Ah, now I see what you mean. But deaf people can also translate, teach deaf children, be engineers, do 10,000 other things. The working field is so diverse that it’s not required. It never was. Deaf people 75 years ago had higher rates of employment (and better educations!) before this ‘lipreading only and CI’ nonsense. There were Deaf community centers, Deaf arts, Deaf neighborhoods…most of that has diminished because of 1) medicines that reduce the risk of early deafness (caused by childhood illnesses) and 2) English-only.
I will never be a doctor because I do not have the mental capacity for math. I will never be a musician (well, vocal) as I don’t sing well. I will never EVER be a politician because I have a big mouth. And so forth and so on. Some people think that ‘technology’ makes it easier for deaf to acquire working skills. Well, deaf people with sign worked absolutely fine until the shift away from ASL in America. TTY was invented by a deaf person. (Kind of ironic, actually, since AG Bell advocated English only and eradication of ASL…)
I know people with CI who use it for work and chuck it when they’re done. So I don’t advocate against CI or hearing aids or anything like that – I just think that viewing deafness as a deficit is dangerous – because if you are born deaf, you have a different linguistic identity than those who aren’t. And language is so terribly personal…to me, viewing ‘deafness’ as something ‘best thought as’ a disability is wrong, because what good does it do for a child to be told their whole life that their natural state needs to be cured, fixed, or ‘helped’?
So if your deaf child had been in my class, I would not have thought, “Oh damn it. He’s disabled.” I would have, as an ESL teacher and someone familiar with being around Deaf (my first best friend was deaf, actually), though, “Oh. How do I respect this linguistic difference?” and that would’ve been that.
I believe in having tools. I’m OK with deaf kids with CI (though I would let my child toss it if he/she wanted) or hearing ads or whatever. That’s not the issue. The issue is thinking that deaf people are disadvantaged in every aspect of life because they can’t hear. It’s making deafness a much bigger disability than it is.
To that extent, though, would it be reasonable to say that deaf people have the larger problem in terms of interactions because there simply are many more hearing people than deaf? In the sense that what we’re talking about is a contextual problem, rather than an inherent one; the problem arises in that, by and large, it’s a world based around hearing people. We don’t, for example, say that people are disabled because they don’t have wings and can’t fly, because by and large culturally that isn’t required of us.
It strikes me that you aren’t using your imagination well enough here. If there were predators on the island, the deaf settlers would be far more likely to get munched upon, and if there were the cliché hostile locals (with hearing), the deaf settlers would fare poorly. Failing that, they would of course manage — but there would be substantial hits to productivity. Merely the ability not to do manual labour and “talk” at the same time — or indeed for a foreman to give orders without everybody looking his way — would matter (and I suppose in real life, presumably still do.)
Get an erection to photos of Natalie Portman. I couldn’t stand that loss.
You’ve been flatly denying the points about abilities, not addressing them. If I didn’t make it clear in the previous post (and I thought I did), I agree, deaf people can and do adapt. However, that does not fully replace the lost capacity.
No, what hurts is the unwillingness of the airline company to make reasonable accommodations (or perhaps the pilot’s ignorance of his company’s policies, but I doubt that’s the “ignorance” you meant.) If I were to take your ideology seriously, I should think that the “Deaf” can and should operate their own airline. Indeed, it is precisely because deafness is a disability that society at large has an obligation to take the effort (and expense) to accommodate deafness. Otherwise, it would be akin to Vermont putting up French-language signs; sure, a nice thing to do, but why bother?
A propos to nothing, I was curious about your thoughts —and indeed, everybody’s thoughts — on Manually Coded English. It substantially decreases the barriers between the deaf and the hearing — but as the Wikipedia article mentions, is controversial in part for just that reason.
When you prove that to me scientifically, I’ll concede. Right now, the ONLY time deaf are disabled is when they are trying to interact in a hearing world that doesn’t accommodate them.
That’s it.
I do not know what you are yapping about.
How does it reduce barriers? It’s coded English. It’s not a language. It’s a code. It takes forever, isn’t widely used, and is pretty ineffective in real conversation.
If you have to English language speakers that want to talk in SEE or something and it’s basic stuff, it’s not bad, like if someone was trying to tell you what a song said or what an English person said verbatim.
Or it’s useful if you are trying to transliterate something for a hearing person. But it isn’t a language. Any ASL user that can read can also use SEE, but it’s about as useful as Morse Code and is not for any deep conversation. Also, it takes A LONG FN TIME to sign word for word as ASL uses simultaneous signs. It doesn’t really reduce the language barrier between Deaf and hearing…actually…a pencil and paper is easier and an actual language.
