[nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

Thu Apr 28 05:26:01 UTC 2011

I do find that blindness seems to have at least one benefit. I cannot judge 
people by their appearances without having someone describe them to me. 
Given that I don't walk around with a describer every day, most if not all 
of my friendships and acquaintances are made without knowing what a person 
looks like and without judging them by it. Yes, sighted people can ignore 
appearances, but it is different when you don't have a choice.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

> But are these examples of the virtue of blindness or, rather, are they 
> just
> taking advantage of a group that exists?  And the fact that blindness 
> caused
> some innovation in the past doesn't necessarily mean that it will in the
> future.
>
> Examples such as the Blind Driver Challenge and Ray Kurzweil's OCR work,
> while true, do not, in my view, constitute a reason for *preserving*
> blindness.  After all, schizophrenics are often damned creative.  Does 
> this
> mean we shouldn't work for a cure or at least an amelioration of the
> destructive symptoms of schizophrenia?  Before you reflexively say "yes".
> Consider all the harm schizophrenia does.  I'm not saying blindness causes
> harm; it doesn't.  but in a world structured for the sighted, I don't see
> any great benefits of blindness in and of itself.
>
> Mike
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
> Behalf
> Of Jedi
> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 7:57 PM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..
>
> Arielle,
>
> I think blindness does serve a purpose. First of all, we learn more
> about our species when there are differences among us. So for example,
> blind people have been used as controls or experimental groups for all
> kinds of neural research having nothing to do with sight as a means by
> which to understand the human experience. Then, there's the fact that
> we, because of our technological needs, push innovation. For example a
> lot of people are thinking that the blind driver challenge will create
> a lot of technologies that will help others. Similarly, the scanning
> and reading technology the sighted take for granted came as a result of
> Ray Kurzweil's desire to provide a reading medium for the blind.
> Text-to-speech is another   example; we now use TTS for a variety of
> applications having nothihng to do with blindness.
>
> In general, I think disability is a good thing because it makes us
> realize that there are multiple ways to live in the  universe and there
> really is no such thing as total perfection and that we are perfect in
> our imperfection. I know that may seem a little high-minded and crazy
> to some, but it makes sense to me. As blind people, we are in the
> unique position of getting people to think. When they see us, the
> sighted go crazy. but that craziness has nothing to do with us, but has
> everything to do with themselves in a fundamental way. To the sighted
> (and I'm basing this on philosophical and art history research), we
> represent everything from death to the unknown, everything from fear of
> the dark to a feeling of being out of control. The sighted see us and
> think, how in the hell can they live like that? I think we remind them
> on some level that control is a mental illusion and that feeling out of
> control is also a mental illusion. Again, another of Jedi's weird
> ideas, but it makes sense to me. Basically, no human is ever really in
> control, but at the same time, we have more control of our lives than
> we think. So when a sighted person sees us (especially those of us who
> remind them of themselves as normal people), we cause them to question
> everything they thought they knew, and that's a good thing. That's the
> value of having diversity in general. if we were all the same, we would
> not learn nearly as much as we have.
>
> Respectfully,
> Jedi
> Original message:
>> Hi all,
>
>> We recently had a discussion about how we would react if some of our
>> blind friends could become sighted, and we asked whether it would be
>> reasonable for a sighted person to want to go blind. This made me
>> think of an interesting, although a bit painful, question:
>> Would the world be better off, worse off, or about the same if
>> blindness were completely eradicated, through genetic engineering
>> and/or mandatory treatment of all causes of blindness?
>> The question may sound silly, but for many vision researchers,
>> eradication of blindness is a real goal. But does the presence of
>> blind people in our society have any benefit to the society or the
>> world as a whole?
>
>> Certainly there are costs of having a small group of people in society
>> who read and travel using different techniques than the rest. These
>> specialized techniques have to be taught, technology has to be adapted
>> to their use and negative public attitudes prevent this minority of
>> people who do things differently from having full access to societal
>> goods and opportunities. So would it be cheaper and less
>> resource-demanding if everybody could use the same visual techniques
>> to accomplish life tasks?
>> On the other hand, you could perhaps argue that having people who use
>> different senses to do things in society is advantageous. Technology
>> is forced to innovate to become usable by those who don't have vision
>> as well as those who do. And conceivably, if a darkness plague struck
>> the planet, it would be better for the species if some of its members
>> could fully function without light.
>
>> What do you think? Should we as a society make an effort to get rid of
>> blindness? Or does blindness serve any kind of social function?
>> There obviously isn't a right answer here, but it's something that,
>> for better or for worse, could become relevant to us someday.
>
>> Arielle
>
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