[nfb-talk] philosophy taken to another level then?
John G. Heim
jheim at math.wisc.edu
Mon Jul 19 14:55:17 UTC 2010
Well, I guess this is hopeless.
>From my point of view, there is no point in bothering to debate whether I'm
confusing politics and philosophy. We get into debates over these minor
rhetorical issues when the real issue is that in the past few years the NFB
has taken positions against DVS, accessible money, and accessible pedestrian
signals. I'm a guy who can admit I'm wrong. You might not believe that but
its true. But telling me I'm confusing politics and philosophy is
meaningless to me when I know something like the fact that in 2002 the NFB
organized protests against accessible pedestrian signals.
Facts are facts. I only just found out about the protest a few weeks ago. I
kind of wish I hadn't burned myself out arguing about accessible money.
Anyway, the point is that you can't tell me I'm not looking at this quite
right when every time I turn around, I learn of yet another thing the NFB
has done that makes me shake my head in disbelief. If I try to take a step
back and make another effort to be fair, to really look at this stuff with
cold hard reason, I always end up deciding that the NFB is telling me that
white is black and black is white. DVS, accessible money, and accessible
pedestrian signals are all bad for blind people. Why should I, as a
reasonable person, believe these things?
Steve, I don't want to disrespect you. I have nothing but respect for your
calmness, your reasonableness, and your opinions. But I still think you
aren't looking at the big picture. I still think any reasonable person
looking at the positions the NFB has taken over the past few years would at
least admit that they are very difficult to justify and that its not at all
unreasonable for someone like myself to be very upset. In fact, I think my
reaction has been very fair and rational. I haven't come in here ranting and
raving. I have tried to rely entirely on the power of the truth to support
my point of view. Now, I'm not declaring myself to be right. What I am
declaring is that the vast majority of the facts have always been against
the NFB. Maybe there are things I've over looked. But no matter how often I
redouble my efforts to see the NFB side fairly, I always have to come to the
same conclusion -- they're telling me white is black and black is white.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] swimming (was: Bard(
> John,
>
> I also hope that all of us can avoid the sort of emotional detours that
> past debates have taken. Over the past couple of years, I have come to
> see you as someone
> with whom I have sometimes disagreed sharply on issues but as one who
> generally does seek understanding through your questions and your
> comments. I also
> believe that anyone who aspouses a philosophy has to be sure they
> understand that philosophy so I attempt to give thought to the positions I
> take. In addition, a
> philosophy has to be a solid guiding influence but it can't be a
> straight-jacket. A philosophy will not always have the detailed answers
> but can provide an approach.
> I am therefore going to take the risk of sharing some thoughts on this
> subject. The risk isn't just that you might disagree with me but that
> others might as well.
>
> First let's be certain to dispose of thoughts of a possible bias on my
> part. I am old enough to remember when one could live in Minnesota and be
> both a Packer and
> a Vikings fan. In other words, I grew up having respect for Vince
> Lombardi and the Packers of the 1960's while cheering the Vikings
> expansion team of the 60's as
> they grew toward their successes in the 1970's. . While I don't claim to
> know how Lombardi would view our philosophy, I feel our philosophy very
> much lives up to
> your statement that "the most important thing in life for a blind person
> is striving to reduce blindness to a mere nuisance." There is a good deal
> of room for
> interpretation there, though, and we may well have disagreements there.
> Still, using our philosophy to help all of us be more than we would
> otherwise be is in my
> opinion the most important thing we accomplish. While it is true that not
> everyone will achieve the same level of success or perhaps not even "get
> there" as you
> said, it also convlicts with our philosophy and would conflict with
> Lombardi's to decide too soon that an individual was not going to "get
> there."
>
> Here is where I think we have differences that need to be explored. You
> said, "no one has any right to tell
> anyone else how to live their lives." A philosophy is a blueprint how to
> live one's life, isn't it? If not, what is the point? Would Lombardi
> have been satisfied if his
> players told him that they really do want to win, but practices don't fit
> into their concept of a good time? I believe that the reason you see
> Lombardi's philosophy as
> going a step further than ours is because you arbitrarily reject in our
> philosophy what you accept in Lombardi's, that a philosophy has to have an
> effect or a guiding
> influence on one's life. It can't be only words one says while one goes
> off and lives as one would have lived without the philosophy.
>
> Having said that, I also think you have a narrow view of how our
> philosophy tries to dictate how people live. Sometimes you confuse
> politics with philosophy, for
> example. You confuse the means with the ends. While positions we take
> should have some philosophical basis, they also are determined by
> priorities and even
> other influences that can be temporary. We are also an organization of
> people, human beings, who don't see everything uniformly. Our collective
> view of our
> philosophy has a good deal of commonality, but there are and always will
> be variations in how our philosophy influences our positions. I am not
> happy with every
> position we take, but as long as I am happy with most positions, I will
> continue being active. I think this is how most members feel. I also
> accept that there is going
> to be a degree of variation in positions even within a philosophy, based
> upon circumstances and also upon opinions of individuals. There has to be
> some ability for a
> philosophy to evolve without loosing sight of its major premises.
