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

Fri Apr 24 01:19:03 UTC 2009

Haben, since you asked, and since you seem genuinely interested, in most of
my writings on disability I try to say disabled persons, rather than persons
with disabilities.  The latter phrase suggests that I possess a disability
whereas to be disabled is to have something imposed on me.  I can be
disabled by social arrangements that are constructed to suit a particular
kind of body, but if I am a person with a disability, then the problem is in
me.

That said, even though I think language is important in shaping how we think
about things, I recognize that we have bigger problems than whether we are
referred to as disabled people or people with disabilities, and I end up
using the latter phrase quite a bit out of habit, so I wouldn't try to
correct someone who said persons with disabilities.

However, today I met with some representatives from Bell, one of Canada's
major telecommunications companies, and they have something called the
"Special Needs Centre".  And Among the many topics my colleagues and I
raised with Bell was the atrocious name of this centre.  I really can't
stand the name special needs; it makes me shutter a little every time I say
it.  And I think it really reflects a bad way of thinking about disability.
To connect it to what we've been talking about, I would argue that it only
seems like we have special needs because we have built most of our
institutions without any consideration for blindness.  For example, there
was likely a time when many buildings didn't have women's washrooms, a
legislative building in the early twentieth century for instance.  When
women began getting elected to office, washrooms had to be built, and this
could have been viewed as a special need.  In fact, the problem was that the
designers of the building just ignored women in their plans for the
building.  Something similar happens in the case of disability today.  Far
too often, characteristics outside the norm just aren't taken into
consideration in the design of things.  Then when we ask for things to be
change to better suit people with different kinds of bodies, it gets
labelled as a special need rather than a failure in design.  So the special
needs centre is a situation where I think the attitude reflected in the
language was important enough for us to bring it up at the meeting, and it
gave us a chance to try to encourage them to start thinking about disability
differently.

A quick response to Nathan.  Just because blindness is legally a disability,
which I fully recognize, doesn't mean that blindness is a disability anyway
you look at it.  Legal definition is only one way of looking at it, and for
the reasons I've mentioned in the last few messages, I really don't think
it's the right way of looking at it.

Best,

Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
Behalf Of Haben Girma
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 5:33 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] "Blindness" vs. "Disability" a philosophical
question?

Marc, you mention that you don't like using the phrase "persons with
disabilities" because it implies that the characteristics are the
problem, not the societal forces. How might use the English language so
that blame is not places on the characteristics?

Haben

mworkman at ualberta.ca wrote:
> 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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