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

Tue May 3 03:19:02 UTC 2011

Chris:

I agree with you.  I did not, in fact, say that diversity could be negative
although I dare say that quite a number of high school kids trying to "fit
in" might think so.  In fact, to my way of thinking, physical diversity is
neutral.  Intellectual diversity is certainly an advantage.  As for negative
diversity -- let's see -- how about the presence of diseases such as
sickle-cell anemia?  After all, the genes that code for this disease also
confer some immunity to malaria.  Yet few would disagree with those who seek
to cure or eliminate this disease.

Now I'm not saying blindness is a disease.  It is a physical condition
resulting from the lack of one sense -- vision.  That's far from being a
disease in my book.  But I don't believe blindness confers any advantages,
either.

Perhaps a sentence or two about my view of life might help you to understand
where I'm coming from -- it's a view that Jedi does not subscribe to.  Long
live diversity, eh?  Anyway, I am agnostic.  Therefore, I do not believe
there is any meaning in life apart from the meaning we give it by our own
actions.  Nor do I believe there is an ultimate purpose to existence except
insofar as we overlay it with a gloss of meaning of our own making.
Therefore, questions such as "why am I here?  Why was I blind?  What purpose
does my blindness serve in the larger scheme of things?" have no answers
and, in fact, make no sense to even ask.  It's sort of like in quantum
mechanics where it makes no sense to ask whether an electron is a wave or a
particle.

Anyway, with that world view in mind and bearing in mind that I subscribe to
the NFB notion that with training and opportunity, blindness can be reduced
to the level of a physical inconvenience and that we, the blind, are simply
normal people who cannot see, I do not see that having blind people around
confers some special blessing on society.  Blindness is just that -- the
lack of sight.  I do not believe that it renders us privy to special
insights, miraculous talents or capacities or special cultural
predilections.  I am therefore not committed to its preservation.  Neither,
on the other hand, am I committed to its eradication.  If it happens, so be
it.  If it does not, so be it.  I'm not going to worry overly-much about it
since it won't happen in my lifetime and there will be innumerable
circumstances I cannot foresee so cannot make a binding judgment upon.

Bottom line: I don't see how we can say that blindness is just the lack of
eyesight while at the same time believing it confers special virtues or
valuable traits for society.  I truly do not believe blindness to be all
that much of a muchness.  Sometimes it's a pain; sometimes it's just there.
In my experience, it's never the catalyst for wisdom or enlightenment.

Now that I've written this to death, on to the next issue! (smile)

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Chris Nusbaum
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 12:55 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

Being Devil's advocate, what negativity does diversity have? 
Diversity, by definition, isn't good nor bad, but just different.  
So, what is the negative impact of diversity on...  who, society?

Chris Nusbaum

"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com
To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 1 May 2011 21:25:10 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

That presumes that diversity always equals benefit.  You and I are going to
have to differ on this one.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jedi
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2011 6:45 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

I say that disability is a form of diversity, so I wouldn't want to erase
it.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
 Hello all,

 This is an interesting discussion, so I thought I'd pop in for a minute.

 This question goes, at the root of it, to how you view disability.  If  you
view it as an aspect that creates diversity, then erasing it would  be like
erasing races or different languages.  If you view disability  as a disease,
then logically the first response would be to want to cure it.

 What do you guys think?

 Briley
 On Apr 27, 2011, at 7:55 AM, Jorge Paez wrote:

 Arielle:
 I think blindness does play a roll--in that it is just one of many  things
that make up an individual, and in a world where genetics  would be
preprogramed, it just be too perfect.
 It'd just bee too flawless--too artificial.
 I'm sure some people would want it--but a world in which blindness  and
other disabilities are completely eradicated would just be too  artificial,
almost like we literally managed to create our own world in a way.

 Worse, it would make it a whole lot worse for any blind who were born
cause then everyone would consider them a scientific failure so to speak.
 Of course,
 I'm hypothetically talking about a very cold  world in which science  would
create people which I hope would never happen but its a good  talking  point
anyway.

 Jorge

 On Apr 27, 2011, at 12:08 AM, Arielle Silverman wrote:

 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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