>
> What does it mean to reduce blindness to the level of a physical nuisance?
> This may well be another area of disagreement. Our position, as I see it,
> is that the first
> component of accomplishing this is to educate ourselves as to what are
> truths and what are not about blindness. We learn about blindness first
> from society and
> therefore share many of the misconceptions about it. From our own
> experiences, we start to see that not everything we learned is true, but
> we can only carry that so
> far using our own experiences. Collectively, we can learn much more, and
> our collective experience can move us further as individuals than we could
> have
> achieved on our own.
>
> The second component is learning as much as we can how to fit into the
> world as it is. Dr. Jernigan made this point often both in written
> speeches and in personal
> interactions. I do not believe this is important because it was some sort
> of holy dictum, I believe it is important because he made a good case for
> it and it fits with my
> own experience. Anything we can do to fit into the world as it is we can
> also control. What the world does for us we can't control as well.
>
> The third component is what do we need the world to do for us and why. I
> think the "why" is an important part of this component. We have to
> understand that
> what the world giveth, the world can taketh away. <smile> Society
> evolves, and we have rights under the law that we didn't have fifty years
> ago. My assumption is
> that laws will not revert to what they were fifty years ago, but it needs
> to be recognized that laws are also not permanent. It is therefore a
> mistake to depend upon
> current laws for that which we can do for ourselves with some effort. It
> is why I see what the world should do for us as the lowest level of making
> blindness a
> nuisance. If we only care about ourselves and we're over, say, fifty, we
> should get the world to do as much for us as we can get away with. If we
> care about future
> generations, though, we need to continue considering what we can change
> and what the world should change knowing that what we can change can't be
> easily
> taken away from us.
>
> If I believe the above to be a logical approach, of course I will try to
> influence how others live their lives. At the very least, that is
> politics. I have that right and they
> have a right not to listen to me or to work against whatever I am working
> to achieve. One cannot just decide their position isn't influencing
> another's life, the action
> itself defines that. I would maintain that all of us who are blind have
> an impact on the rest of us. Just because some of us say we are not
> trying to impact others
> doesn't mean that our actions don't have an impact. That isn't something
> an individual can decide. An individual can only choose whether he or she
> takes
> responsibility for the impact their actions have.
>
> A big part of our philosophy, in my opinion, is to first try to overcome
> an obstacle independently. If that doesn't work, find a way that allows
> us the most
> independence that we can have to deal with it. If we need help, try to
> find a way to give back. This seems to me to be a part of our approach
> that you sometimes
> see as telling people how to livwe their lives. Because you don't see it
> as acceptable, it results in your thought that part of our philosophy is
> missing, therefore
> leaving a gap. I see you as living a lot of our philosophy as I have
> expressed it. Where we have run into problems with one another is that
> you have sometimes
> defined my position as telling others how to live their lives while you
> have defined your positions as not doing that. I would maintain that both
> of our positions impact
> others and to some degree, determine how their lives will be lived.
>
> Before closing, I want to get off of the philosophical a little. I think
> we always have to remember that we are all going to achieve different
> levels of independence.
> We can't forget about our blind brothers and sisters who have been placed
> at a disadvantage by circumstances beyond their control. We also can't
> forget that the
> line between being successfully employed and unemployed is really a pretty
> narrow line. I can remember when I was looking for a job getting to the
> point where I
> wondered if I would find one. Some of us may not have the right strengths
> for today's jobs through no fault of our own. You can always find horror
> stories about
> what happened to this or that individual at a large convention such as
> ours, but if you could see some of what I have seen, how we arrange to
> provide assistance in
> an unobtrusive way, how some members help others, and how persons who have
> trouble traveling beat the odds by getting to their destination getting
> some of that
> good feeling from winning that you mentioned, I can't help but think some
> of this might make more sense to you. Winning doesn't have to mean
> getting a job. It can
> mean getting to a restaurant when you didn't think you could. It can mean
> learning to ride an escalator for the first time when you have always been
> afraid of doing
> it. What I see when I look at our members is not thousands of
> well-adjusted blind people who travel perfectly and are employed, but
> rather individuals who are doing
> their best to make the most of themselves as blind people, whatever that
> happens to be.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:02:00 -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>
>>I'm impressed with the number of swimmers on this list. Its a good sign,
>>IMO. It says something about the NFB philosophy.
>
>>I may have given the impression that I disapprove of the NFB philosophy
>>but
>>nothing could be further from the truth. Its very close to my personal
>>philosophy of life which is borrowed from Vince Lombardi.
>
>>A lot of people think Vince Lombardi was the mean old coach who would do
>>anything to win. No, that was not what he was like at all. His players
>>loved
>>him and still gather to meet each year to honor him. What he believed was
>>that life's greatest moments come when you meet a challenge and over come
>>it. That's what life is about. That is what it is to be human. You've got
>>to have the will to win, to be the best you can be. Strive for perfection,
>>knowing you'll never obtain it but on the way there, you'll find three
>>things. First, you'll do more than you ever thought you could. Second,
>>you'll find the struggle itself can be fun. And third, , when you do
>>succeed, it will be the greatest feeling you've ever had. So when I went
>>blind, I decided I was going to be the best damn blind guy I could be. I
>>learned braille, tried to learn to play the violin, got a guide dog, and
>>got
>>back into running and swimming.
