At the risk of turning this positive thread negative, there exist deaf people who would deny their children the opportunity to hear, and very little makes me more furious than society's willingness to tolerate this form of child abuse.
I’m a competent, highly functional person. I also have idiopathic hypersomnia and IBS-D. I’d love a fix for either; I want to live the best life possible.
The whole deaf community opposition to treatment reads as just a defensive mechanism. Being deaf means that one of your limited amount of senses doesn’t work. By definition, they’re disabled. That’d be like people whole are really near or farsighted not using glasses because they’ve decided not being able to see is their culture or personality. It’s ridiculous, and that viewpoint should be more than ridiculed when deaf parents don’t pursue treatment for their children.
When it comes to children, then, the question is not just "do I want my child to hear better than I can", but also "do I want my child to speak the same language and belong to the same culture that I do" - something most parents want very much.
That's simply: 'what is best for my child' vs 'what is best for my relationship with my child'. Only one of those actually has the best interests of the child at heart. Only one of those opinions is respectable. Growing up with the latter leads to resentment towards the parent generally.
There's also an issue that, assuming they work similar in this regard to cochlear implants, the treatment has to be performed at a very young age before its possible for someone to consent or choose whether they want to be part of the deaf community.
Here's my test: If my child was deaf and asked me when they were old enough to know that I declined to have them treated based on these arguments, I cannot even imagine them being okay with that.
- Loss of hearing
- Identity built around loss of hearing
I'd also point out that creating an identity around a feature of one's body is a poor man's substitute for loving yourself. No wonder that people who do that get so defensive. Everything becomes a personal attack to them. While it's understandable, it doesn't make it any smarter, wiser, or functional.
Sign language is exactly as rich a linguistic and cultural tradition as all vocal languages combined, it is an equal branch of human expression & life. It's not the hearing or deafness exactly, it's the experience of being one of the participants in and caretakers of this tiny but vibrant and important domain of humanity.
More crucially: Cultures do not have a right to exist. If my culture thriving is straightforwardly at odds with society's physical wellbeing, I need to change and adapt, not society.
- Sign language is not rich in importance and tradition
- Sign language is not an equal branch of expression and life
- Sign language, and body language, are not important and have no profound implications
> makes it impossible to dismiss as merely failing to love themselves. (??)
I would encourage you to practice reading with comprehension. I said that building identities around features of one's body is a poor man's substitute of self love. If you don't understand what that means and how it differs from "dismissing deaf people's language as their failure to love themselves", let me know, I will try to explain.
> It's not the hearing or deafness exactly, it's the experience of being one of the participants in and caretakers of this tiny but vibrant and important domain of humanity.
Great, at what point did I suggest that any of that is unimportant, prohibited, unworthy of continuing etc. etc.?
I called this statement stupid:
These kind of genetic therapies seem to reinforce this idea of deafness being a problem in need of eradication
and that the only solution for disabled people to fully assimilate into society is through a medical intervention
There, that's what I said and meant.
As an analogy, how would you feel about a new mandate that all babies learn English as a first language?
I think it would be wonderful in its effects (I am not a native English speaker), but I don't like the "mandate" part.
As for the other point you are making - the language and culture were developed to work around physical issue of not hearing. Those who have learned the language can continue to use it after regaining hearing. I don't see why those who can hear couldn't learn it if they wanted to (e.g. to communicate with someone who decides to not pursue treatment for whatever reason). I also don't see why preserving something, that solves a problem that now has a better solution, is so important.
Since you are very eager to police what I can or cannot do, let me return the favor: you can stop projecting beliefs you are angry about on other people and you can stop fighting those people over those projected beliefs.
I'm not deaf, but I'm legally blind and autistic. Interestingly, I've never once heard of someone take this position with regards to visual impairment. Why is that seemingly so universally agreed upon to be a "real" disability, and things like autism and deafness aren't?
1. You can only be whole ifwe heal you 2. I am fine as long as the world doesn't make me suffer
I can see both sides, but I also see that 1 is incredibly condescending.
(blind user)
would that ACTUALLY happen, though? I challenge that assumption.
Take this hypothetical scenario: magic... magically all deafness is gone, suddenly and instantly. Would this destroy friendships? Would this erode personal relationships? Would this destroy (the very useful invention of) sign language? Would this destroy books or media? Would this devastate financially members of this community? would this kill anyone?
Well, besides the secondary effects of suddenly hearing, potentially leading to accidents. Do you actually think any of the above would happen?
I don't actually see anything like that happening. This is conservatism dressed up wearing a minority's hat. This is staunch resistance to change because of fear of lacking the familiar experience using a gross comparison to prevent reasonable analysis.
But I also believe in personal choice. Mandating conversion is not a power I want to give the government in any capacity. I just do not see the 'genocide' argument.
This is an example (like Christianity) about how horrible ideas attach themselves to identity to prevent their excision from their host. If you don't think Christianity is a good idea: suddenly it's a personal affront to them. If you don't think being deaf is an advantage or neutral: suddenly it's a personal affront to them. Be wary of anything attaching itself like this to your identity: you usually get infected when you are too young to have defenses.
I suspect so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language
I'll also provide my favorite "it won't happen to us!" example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...