[nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..
Kirt Manwaring
kirt.crazydude at gmail.com
Tue May 3 05:35:55 UTC 2011
Dang it! I tried to change the subject line and it started a new
thread...oh well. Life hates me.
On 5/2/11, humberto <humbertoa5369 at netzero.net> wrote:
> Let's change the subject line now, shall we? * smile *
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com
>>To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>Date sent: Mon, 2 May 2011 21:35:18 -0700
>>Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..
>
>>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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