Oh my freaking god why are the capital D Deaf people not lumped in with anti-vaxxers where they belong? A desire for a subculture does NOT give anyone the right to shame people over giving...
Oh my freaking god why are the capital D Deaf people not lumped in with anti-vaxxers where they belong? A desire for a subculture does NOT give anyone the right to shame people over giving children the ability to hear things, and it should honestly not be the parent's choice to stunt their children's development by not giving them back that critical human sense, it would be child abuse.
Would you tell a person who needed glasses that they shouldn't erase CantSeeShit culture if that culture had developed? What about telling people with spinal injuries that wheelchairs were offensive to HaveToCrawlPlaces culture? It's absolute insanity and it needs to be shouted down as ridiculous any time it appears. May there come a day when the last person to ever be deaf is cured and 'D'eaf dies permanently.
I'm likely not going to change your mind on this, but this isn't the same sort of issue as people who won't take their shots. The article goes into detail on how this is an issue of someone's...
I'm likely not going to change your mind on this, but this isn't the same sort of issue as people who won't take their shots. The article goes into detail on how this is an issue of someone's primary form of communication more than an ability/inability to hear, and how by putting a prosthetic cure into existence, there's now this divide of the Deaf community pushed to the margin, who are now further pushed out of existence. This is kind of like if you were part of the Linux community and even if Windows went completely free with ads, sticking with it and teaching your child Linux, then being judged by other parents because "Why are you handicapping your child? Windows is free now and everybody uses Windows." It's not a perfect metaphor, but it's not as simple as you are making it out to be.
It's also important to keep in mind how much of disability is actually a result of the way that we have decided to set up our society. Not to say there aren't inherent difficulties with not being...
It's also important to keep in mind how much of disability is actually a result of the way that we have decided to set up our society. Not to say there aren't inherent difficulties with not being able to see, hear, walk, etc, because of course there are. But many, many of the disadvantages we immediately think of are really only disadvantages because of how things are.
Imagine if society had developed such that our main form of written communication was through colors, perhaps some Morse-style system to denote different symbols. (A contrived example to be sure, but there's really no reason to think things couldn't have happened this way). Surely then we would view being colorblind as a serious disability, much moreso than it is viewed now. A less contrived example would be that someone who has serious tone-deafness has much more of a disability if they are embedded in a society that speaks a tonal language. Hell, even an inability to whistle might be considered as a disability in some societies in some cultures. The biology in these examples is the same as it is now, however we view these 'disabilities' as not very severe. A certain portion of the severity we assign to disabilities has very little to do with the objective nature of the disability itself, but rather has everything to do with the society around the person affected. I think its important to keep this in mind in discussions of disability.
I agree it's not quite at the same level as anti-vaxxers, as anti-vaxxers pose a huge risk to the rest of society. But just because a sub-culture exists, doesn't mean that it fading away is...
I agree it's not quite at the same level as anti-vaxxers, as anti-vaxxers pose a huge risk to the rest of society.
But just because a sub-culture exists, doesn't mean that it fading away is inherently a bad thing.
I was skeptical of the chicken pox vaccine when it was developed, because I had some weird sense of chicken pox being a right of passage for children, because it was for me growing up.
Same for the progress that's been made towards eradicating bullying culture in schools. I had some weird beliefs spawning from going through that, and I guess I somewhat resent those who get to grow up without it. Perhaps those beliefs spawned from (what I still believe to be) the well meaning but deeply flawed 'zero tolerance' policies, which in my formative years mostly let bullies thrive without substantial blowback, because the victim would get punished equally if they retaliated....but I'm getting off track.
There's nothing stopping deaf parents from teaching their children sign language, even if their hearing is restored. But considering deafness as a right of passage to enter the 'deaf culture' is just as misguided as my thoughts regarding chicken pox and bullying.
I'll post this at the top level, as I think it's relevant for multiple comments thus far: I'm reminded of this from 2006, where expensive procedures are taken to insure that their children carry...
