# Persuade me that deafness & hearing impairment are not best thought of as disabilities. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370 "2011-05-26T23:36:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/21 "2011-05-27T10:44:37Z")
They are wrong. At best, the denial is simply a coping mechanism. At worst, they are scum who would deliberately cripple a child’s ability to communicate with the world at large. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/22 "2011-05-27T10:49:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In terms of your analogy, eradicating deafness—globally, or in an individual—wouldn’t be insisting that islanders join us here; it would be building a bridge that allows islanders to visit or move here if they desire to do so. Perhaps so. And in real-world situations for this analogy, islanders sometimes really don’t want a bridge. Should we insist they have one? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/23 "2011-05-27T10:53:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > If the culture in question will be eradicated by mere contact with outsiders, that strongly implies that it’s a culture that no one would be part of if they had a choice. More of a prison than anything else. Does it? I don’t think it necessarily follows. Fragility _may_ indicate relative inferiority, but it needn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/24 "2011-05-27T11:11:05Z")
By definition it’s a disability, and can I object to that capitalization of deaf? It’s not a nationality, ethnic group, or a religion. It’s true there is a deaf culture, and deaf people aren’t required to hate their deafness or want to “fix” it. But let’s not be so sensitive that we can’t acknowledge there’s something they are unable to do. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/25 "2011-05-27T11:15:29Z")
Wow. It’s a tough one, for sure. As usual, I am of two minds on this. On one hand, it reminds me of the anti-vaccine mentality or extremely religious people. I don’t believe in inflicting your personal beliefs on your children (other than the basic “thou shalt nots”) when they are too young to have any choice in the matter. On the other hand, I do think that “deaf culture”, while foreign to me, is a sort of viable and necessary tool for the deaf and hearing-impaired, and I am happy to have folks embrace their deafness or whatever. On the third hand (OK, I’m a mutant), if this was in the really old days, the deaf would’ve been devoured by sabre-toothed tigers or something, and if not for the grace of modern civilization, wouldn’t be here for long. Any tool employable should be utilized to increase the chances of surviving and thriving. What’s the answer? Beats the shit out of me, but I’m OK with deaf people deciding for themselves, but for their children, I am worried. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/26 "2011-05-27T12:49:08Z")
Great post, Lemur866. There are lots of points in there that I didn’t realize, like the lack of language in children causing long-term mental problems and the fact that cochlear implants aren’t a panacea. I’ve never really thought about the tragedy (or perhaps just heartbreak) of kids being born into families that will never be able to fully understand their culture. That must feel incredibly isolating. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/27 "2011-05-27T13:01:00Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > In terms of a full functioning adult deafness does not serve as a worthy-of-concern variant in human physiology: > > 1. Holding a job: there are probably few to no limitations on work available to deaf people. This is not to say there are not limitations, but these limitations are akin to saying “I have a disability because I have glasses and I can’t fly fighter jets”. Everybody is limited in their ability to perform some types of jobs and a decent proportion are physical and sensory limitations. > 2. Falling in love: I use this as a euphemism for communication. Deaf people can not only communicate quite well but are really only limited by language barriers. Deafness does not cause any other kind of emotional or intellectual difference that could otherwise cause them to be labeled as disabled. > 3. Culture: Deaf people apparently have a viable and self-sustaining subculture. While thinking about it before posting I decided that this is my own personal line between abled and disabled. > 4. Reproduction: penises/sperm and vaginas/ovum function normally while deaf. This frankly makes no sense. How is this different from any other handicap? If I am paraplegic, all of the above apply to me. Am I not disabled? The only one that might not is #3, but there is nothing inherent in being paraplegic that inhibits me and my paraplegic pals from choosing to isolate ourselves from society and thus develop our own ‘culture.’ ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/28 "2011-05-27T13:07:47Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > By definition it’s a disability, and can I object to that capitalization of deaf? It’s not a nationality, ethnic group, or a religion. It’s true there is a deaf culture, and deaf people aren’t required to hate their deafness or want to “fix” it. But let’s not be so sensitive that we can’t acknowledge there’s something they are unable to do. It’s a bit silly, but capital-D Deaf just means “Deaf Community/Culture”. While it’s true that deafness isn’t preciesely a nationality or an ethnic group, it is analgous to ethnicity because of linguistic isolation from the hearing world, and lingusitic community within the deaf world. And this linguistic isolation creates “Deaf Culture”, which just the result of deaf people often prefering to hang out with other deaf people rather than hearing people. Yeah, there’s a certain amount of denial, you’ll sometimes see people in wheelchairs who proudly proclaim that they can do everything anyone else can. While it isn’t true, it’s not polite to get in the wheelchair guy’s face and set him straight about how crippled he is. But the other side is that while people in wheelchairs have a lot in common, they aren’t linguistically isolated from everyone else, like deaf people are. There are other disabilities besides deafness that leave people unable to communicate, but those disabilities usually leave those people unable to communicate with each other as well as the non-disabled, and so there can’t be a community of those people. That’s what makes deafness different. