[nabs-l] "Blindness" vs. "Disability" a philosophical question?

[mworkman at ualberta.ca]

I don't usually like to get into debates on lists because I feel guilty
about cluttering up people's inboxes, but it's too hard to resist with this
topic.

Antonio, I didn't intend to suggest that blindness is meaningless.  What I
tried to get across is that blindness receives its meaning from being
situated in a social context.  I see how this might imply that blindness is
meaningless outside of a social context, but the point is moot because
blindness can't exist outside a social context.  In other words, blindness
definitely always has meaning; it just gets its meaning through social
factors.

This is also why I can completely agree with you that blindness is
associated with tremendous challenges day in and day out.  Where we seem to
disagree is that I don't think these challenges are inherent to blindness.
I think that most, if not all, of the challenges could be eliminated if
institutions, programs, policies, attitudes, physical structures, in short,
society itself, were different.

If I thought blindness were inherently negative, I'd be spending my time and
effort volunteering for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, rather than
working to change society with the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians.
If social factors weren't at least partly responsible for the challenges
blind people face, there would be no need for the NFB.  It's possible
blindness is inherently bad.  I honestly don't know.  I won't trust my
instincts on this question because I have spent my entire life living in a
society that views blindness as a terrible fate.  Imagine a world where
every book was available in alternative formats, where blindness was viewed
as a unique way of experiencing the world, an experience of the world to be
valued in its own right, where every blind person received the best training
possible, where inventors and business people took blindness into
consideration when designing products and services, where blind people
didn't face misconceptions and negative attitudes about blindness.  I
realize it sounds utopian, but we're always using wacky thought experiments
in philosophy.  In this imagined world, would it be a tragedy to be blind? I
don't think so, but until we remove every social barrier that exists, we'll
never really know for sure.

To Jedi, totally agree with what you say about the term impairment.

To Haben, a disability is something that is imposed on impairments, or
characteristics outside of the norm, as Jedi puts it.  A disability is not
something a person possesses.  You can be disabled by social forces, but you
don't possess a disability, which is why I typically avoid the phrase
persons with disabilities.  You're absolutely right that some
characteristics outside the norm have disabilities imposed on them more than
others, but I'm not sure if that means it is inherently worse to possess
those characteristics rather than the others.  Remember, certain skin
colours throughout history have had negative attitudes and significant
challenges associated with them that weren't associated with other skin
colours, but this doesn't mean that it was inherently worse to possess the
former skin colour.  We now realize that society was wrong in those cases,
and I'm cautiously opptimistic that the hard work of individuals and
advocacy groups fighting to remove social barriers will eventually result in
society coming to realize that it was wrong about blindness too.  Here's
hoping anyways.

Best,

Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
Behalf Of Antonio M. Guimaraes
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 7:34 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] "Blindness" vs. "Disability" a philosophical
question?


Marc,

I don't buy a lot of what you are saying. Blindness is not only a physical
descriptor. It is not escencially meaningless. I see your argument about
social reactions to blindness, and simply don't agree.

Perhaps reading and discussing Jernigan's points in Handicap or
characteristic is in order, but we need to be a little more honest with
ourselves about the challenges blindness does pose day in and day out.

Antonio Guimaraes

If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup
trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of
highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary
works in Braille.

Shop online and support the NFB of RI at no additional cost to you.
http://www.givebackamerica.com/charity.php?b=169
Givebackamerica.org, America's Online Charity Shopping Mall
----- Original Message -----
From: <mworkman at ualberta.ca>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] "Blindness" vs. "Disability" a philosophical question?


> An interesting question, and I'm going to throw out an opinion with which,
> I
> suspect, quite a few will disagree at first, but maybe I can persuade some
> of you.
>
> Blindness is not a disability.  It is an impairment.  The distinction
> between impairments and disabilities goes back nearly 40 years and is
> well-entrenched in the field of disability studies.  It was even codified
> in
> the World Health Organizations International Classification of
> Impairments,
> Disabilities, and Handicaps.
>
> In short, an impairment is a physical descriptor of the body.  Any trait
> or
> characteristic that lands near the outer edges of the bell curve could be
> construed as an impairment.  But impairments are essentially meaningless
> until you situate them in a social context, and in certain social
> contexts,
> impairments can become disabling.  In other words, disabilities are
> imposed
> on impairments by certain social arrangements.
>
> Let me give you an example.  I live on the fifteenth floor of my building.
> The building of course has an elevator, but when it stops working, many
> people who are not normally defined as disabled become more disabled than
> me
> with respect to my building.  I often voluntarily walk up the fifteen
> flights, but many who are use to taking the elevator would find this
> difficult or impossible, and would become disabled at least with respect
> to
> my building.  This is rarely a problem though because we put elevators in
> tall buildings, but what if we also put ramps, automatic door openers,
> accessible washrooms, etc in all our buildings too? Then many people in
> wheelchairs would no longer be disabled, as their impairments would not
> significantly impact on their lives.
>
> I am certainly disabled, but not by my blindness, by social arrangements,
> lack of adequate blindness training in Canada, quiet automobiles that make
> travel dangerous, discrimination, and the list goes on and on.  All of
> these
> things, however, are social factors that are imposed on my blindness.  My
> blindness is essentially neutral, and I think this is what Jernigan had in
> mind when calling blindness a characteristic, though it's been a while
> since
> I read his work.
>
> I realize that this is not how disability is defined in the ADA, but
> that's
> because the people who defined disability in the ADA screwed up.  They
> didn't go far enough in recognizing the social construction of disability.
> But that's not surprising when you consider the one's who wrote the law
> were
> a bunch of lawyers and bureaucrats.  So if I have to identify as disabled
> in
> order to receive the supports, legal and otherwise, that are available,
> then
> I will, but not because I am, just because I have to, and this is yet
> another example of how social arrangements are disabling.
>
> I think there are some problems with what I've said above.  I only put it
> out there as a way of thinking about blindness and disability I find
> persuasive and interesting.  And in closeing, I'm going to paste a
> quotation
> taken from the homepage of the NFB site.  I think it tends to support the
> position I've outlined.
>
> The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight. The real
> problem
> is the misunderstanding and lack of information that exist. If a blind
> person
> has proper training and opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a
> physical
> nuisance.
>
> In other words, the disabling aspect of blindness is not the lack of eye
> sight (i.e., not the impairment).  It is the misunderstanding and lack of
> information (i.e., the social forces) that exist.  If we get rid of the
> disabling social forces, blindness is no more than a physical nuisance
> (i.e., a neutral characteristic).
>
> Best,
>
> Marc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
> Behalf Of Antonio Guimaraes
> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:57 AM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] "Blindness" vs. "Disability" a philosophical
> question?
>
>
> Hello, Just wanted to quickly throw in my two scents.
>
> Blindness is a disability. We who are blind are not able to do certain
> things. We benefit From or fight against services for disabled students,
> we
> receive disability checks from the government, and we have loss of a major
> life function, sight.
>
> Jernigan never argued that the blind are not disabled, he argued for blind
> people not to see themselves as handicapped. There is a difference.
>
> I am disabled by definition, and clearly make an attempt to minimize my
> disability with the use of adapted technologies, and a positive attitude,
> but I am unequivocally disabled.
>
> Antonio M. Guimaraes Jr.
>
>
>
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