But someone who knows SEE is not an ASL signer unless they know ASL.
Agreed it is adapting to the disabilty. And Deaf people can and have easily adpted to not having hearing. But what I meant by saying that we Deaf people do not live life “hearing impaired”, is… well I’ll give an ancedote. I went to a Hearing Loss Association of America event at the Boston Aquarium. This is an organization of deaf, late deafened some Deaf and hard of hearing people. At the event there were some young folks (like me) as well as some old folks. Those of us who could read lips and use the ASL 'terps were awesome and functioning fine. But the people who were more hearing impaired/late deafened were totally lost and couldn’t function at ALL b/c they were used to using hearing to function in that sort of situion.
Citizenpained, the people who were functioning perfectly well on your Deaf island: how do they cope when someone falls over while gather firewood in dense brush, breaks his ankle and can’t move? He’s obscured from view, and even though his friends are searching for him ten feet away, they can’t can’t hear him.
Do you think hearing is completely unnecessary?
I taught for a while at a school that was semi-mainstreamed with a deaf school; I tried to learn sign language, but was hampered by the fact that my left wrist has limited mobility; I can’t turn the hand more than a twitch.
On your Deaf Island, would I not count as disabled?
Do you really think Deaf are that helpless? :dubious: I have said it before: Deaf can exist perfectly fine within society if society lets them. Look at Martha’s Vineyard. I have no doubt that Deaf would exist fine without hearing. They aren’t stupid.
This Earth we live on? It’s a hearing world. Even if all of humanity was struck deaf tomorrow, it would still be a hearing world. Things make sounds. Nearly every animal species on the face of the planet has evolved hearing or at least a rudimentary sense for vibration (in the case of insects) because sounds are useful means of warning and communication.
Evolution says hearing is a good thing, in other words. Not having hearing is selected against.
Deafness, blindness, anosmia - these are disabilities. People have them are ‘disabled’ in the sense that they have a disability. People who have them are not inferior. They just require accommodation.
It doesn’t matter that there’s a ‘deaf culture’, for the purposes of this discussion. People with similar disabilities often band together for mutual support - because people with similar anything often band together. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have a disability. It means they have a support structure.
I’m not sure what the hell you’re railing against, and given the volume of your posts in this thread, I don’t think that speaks well of your ability to get your message across. I’ve seen you excoriate people for calling deafness a disability, and then say ‘I’m not saying deafness isn’t a disability’. So maybe you could take a few days without posting and figure out exactly what it is you want to say your position is, and then get back to us.
You don’t have to be stupid to be unable to hear someone calling out for help, you just have to be unable to hear. It’s not the kind of environment where vibrations would help, and there aren’t many physical signals that would carry far and could be used by an injured person.
It’s a very strange claim, that not being able to hear wouldn’t cause problems even in the example I gave. It makes me think that you’re so committed to your point that you’re willing to say things which you’re well aware sound rather stupid.
And not being able to use one hand for sign language would be rather more significant than a lisp.
You’d have a lisp or a heavy accent. Much of ASL can actually be done one handed (to answer the q about driving upthread) but what would really impair you is if you had one hand. Still, it has been done.
You know how people who speak English as a second language have ‘accents’? So do people who sign ASL as second language learners. Just because you can’t put your hands in perfect sign doesn’t mean you can’t be understood. Sort of like talking to a deaf person.
Anyway, re: predators: I’d assume that deaf would have a system in place for that. In our human world, we don’t fly and we’re not destined for long-distance swimming, so as a result, we have lifeguards and don’t jump off cliffs unless we’re suicidal.
Again. We aren’t living in a world where everyone is on a deserted island. My point was that Deaf can function prefectly fine without hearing.
But deaf people can’t plan for every eventuality any more than hearing people can, and hearing people at least have the ability to call out for help and hear other people doing so, and hear approaching predators and dangers.
It’s true that we don’t live on a deserted island - we live in a world where the majority of people can hear. If deaf people can function perfectly well in this world, then the govt should cut off all the support that deaf people are given. I guess you’d prefer that to admitting that lacking a main sense is a disadvantage.
And so forth and so on. Some people think that ‘technology’ makes it easier for deaf to acquire working skills. Well, deaf people with sign worked absolutely fine until the shift away from ASL in America. TTY was invented by a deaf person. (Kind of ironic, actually, since AG Bell advocated English only and eradication of ASL…)