click their tongues as a way to navigate their surroundings, yet this process is often stopped short by societal norms. But the question remains–is blindness real and objective or is it a societal construction? Are the blind really unable to see, or is there more to the story?

As the episode of “Invisibilia” continues, researchers are interviewed who have studied the brains of the blind. It turns out that some blind people can actually see images with a certain spatial quality and depth. When “shown” certain objects, the visual cortex in these blind people still lights up. The person is still constructing an image in the mind and so actually does have a sort of sight. Some people compare this vision to our peripheral vision, where they can see something but not a complete image. However, not all blind people demonstrate this activity in their brains. It is much more common in those who have learned to echolocate, further proving the importance of allowing blind children to develop this skill, and setting the expectation for their abilities high from a young age.

Most comic book heroes capture our interest because of their superhuman powers. There’s Spiderman, who has the agility and strength of a spider, and Superman, whose Kryptonian body gives him immunity from most harm. The recent release of Daredevil on Netflix has enthralled viewers with its fight scenes, plot twists, comedic jabs, and suspenseful action. This isn’t an original series, but rather an adaptation of the Marvel comic Daredevil, which was first released in 1964, and later made into a 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. And what exactly is this comic book hero’s superpower? Daredevil, known also as his alter ego Matthew Murdock, is blind.

As a child Murdock is blinded by a radioactive substance that falls from an oncoming truck. Though he loses his vision, his other senses are enhanced to great levels, and he is left with a type of sonar, which acts as his vision. He uses these heightened senses to guide him through the world, avenging his father’s death and fighting evil. So his superpower is the fact that he can navigate the world like someone who can see, but even better.

Murdock doesn’t immediately relish in his newfound ability. In fact the extra loud noises that surround him frighten him. One day, however, an older blind man known as Stick comes into his life, teaching him how to harness the powers of his sonar, and how to kick some ass while doing it. Stick is not sweet, and he doesn’t hold Murdock’s hand. Rather, he is firm, and has high expectations. Daredevil internalizes these high expectations, and learns to use his heightened senses constructively.

Stick, in a way, is reminiscent of Daniel Kish. He liberates Murdock by believing against constraining him. As Kish relates during the NPR podcast, [Editor’s Note: This is actually said by Daniel Norris of the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.] “When you lighten someone’s load you don’t allow them to expand.” Stick is a purveyor of tough love, and slowly yet surely Murdock learns how to “see” in a way that extends beyond the visual realm. He can hear noises far away, and through the blurring cacophony he is able to extract sounds of trouble to help him fight evil. He hears the heartbeat of the people around him, and can use this to judge whether they are truthful or dishonest, good or bad. By day, Murdock becomes a successful lawyer, using his different perspective to craft well-executed arguments. And by night he uses his senses to expertly fight armed foes with only his bare hands, detecting even the faintest motions and staying one step ahead of his enemies who rely so heavily on their sight. He even uses his abilities to somehow pick out the most attractive woman in a room, much to his friend and law partner Froggy’s chagrin.

This brings me to another consideration: is Daredevil actually a superhero or just a kid who grew up with high expectations? Is he the penultimate example of blindness as merely a social construction? In some ways, I think he is. And this is what draws me to Daredevil in a way that other superheroes do not: he could, perhaps, exist in real life.

Watching Daredevil comforts me because he demonstrates that even amongst darkness, even when the world is a blur, there can be light. I think of my deteriorating eyesight, and the possibilities of losing visual acuity. I think of mortality, and misfortune, and the maturation of a body beyond control. All these things are uneasy, and difficult, and disorienting. And yet when I watch Murdock fight evil by day and by night, sharper than 20/20 vision, I take some solace in the unknown.

When I think of Daniel Kish, riding bikes and hiking, using his own type of sonar to guide him, I’m reminded that superheroes can exist in real life, and perhaps that is the ultimate appeal: to spawn and cultivate a belief in our own strength.

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^{Shoshana Seidman is thankful for magical realism, cookies every day, solace and solitude, the statute of limitations, the Muppets, blistering heat, wounded writings, and regeneration. She has a BA in Literature and Writing from UC San Diego, and is a regular contributor to magazines such as The Culture Trip and Entropy.}