Read Persistence of Vision for Free Online
Authors: John Varley
caught fire during the first winter. Two men and a small girl were killed when a sprinkler system malfunctioned. This was a shock to them. They had thought things would operate as advertised. None of them knew much about the building trades, about estimates as opposed to realities. They found that several of their installations were not up to specifications, and instituted a program of periodic checks on everything.
They learned to strip down and repair anything on the farm. If something contained electronics too complex for them to cope with, they tore it out and installed something simpler.
Socially, their progress had been much more encouraging. Janet had wisely decided that there would be only two hard and fast objectives in the realm of their relationships. The first was that she refused to be their president, chairwoman, chief, or supreme commander. She had seen from the start that a driving personality was needed to get the planning done and the land bought and a sense of purpose fostered from their formless desire for an alternative. But once at the promised land, she abdicated. From that point they would operate as a democratic communism.
If that failed, they would adopt a new approach. Anything but a dictatorship with her at the head.
She wanted no part of that.
The second principle was to accept nothing. There had never been a deaf-blind community operating on its own. They had no expectations to satisfy, they did not need to live as the sighted did. They were alone. There was no one to tell them not to do something simply because it was not done.
They had no clearer idea of what their society would be than anyone else. They had been file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (11 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt forced into a mold that was not relevant to their needs, but beyond that they didn't know. They would search out the behavior that made sense, the moral things for deaf-blind people to do. They understood the basic principles of morals: that nothing is moral always, and anything is moral under the right circumstances. It all had to do with social context. They were starting from a blank slate, with no models to follow.
By the end of the second year they had their context. They continually modified it, but the basic Page 14
pattern was set. They knew themselves and what they were as they had never been able to do at the school. They defined themselves in their own terms.
I spent my first day at Keller in school. It was the obvious and necessary step. I had to learn handtalk.
Pink was kind and very patient. I learned the basic alphabet and practiced hard at it. By the afternoon she was refusing to talk to me, forcing me to speak with my hands. She would speak only when pressed hard, and eventually not at all. I scarcely spoke a single word after the third day.
This is not to say that I was suddenly fluent. Not at all. At the end of the first day I knew the alphabet and could laboriously make myself understood. I was not so good at reading words spelled into my own palm. For a long time I had to look at the hand to see what was spelled. But like any language, eventually you think in it. I speak fluent French, and I can recall my amazement when I finally reached the point where I wasn't translating my thoughts before I spoke.
I reached it at Keller in about two weeks.
I remember one of the last things I asked Pink in speech. It was something that was worrying me.
"Pink, am I welcome here?"
"You've been here three days. Do you feel rejected?"
"No, it's not that. I guess I just need to hear your policy about outsiders. How long am I welcome?"
She wrinkled her brow. It was evidently a new question.
"Well, practically speaking, until a majority of us decide we want you to go. But that's never happened. No one's stayed here much longer than a few days. We've never had to evolve a policy about what to do, for
They learned to strip down and repair anything on the farm. If something contained electronics too complex for them to cope with, they tore it out and installed something simpler.
Socially, their progress had been much more encouraging. Janet had wisely decided that there would be only two hard and fast objectives in the realm of their relationships. The first was that she refused to be their president, chairwoman, chief, or supreme commander. She had seen from the start that a driving personality was needed to get the planning done and the land bought and a sense of purpose fostered from their formless desire for an alternative. But once at the promised land, she abdicated. From that point they would operate as a democratic communism.
If that failed, they would adopt a new approach. Anything but a dictatorship with her at the head.
She wanted no part of that.
The second principle was to accept nothing. There had never been a deaf-blind community operating on its own. They had no expectations to satisfy, they did not need to live as the sighted did. They were alone. There was no one to tell them not to do something simply because it was not done.
They had no clearer idea of what their society would be than anyone else. They had been file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (11 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt forced into a mold that was not relevant to their needs, but beyond that they didn't know. They would search out the behavior that made sense, the moral things for deaf-blind people to do. They understood the basic principles of morals: that nothing is moral always, and anything is moral under the right circumstances. It all had to do with social context. They were starting from a blank slate, with no models to follow.
By the end of the second year they had their context. They continually modified it, but the basic Page 14
pattern was set. They knew themselves and what they were as they had never been able to do at the school. They defined themselves in their own terms.
I spent my first day at Keller in school. It was the obvious and necessary step. I had to learn handtalk.
Pink was kind and very patient. I learned the basic alphabet and practiced hard at it. By the afternoon she was refusing to talk to me, forcing me to speak with my hands. She would speak only when pressed hard, and eventually not at all. I scarcely spoke a single word after the third day.
This is not to say that I was suddenly fluent. Not at all. At the end of the first day I knew the alphabet and could laboriously make myself understood. I was not so good at reading words spelled into my own palm. For a long time I had to look at the hand to see what was spelled. But like any language, eventually you think in it. I speak fluent French, and I can recall my amazement when I finally reached the point where I wasn't translating my thoughts before I spoke.
I reached it at Keller in about two weeks.
I remember one of the last things I asked Pink in speech. It was something that was worrying me.
"Pink, am I welcome here?"
"You've been here three days. Do you feel rejected?"
"No, it's not that. I guess I just need to hear your policy about outsiders. How long am I welcome?"
She wrinkled her brow. It was evidently a new question.
"Well, practically speaking, until a majority of us decide we want you to go. But that's never happened. No one's stayed here much longer than a few days. We've never had to evolve a policy about what to do, for
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