5 ms·

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly r

by bigstrat2003 1y ago

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly reprehensible. To try to keep someone disabled (yes - disabled, not "differently abled", they are objectively lacking a capability that a healthy human has) just so that there are more people in your community is objectively evil in my book. It is directly doing harm to people for one's own benefit. If a person wishes to not get a certain treatment - fine, that's their right. But when one starts trying to keep others down, that's not ok.

retrac 1y ago
I said "not disabling", not that deafness is not a disability. Those two things mean different things to me. Obviously deaf people cannot hear. Not able. Dis-able. Deafness is a disability. But not all disabilities are generally disabling of individuals. The only disability that deafness causes is a lack of perception of sound. Hearing people have a panoply of inferences about what that means -- about how it disables and how broadly it disables. And most of them are faulty. It doesn't result in isolation, in particular, in a deaf cultural context. In fact in the deaf cultural context about the only thing missing is some auditory alerts that would be nice as a visual complement, and some aspects of music and the like. Yes. Birds chirping is beautiful. I miss it deeply. It'd be nice to have a world where every kid gets to experience that. But all of the social and emotional and cognitive consequences imagined of deafness, are not innate to the lack of hearing.
- MintPaw 1y ago
  I'm empathetic to this argument, but there needs to be some kind of differentiation between preserving culture and abuse for the sake of community. I can imagine the same argument applying to a cult with cruel traditions, or hazing in general.
  - smaudet 1y ago
    It's more than that (not deaf either) - if suddenly there is a new therapy to grow a third eye in the back of your head, should you? Or should a fish be able to breathe without water? In both cases there are ways to function without fundamentally altering the body, and neither is wrong. It is not so clear that there is "abuse", when there is an empathetic standard of living. Now to me, the best argument for taking this is that deaf people do have ears, whether or not they function. So it is reasonable for them to experience sound, but also, they have a right not to, if they so choose. What I think is harder, if you have experienced neither, to be able to make that decision well. And nobody is talking yet about reversing such a therapy...
  - guerrilla 1y ago
    Abuse by who? It's themselves who are against adopting it. It's just autonomy at work.
    - famouswaffles 1y ago
      Parents and children ? Sure Adults opting out of such treatments on such grounds is fine. Parents doing so to their children, not so much. I mean you can't exactly go, "We'll wait for them to be old enough to make the decision for themselves" for hearing.
    - UltraSane 1y ago
      Abuse of deaf children. Being able to cure deafness in a child and not doing so isn't much worse than intentionally making the child deaf.
- squigz 1y ago
  I'm not deaf, so I don't know about the lived experiences of people who are. But I am extremely visually impaired, and if someone said something along these lines about being blind, I'd be... annoyed. Thankfully, people don't often say things they would about being deaf, about being blind, which I've always found a bit odd. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you basically saying that there's no real negative aspects inherent to being deaf, outside of those imposed by society?
  - BeetleB 1y ago
    > Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you basically saying that there's no real negative aspects inherent to being deaf, outside of those imposed by society? This is a valid question. My gripe is people aren't asking the obvious other questions: 1. What are the positive aspects of deafness? 2. What are the different aspects of deafness (neither positive nor negative, but leads to a very different human experience). If either of these significantly outnumber the negative aspects, I can see why imposing a treatment on children without the parent's consent is problematic.
    - squigz 1y ago