I'll post this at the top level, as I think it's relevant for multiple comments thus far:
I'm reminded of this from 2006, where expensive procedures are taken to insure that their children carry the same genetic defect they do.
It's one thing to let it up to chance...it's another to actively work against it. If I had a medical condition that my parents actively worked to insure I had, I would be furious.
Oh my freaking god why are the capital D Deaf people not lumped in with anti-vaxxers where they belong? A desire for a subculture does NOT give anyone the right to shame people over giving children the ability to hear things, and it should honestly not be the parent's choice to stunt their children's development by not giving them back that critical human sense, it would be child abuse.
Would you tell a person who needed glasses that they shouldn't erase CantSeeShit culture if that culture had developed? What about telling people with spinal injuries that wheelchairs were offensive to HaveToCrawlPlaces culture? It's absolute insanity and it needs to be shouted down as ridiculous any time it appears. May there come a day when the last person to ever be deaf is cured and 'D'eaf dies permanently.
I'm likely not going to change your mind on this, but this isn't the same sort of issue as people who won't take their shots. The article goes into detail on how this is an issue of someone's primary form of communication more than an ability/inability to hear, and how by putting a prosthetic cure into existence, there's now this divide of the Deaf community pushed to the margin, who are now further pushed out of existence. This is kind of like if you were part of the Linux community and even if Windows went completely free with ads, sticking with it and teaching your child Linux, then being judged by other parents because "Why are you handicapping your child? Windows is free now and everybody uses Windows." It's not a perfect metaphor, but it's not as simple as you are making it out to be.
It's also important to keep in mind how much of disability is actually a result of the way that we have decided to set up our society. Not to say there aren't inherent difficulties with not being able to see, hear, walk, etc, because of course there are. But many, many of the disadvantages we immediately think of are really only disadvantages because of how things are.
Imagine if society had developed such that our main form of written communication was through colors, perhaps some Morse-style system to denote different symbols. (A contrived example to be sure, but there's really no reason to think things couldn't have happened this way). Surely then we would view being colorblind as a serious disability, much moreso than it is viewed now. A less contrived example would be that someone who has serious tone-deafness has much more of a disability if they are embedded in a society that speaks a tonal language. Hell, even an inability to whistle might be considered as a disability in some societies in some cultures. The biology in these examples is the same as it is now, however we view these 'disabilities' as not very severe. A certain portion of the severity we assign to disabilities has very little to do with the objective nature of the disability itself, but rather has everything to do with the society around the person affected. I think its important to keep this in mind in discussions of disability.
I agree it's not quite at the same level as anti-vaxxers, as anti-vaxxers pose a huge risk to the rest of society.
But just because a sub-culture exists, doesn't mean that it fading away is inherently a bad thing.
I was skeptical of the chicken pox vaccine when it was developed, because I had some weird sense of chicken pox being a right of passage for children, because it was for me growing up.
Same for the progress that's been made towards eradicating bullying culture in schools. I had some weird beliefs spawning from going through that, and I guess I somewhat resent those who get to grow up without it. Perhaps those beliefs spawned from (what I still believe to be) the well meaning but deeply flawed 'zero tolerance' policies, which in my formative years mostly let bullies thrive without substantial blowback, because the victim would get punished equally if they retaliated....but I'm getting off track.
There's nothing stopping deaf parents from teaching their children sign language, even if their hearing is restored. But considering deafness as a right of passage to enter the 'deaf culture' is just as misguided as my thoughts regarding chicken pox and bullying.
I'll post this at the top level, as I think it's relevant for multiple comments thus far:
I'm reminded of this from 2006, where expensive procedures are taken to insure that their children carry the same genetic defect they do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/health/05essa.html
It's one thing to let it up to chance...it's another to actively work against it. If I had a medical condition that my parents actively worked to insure I had, I would be furious.