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/29 "2011-05-27T13:17:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > By definition it’s a disability, and can I object to that capitalization of deaf? It’s not a nationality, ethnic group, or a religion. It’s true there is a deaf culture, and deaf people aren’t required to hate their deafness or want to “fix” it. But let’s not be so sensitive that we can’t acknowledge there’s something they are unable to do. No problem with any of that, but I think we have also to acknowledge that there are things many/most deaf people (especially those well-embedded in the prevailing deaf culture) can do (and have) that hearing people typically do not. That is, the ability to communicate in a substantially different way, and a culture that is built upon and around that different mode of communication. Deaf people do not merely have a subset of the abilities and life qualities of hearing people. it’s an intersecting set. And the non-intersecting part on their side is potentially under threat if the hypothetical magic hearing pill existed, and was deployed - or perhaps also in the case of more realistic, less-hypothetical scenarios where the gift of hearing is imposed upon them. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/30 "2011-05-27T13:32:16Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It’s a bit silly, but capital-D Deaf just means “Deaf Community/Culture”. I’m not sure about that capitalization either. But based on her other post in that thread, I guess that’s what she was doing, so I’ll withdraw that. > [@Mangetout](#): > > No problem with any of that, but I think we have also to acknowledge that there are things many/most deaf people (especially those well-embedded in the prevailing deaf culture) can do (and have) that hearing people typically do not. I understand there is such a thing as deaf culture and I’m not insisting anything to the contrary. And yes, the fact that ASL is nonverbal does create some differences. Saying deaf people have an ability that hearing people do not is a little misleading, I think. It would be better to say they have a _skill_ most hearing people do not. Everyone who has full use of his hands can communicate with ASL. It’s true that only a small minority do, for obvious reasons. If you say it’s an ability instead of a skill, it makes it sound like you’re disabled if you can’t speak a local language. > [@](#): > > And the non-intersecting part on their side is potentially under threat if the hypothetical magic hearing pill existed, and was deployed - or perhaps also in the case of more realistic, less-hypothetical scenarios where the gift of hearing is imposed upon them. Right. I realize that if deafness were largely eliminated, deaf culture would go away. I can understand why deaf people want to preserve their culture, but it doesn’t mean they’re entitled to preserve the physical condition of deafness in others to keep that culture alive, or that other people should indulge that preference. It doesn’t stop being a disability just because it’s connected to a culture. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/31 "2011-05-27T13:49:12Z")
There is a passage in _Watership Down_, where the wandering rabbits fall into a group of other rabbits that live on a farm. And the farmer, instead of trying to wipe out the rabbits, keeps them as a food source. When he wants to, he sets a wire trap and catches one of the rabbits to eat. And the prophetic, wandering rabbit, realizes that the whole culture that has sprung up is an effort to cope with the inescapable fact that they are being kept for food. They are all trying to convince themselves and each other that theirs is a good situation - that they “love the wire”. It’s a hell of a passage. And I suspect that much of the attitude of Deaf activists is the same - there is nothing they can do about their situation, and they are trying to convince themselves to some degree that they are really better off than they would be as hearing. It’s not all of it, and certainly having a separate language like ASL goes a long way towards defining a culture. And there is nothing inherently inferior about ASL as a language. ASL is just as much a language as Hebrew or Russian. But the average hearing person can do anything that the average deaf person can do. There are things the average hearing person can do that the average deaf person cannot. That doesn’t make deaf people bad unworthy of their own dignity - it just means that they have a disability. And denial doesn’t change that. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/32 "2011-05-27T14:05:29Z")
My view should be obvious from the other thread - yes, it’s a disability, and it takes extreme intellectual dishonesty or delusion to argue that it isn’t. [QUOTE=Mangetout] Perhaps so. And in real-world situations for this analogy, islanders sometimes really don’t want a bridge. Should we insist they have one? [/quote] Well, should a vocal minority of the islanders be able to refuse the bridge that the mainlanders and the rest of the islanders want? If the bridge is built with mainlander money, what harm comes of having it built, except that the ‘leaders’ of the islanders might lose their power to control the others, who now have a choice? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/33 "2011-05-27T14:14:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > There is a passage in _Watership Down_, where the wandering rabbits fall into a group of other rabbits that live on a farm. And the farmer, instead of trying to wipe out the rabbits, keeps them as a food source. When he wants to, he sets a wire trap and catches one of the rabbits to eat. > > And the prophetic, wandering rabbit, realizes that the whole culture that has sprung up is an effort to cope with the inescapable fact that they are being kept for food. They are all trying to convince themselves and each other that theirs is a good situation - that they “love the wire”. Slight hijack, but: You’ve just convinced me to read Watership Down. That sounds amazing, and horrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/34 "2011-05-27T14:18:58Z")