      > 1. What are the positive aspects of deafness? I think a more appropriate question would be, what are some positive aspects of being deaf, that are unique to being deaf? As you point out a few times, a positive aspect of being deaf, and the main reason it's 'not disabling', is because there is a community around it. But that is not inherent to being deaf, since non-deaf people also have communities; indeed, those same deaf communities could exist as they are even if their members were cured > 2. What are the different aspects of deafness (neither positive nor negative, but leads to a very different human experience). Can you elaborate on some of these? > If either of these significantly outnumber the negative aspects Also, I surely hope this isn't a simple matter of numbers, right? I mean, surely one has to weigh the severity of the negative aspects in this. "Not being able to hear" is but one negative aspect, but it's a pretty big one.
      - smaudet 1y ago
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  I apologize - I should've been more clear but I wasn't taking issue with your post. More that I've seen people in the past who don't want treatments for deafness to even be available, and your comment made me think of that position (which does quite upset me).
BeetleB 1y ago
Sorry, but they are differently abled. Their brains and perceptions are different from people who can hear. You are assuming that those differences are all negatives. They do not believe that to be the case. Many people here self-diagnose as Asperger's. Can you not see why they would not want a "cure"? Being an extrovert objectively gives you great advantages in (most) societies. As an introverted parent, I would definitely fight any "cure" for my introverted children. Furthermore, if both parents are deaf and the kid is not deaf, there's a good chance that in the first so many years of life, the kid will have poorer mental development than the deaf kid. Not quite the same, but an example: Deaf kids born to deaf parents hit the same language milestones as hearing kids born to hearing parents. But deaf kids born to hearing parents do worse, because the parents don't know the appropriate way of thinking/communicating. Related: Deaf kids who were given cochlear implants, but no sign language training fared a lot worse than both hearing kids and deaf kids who learned sign language.
- crooked-v 1y ago
  As someone who's on the autism spectrum, I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability. I'd still be cautious because there's the long-running tendency for any kind of 'cure' for anything inheritable to be used as a eugenics bludgeon, but that's about society rather than the direct effects.
  - BeetleB 1y ago
    > I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability. In this case, the lack of a specific physical ability results in that person's brain working differently.
    - kortilla 1y ago
      Not really. The brain compensates in communication skills since it has no auditory processing to deal with. But it’s otherwise normal. They don’t magically become extremely technical or have other specific positive traits that come from being deaf.
TRiG_Ireland 1y ago
There are few things that make me angrier than people who have very strong opinions on subjects they have only just become aware of.
- khazhoux 1y ago
  Where do you see in the parent comment that they've "only just become aware of" this issue?
nashashmi 1y ago
Do people and society with intentional lack of computers make you angry as well because those people see benefits for their culture not to have one? I think you believe being disabled is a really bad situation but they believe it is a heightening of other senses, and that is something you cannot relate to.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  No, because not having a computer isn't a distinct lack from one's natural capabilities in the way that deafness is. Moreover, my issue here isn't with people who don't want to cure their own deafness, it's with people who don't even want such cures to be available for others. So in the computer analogy this would be more like someone who tries to protest the existence of computers at all, rather than simply choosing to not get one
  - nashashmi 1y ago
    > distinct lack from one's natural capabilities in the way that deafness is. The original commenter wanted to state that deafness can and should be seen as a natural occurrence, instead of a disability, that pushes people to better use other faculties. In the computer analogy, it would be someone who protests the use of computers entirely like for school children, to push them to use other skills. I have a specific “disability” that I often cannot smell (because of allergies). I have learned to “feel” smell with my fingers running through the air. In such a situation, am I really disabled? Despite how important smell can be especially with spoiled foods? Few would think so. This deaf commenter sees his deafness in the same manner. And sees efforts to broaden people’s senses in the same manner as children being given calculators and computers at an early age.