>
>>The beauty of Lombardi's philosophy is that whenever you run into
>>adversity,
>>you don't say, "Oh, woe is me. Life is so hard." Instead the response is
>>,
>>"Well, what are you going to do about it?" You don't seek out adversity
>>but
>>when it comes, embrace it. Take it on.
>
>>Not to create controversy again but like the NFB philosophy, the problem
>>with Vince Lombardi's philosophy is that it is easily morphed into a
>>mentality of showing contempt for losers. You can't live Lombardi's
>>philosophy and be satisfied -- well ever really since perfection is
>>impossible to obtain. You can always get better. But not everybody has the
>>same strengths and not everyone can win. And no one has any right to tell
>>anyone else how to live their lives.
>
>>anyway, I think you can see the simularity between Lombardi's philosophy
>>of
>>life and the NFB philosophy. I would say, though, that Lombardi's
>>philosophy
>>is a step beyond that of the NFB in that it gives you a sort of method for
>>carrying it out. The idea of never settling for anything short of success
>>is
>>implied in the NFB philosophy but not spelled out. I think Lombardi's take
>>on the NFB philosophy would have been that the most important thing in
>>life
>>for a blind person is striving to reduce blindness to a mere nuisance.
>>You
>>may never get there but the most important thing is to never be satisfied
>>until it is.
>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Steve Johnson" <stevencjohnson at centurytel.net>
>>To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 7:10 PM
>>Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] swimming (was: Bard(
>
>
>>> Hi John,
>>>
>>> I think it is just cool that you are swimming. I think the best I would
>>> at
>>> my skill level is circles! Good for you in wanting to be a
>>> tri-athelete!
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>>> On
>>> Behalf Of John G. Heim
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 11:25 AM
>>> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] swimming (was: Bard(
>>>
>>> If you swim laps and if you have a way to stay on your side of the lane,
>>> I'd
>>> like to hear about it. I believe most lap pools have the swimmers keep
>>> right like on a road. You swim up the right side of the lane and on the
>>> way
>>> back you come down the other side. The best I've been able to do is to
>>> swim
>>> with my right arm flailing out so that i can touch the lane divider on
>>> every
>>> stroke. That doesn't really work very well.
>>>
>>> It isn't really very helpful to tell me my skills need to improve. After
>>> all, I already asked for tips on how to improve.
>>>
>>> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 9:14 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] swimming (was: Bard(
>>>
>>>
>>>>A lane for yourself alone? Why? Is it your swimming skills that
>>>>vastly need improvement; or, perhaps your blindness skills?
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>> The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!
>>>>
>>>> E-Mail:
>>>> rforetjr at comcast dot net
>>>> Skype Name:
>>>> barefootedray
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 15, 2010, at 9:04 AM, John G. Heim wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> So you're a swimmer, huh? Do you ever have to share a lane? If so,
>>>>> how do you do it? I have never managed to do that successfully. Here
>>>>> at the pool at the University of Wisconsin, I call ahead and they set
>>>>> a lane aside for me so I can have it to myself. Its only a minor
>>>>> sacrifice because there are usually several lanes with only one
>>>>> person in them. So when they reserve a lane for me, it only means one
>>>>> other person has to share a lane.
>>>>>
>>>>> Have you ever done any open water swimming? I would like to enter a
>>>>> triathlon but I don't like swimming tethered to someone else. I just
>>>>> can't get comfortable doing that. It effects my breathing and I just
>>>>> can't swim normally.
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wm. Ritchhart"
>>>>> <william.ritchhart at sbcglobal.net>
>>>>> To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:04 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Bard
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> I really like the new digital talking book player. I do wish it was
>>>>>> still smaller and lighter. With all my swimming gear, lunch,
>>>>>> back-up cane and everything else I have in my gym bag; it is still
>>>>>> too heavy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>>>>>> On
>>>>>> Behalf Of Steve Johnson
>>>>>> Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 8:22 PM
>>>>>> To: 'NFB Talk Mailing List'
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] Bard
>>>>>>
>>>>>> John, I have not tried one myself yet, so this is good to know.
>>>>>> Thanks, Steve
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>>>>>> On
>>>>>> Behalf Of John G. Heim
>>>>>> Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 3:26 PM
>>>>>> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>>>>> Subject: [nfb-talk] Bard
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Man, I just got one of those new digital book players from the
>>>>>> National Library Service. You might wonder why a computer nerd like
>>>>>> myself took so long to ask for one of those things. Well, I guess
>>>>>> mostly the reason is that I have 2 tape players that I bought myself
>>>>>> plus the one from NLS. So now I have to use the player from the NLS
>>>>>> all of the time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But holy cow, is this thing nice. I downloaded a book and put it on
>>>>>> a USB thumb drive and was listening to a book amybe 3 minutes after
>>>>>> getting started. And navigation within the book is very nice.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Your tax dollars at work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> nfb-talk mailing list
>>>>>> nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
>>>>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>
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