You will not be sorry you did. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/35 "2011-05-27T15:11:41Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > This frankly makes no sense. How is this different from any other handicap? If I am paraplegic, all of the above apply to me. Am I not disabled? The only one that might not is #3, but there is nothing inherent in being paraplegic that inhibits me and my paraplegic pals from choosing to isolate ourselves from society and thus develop our own ‘culture.’ Like I said in my post, I view #3 as important (it’s what convinced me to bother to make the argument) in discriminating between the terms disability and what I guess I would call a difference. Paraplegics do not have a self-sustaining culture. Also, the relative rate of congenital deafness as compared to congenital paraplegia must be far higher since paraplegia is far better associated with accidents in males. I do not think there would be a deaf culture if it was only the result of gradual or sudden hearing loss. I do not think there would be a deaf culture if there were not large numbers of these people with a way to communicate with each other. This brings up an important distinguishing feature about the term disability from the point of view of a person who never had a specific trait. A key component is to know you have lost the ability. To them and to me, if I were in their shoes, using the term disabled for somebody who never had a specific ability is what ‘frankly makes no sense’. In fact, I think well-meaning people constantly referring to my disability would annoy the shit out of me after awhile, make me move out to an island of like-minded people and tell everyone to go to hell. In other words. thinking of it as a disability serves no purpose. It places you in the hands of people who design awesome, but still flawed devices to ‘fix’ the problem. This is true despite the fact that sign language is far superior for communication. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/36 "2011-05-27T15:23:47Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > In other words. thinking of it as a disability serves no purpose. But it’s still accurate. Where does that leave us? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/37 "2011-05-27T15:28:21Z")
Those of you who insist that hearing problems are a disability please explain the great number of things such disabled people can’t do? If you can’t whistle or snap your fingers is that a disability? What about people who can’t dance? Is illiteracy a disability? Is someone who can’t read more able than a person who can read but can’t hear? Does the average person who is not deaf know sign language? It’s easy to say that anything a person can’t do is a disability, but qualifying that as something that should consider special designation is silly. Do we call all the un-cool people out there disabled? What about people who can’t cook? How many abilities can we distinquish that a lack of puts someone in a special category? I’m sure someone will respond that the vast majority of people can hear. But the vast majority of people can hear, thus deafness is a disability. But that smacks of the claim that difference is a disability. What is it other than the basic function of hearing are deaf people unable to do? They can communicate, they are not limited in physical or mental ability at otherwise. Even in the case of blindness lack of sight limits ones physical ability. But deafness excludes very little. You have define disability in a way that is only distinquishing in its frequency of occurence from the all those things that any individual may be incapable of. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/38 "2011-05-27T15:30:16Z")
How many of you have deaf friends? Seriously. The stuff I’m reading is typical, but its full of misconceptions. What you know or think you know about what the deaf and and cannot do is based on your experiences as someone who hears. Being deaf means you’re not the norm - I know that - and I understand why it is recognized as a medical condition. But like I said in my earlier post, I know plenty of people who are perfectly happy with themselves and don’t feel the need to be fixed. The human body - and brain - is pretty incredible. You’re talking about people who are deaf and that is _all they know_. Deaf kids signing activate different parts of their brains than we do when talking. You can’t imagine a life with congenital deafness because your brain is sensitized to a hearing world. I wish the OP would have posted the **original** quotes\*\* in full\*\* > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Max the Immortal, a few months ago > I see it as more akin to “blind” or “deaf”. **Blindness and deafness are objectively undesirable traits. If they invented a pill that gives perfect vision to the blind, it’s perfectly fine to say, “Great! Let’s get this pill to as many blind people as possible.”. Likewise, it’s fine to want to distribute a hearing-granting pill to as many deaf people as possible.** It’s not acceptable to mock a blind person for being blind or to mock a deaf person for being deaf, but saying “What are you, blind?” or “What are you, deaf?” to the unafflicted are acceptable because it is understood that the intention is not to disparage the blind or the deaf. > > In contrast, being black is not an objectively undesirable trait. Slurs like “nigger” carry with them the assertion that blackness is a bad thing. If they invented a pill that turns black people white, it is not at all okay to say, “Great! Let’s get this pill to as many black people as possible.”