retrac 1y ago

I said "not disabling", not that deafness is not a disability. Those two things mean different things to me. Obviously deaf people cannot hear. Not able. Dis-able. Deafness is a disability. But not all disabilities are generally disabling of individuals. The only disability that deafness causes is a lack of perception of sound. Hearing people have a panoply of inferences about what that means -- about how it disables and how broadly it disables. And most of them are faulty. It doesn't result in isolation, in particular, in a deaf cultural context. In fact in the deaf cultural context about the only thing missing is some auditory alerts that would be nice as a visual complement, and some aspects of music and the like. Yes. Birds chirping is beautiful. I miss it deeply. It'd be nice to have a world where every kid gets to experience that. But all of the social and emotional and cognitive consequences imagined of deafness, are not innate to the lack of hearing.

MintPaw 1y ago
I'm empathetic to this argument, but there needs to be some kind of differentiation between preserving culture and abuse for the sake of community. I can imagine the same argument applying to a cult with cruel traditions, or hazing in general.
- smaudet 1y ago
  It's more than that (not deaf either) - if suddenly there is a new therapy to grow a third eye in the back of your head, should you? Or should a fish be able to breathe without water? In both cases there are ways to function without fundamentally altering the body, and neither is wrong. It is not so clear that there is "abuse", when there is an empathetic standard of living. Now to me, the best argument for taking this is that deaf people do have ears, whether or not they function. So it is reasonable for them to experience sound, but also, they have a right not to, if they so choose. What I think is harder, if you have experienced neither, to be able to make that decision well. And nobody is talking yet about reversing such a therapy...
- guerrilla 1y ago
  Abuse by who? It's themselves who are against adopting it. It's just autonomy at work.
  - famouswaffles 1y ago
    Parents and children ? Sure Adults opting out of such treatments on such grounds is fine. Parents doing so to their children, not so much. I mean you can't exactly go, "We'll wait for them to be old enough to make the decision for themselves" for hearing.
  - UltraSane 1y ago
    Abuse of deaf children. Being able to cure deafness in a child and not doing so isn't much worse than intentionally making the child deaf.
squigz 1y ago
I'm not deaf, so I don't know about the lived experiences of people who are. But I am extremely visually impaired, and if someone said something along these lines about being blind, I'd be... annoyed. Thankfully, people don't often say things they would about being deaf, about being blind, which I've always found a bit odd. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you basically saying that there's no real negative aspects inherent to being deaf, outside of those imposed by society?
- BeetleB 1y ago
  > Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you basically saying that there's no real negative aspects inherent to being deaf, outside of those imposed by society? This is a valid question. My gripe is people aren't asking the obvious other questions: 1. What are the positive aspects of deafness? 2. What are the different aspects of deafness (neither positive nor negative, but leads to a very different human experience). If either of these significantly outnumber the negative aspects, I can see why imposing a treatment on children without the parent's consent is problematic.
  - squigz 1y ago
    > 1. What are the positive aspects of deafness? I think a more appropriate question would be, what are some positive aspects of being deaf, that are unique to being deaf? As you point out a few times, a positive aspect of being deaf, and the main reason it's 'not disabling', is because there is a community around it. But that is not inherent to being deaf, since non-deaf people also have communities; indeed, those same deaf communities could exist as they are even if their members were cured > 2. What are the different aspects of deafness (neither positive nor negative, but leads to a very different human experience). Can you elaborate on some of these? > If either of these significantly outnumber the negative aspects Also, I surely hope this isn't a simple matter of numbers, right? I mean, surely one has to weigh the severity of the negative aspects in this. "Not being able to hear" is but one negative aspect, but it's a pretty big one.
    - smaudet 1y ago
bigstrat2003 1y ago
I apologize - I should've been more clear but I wasn't taking issue with your post. More that I've seen people in the past who don't want treatments for deafness to even be available, and your comment made me think of that position (which does quite upset me).

BeetleB 1y ago

Sorry, but they are differently abled. Their brains and perceptions are different from people who can hear. You are assuming that those differences are all negatives. They do not believe that to be the case. Many people here self-diagnose as Asperger's. Can you not see why they would not want a "cure"? Being an extrovert objectively gives you great advantages in (most) societies. As an introverted parent, I would definitely fight any "cure" for my introverted children. Furthermore, if both parents are deaf and the kid is not deaf, there's a good chance that in the first so many years of life, the kid will have poorer mental development than the deaf kid. Not quite the same, but an example: Deaf kids born to deaf parents hit the same language milestones as hearing kids born to hearing parents. But deaf kids born to hearing parents do worse, because the parents don't know the appropriate way of thinking/communicating. Related: Deaf kids who were given cochlear implants, but no sign language training fared a lot worse than both hearing kids and deaf kids who learned sign language.

crooked-v 1y ago
As someone who's on the autism spectrum, I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability. I'd still be cautious because there's the long-running tendency for any kind of 'cure' for anything inheritable to be used as a eugenics bludgeon, but that's about society rather than the direct effects.
- BeetleB 1y ago
  > I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability. In this case, the lack of a specific physical ability results in that person's brain working differently.
  - kortilla 1y ago
    Not really. The brain compensates in communication skills since it has no auditory processing to deal with. But it’s otherwise normal. They don’t magically become extremely technical or have other specific positive traits that come from being deaf.

TRiG_Ireland 1y ago

There are few things that make me angrier than people who have very strong opinions on subjects they have only just become aware of.

khazhoux 1y ago
Where do you see in the parent comment that they've "only just become aware of" this issue?

nashashmi 1y ago

Do people and society with intentional lack of computers make you angry as well because those people see benefits for their culture not to have one? I think you believe being disabled is a really bad situation but they believe it is a heightening of other senses, and that is something you cannot relate to.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
No, because not having a computer isn't a distinct lack from one's natural capabilities in the way that deafness is. Moreover, my issue here isn't with people who don't want to cure their own deafness, it's with people who don't even want such cures to be available for others. So in the computer analogy this would be more like someone who tries to protest the existence of computers at all, rather than simply choosing to not get one
- nashashmi 1y ago
  > distinct lack from one's natural capabilities in the way that deafness is. The original commenter wanted to state that deafness can and should be seen as a natural occurrence, instead of a disability, that pushes people to better use other faculties. In the computer analogy, it would be someone who protests the use of computers entirely like for school children, to push them to use other skills. I have a specific “disability” that I often cannot smell (because of allergies). I have learned to “feel” smell with my fingers running through the air. In such a situation, am I really disabled? Despite how important smell can be especially with spoiled foods? Few would think so. This deaf commenter sees his deafness in the same manner. And sees efforts to broaden people’s senses in the same manner as children being given calculators and computers at an early age.