[nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..
Mike Freeman
k7uij at panix.com
Tue May 3 04:35:18 UTC 2011
Hey Kirt:
The Mavericks blitzed the Trailblazers so NBA is of no use to me anymore
this year. (grin)
Now if the Washington Capitals can knock off the Tampa Bay Lightning in the
NHL so we can in the end have a Capitals Canuks Stanley Cup Final ... Now
there's something to care about! :-)
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Kirt Manwaring
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 9:18 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..
Mike,
Very, very well said. Except for the bit about no ultimate meaning except
for what we make of life (which, really, is kind of beyond the scope of this
meaningless conversation), I totally agree with you.
Blindness is sometimes a pain in the ass, sometimes it really makes no
difference to life one way or another. I guess the only benefit blindness
has ever given me is the opportunity to meet some friends who I would
otherwise never have known. Other than that, if I'm weighing pros and cons
in my own life, blindness isn't really much of a good thing or a bad
thing...it's just kind of there. It's certainly not a good thing, I don't
think-but it's not really that bad either.
At any rate, there's plenty more important things to worry about...like the
NBA playoffs! :) Go Grizleys! (I kind of adopted them as my team after
they upset the spurs-can you say bandwagon fan?)
Warmest regards,
Kirt
On 5/2/11, Mike Freeman <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:
> 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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