. The same rules apply for the word “faggot” and a pill that turns gay people straight. It is not acceptable to mock black people for being black or gay people for being gay. It is also unacceptable to use expressions like “That’s so gay.” in a sense that does not mean homosexual, because the statement still carries with it the assertion that homosexuality is a bad thing. > > Now let’s consider mental disabilities. Is a mental disability an objectively undesirable trait? If they invented a pill that grants normal mental faculties to the mentally disabled, would it be helpful or hateful to try to distribute this pill to as many mentally disabled people as possible? I think we all agree that it is not acceptable to mock a mentally disabled person for being mentally disabled, but does saying “What are you, retarded?” to a normally bright person when they fail to understand instructions or a joke also disparage people with mental disabilities? that was re-quoted, to which I replied: > [@What is going to be the next N-word, F-word, R-word?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-going-to-be-the-next-n-word-f-word-r-word/583151/33): > > I’m sorry for the double-post, but I just saw this and I _had_ to comment. > > Deafness is _not_ an undesirable trait to the millions in the Deaf community. Many many many Deaf people OBJECT to ‘fixing’ their deafness. My Deaf friends are Deaf. It’s like me being Jewish or my best friend being Chicano. It’s nothing you fix. It’s just part of who you are. > > Sorry, I felt compelled to correct that. or [linked](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=609874&highlight=Deaf) for context\* since that appears to be the rules, but since **Marley23** agrees with the OP, maybe it doesn’t apply. I was clearly talking about a subset of deaf people, not all. And _hearing impaired_ is not the same as _deaf_. Late-deafened people are also remarkably different than those who are pre-lingually deaf. Hmm…I wonder if **CandidGamera** has polled Deaf people recently… > [@What is going to be the next N-word, F-word, R-word?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-going-to-be-the-next-n-word-f-word-r-word/583151/42): > > Being black is not an objective deficiency. Not having one of the five senses is. > > Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that there is a strong deaf culture that has formed to support people who have hearing disability, **but if there was a 100% effective, safe and painless pill that restored hearing loss in all cases, 98% of the deaf population would be hearing within a month.** You’d have a few outliers whose self-esteem was so tied up in their deaf cultural identity that they would refuse to change, but the vast majority would want that other sensory input. I have a disability. I’m not disabled. I also don’t wish to be neurotypical as I would be a completely different person and wouldn’t have the same talents. I know deaf people who feel the same way. There _are_ things that deaf people are better at, such as spatial recognition and (non-hearing) sensory awareness. To a deaf person, the hearing may be the ones with deficits. 😉 In the mammalian world, one can live without hearing. Do I really have to remind a bunch of adults that _having a disability_ is not the same as _being disabled_? \*I can’t believe I put an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/39 "2011-05-27T15:40:42Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Those of you who insist that hearing problems are a disability please explain the great number of things such disabled people can’t do? I can’t make a full list of them at the moment but I suppose near the top of the list would be _HEARING_. Does that count? It’s somewhat important in spoken communication. > [@](#): > > If you can’t whistle or snap your fingers is that a disability? What about people who can’t dance? Is illiteracy a disability? Is someone who can’t read more able than a person who can read but can’t hear? Does the average person who is not deaf know sign language? See my earlier comment about skills and abilities. I’m not a very good whistler, but if I were motivated, I could learn. My lips and my lungs function. > [@](#): > > I’m sure someone will respond that the vast majority of people can hear. But the vast majority of people can hear, thus deafness is a disability. But that smacks of the claim that difference is a disability. Not really. > [@](#): > > Even in the case of blindness lack of sight limits ones physical ability. But deafness excludes very little. I’m getting the impression that you want to create a special category for deafness so that it’s separate from disabilities because, um, yes. Why is it a bad thing to categorize deafness as a disability? By definition, it’s the lack of ability to hear. That doesn’t mean anybody needs to be ashamed of it, but it’s starting to sound like people want us to pretend it’s like having green eyes or being left handed. It isn’t. > [@CitizenPained](#): > > How many of you have deaf friends? Seriously. Must we turn this into a resume issue? > [@](#): > > But like I said in my earlier post, I know plenty of people who are perfectly happy with themselves and don’t feel the need to be fixed. That’s fine, and I think that’s been acknowledged here. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a disability. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370/40 "2011-05-27T15:41:33Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > There _are_ things that deaf people are better at, such as spatial recognition and (non-hearing) sensory awareness. To a deaf person, the hearing may be the ones with deficits. 😉 Cite? > [@CitizenPained](#): > > In the mammalian world, one can live without hearing. Do I really have to remind a bunch of adults that _having a disability_ is not the same as _being disabled_? This makes as much sense as saying that a person who is missing a leg is not the same as a person who is legless. This is a grammatical hoop I am not willing to jump through. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/persuade-me-that-deafness-hearing-impairment-are-not-best-thought-of-as-disabilities/583370.md?page=3)