Comment by throwway120385
2 days ago
Only in that narrow viewpoint. Most people talk about disability in the context of a society because much of what we encounter in our day to day is created by other people. The sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in our world are frequently because of others. So in that context, if the dominant culture makes it a point to create experiences that require hearing or sight to consume, then yes it's a disability. But if we adapt some or all of what we do for people who don't have those senses, then we can make it less disabling.
Sight and hearing evolved to incredible acuity because they give enormous survival advantage.
While it's good for society to accommodate those with disabilities as much as possible, we shouldn't pretend it isn't detrimental to be unable to see or hear. You don't need to believe obvious falsehoods in order to accommodate people.
I’ve always found this semantic argument somewhat silly as being blind or deaf is an obvious disadvantage in natural contexts, but one of the more compelling ideas here is that the fitness boundary isn’t fixed. It would probably be a fitness advantage if I could sense electromagnetic fields, but no one would describe me as disabled for not being able to sense these fields—unless, perhaps, everyone else could.
So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a function of what we consider to be normal.
If it were a fitness advantage if you could sense electromagnetic fields, then why have you evolved over billions of years to get where you are, without it?
But wait, you do sense electromagnetic fields in the 380 to 750 nm wavelength range, and remarkably well, to great profit.
The only fitness advantage that matters for evolution is whatever gets you to pass down your genes, versus someone else not passing down theirs. If sensing low-frequency electromagnetism, or static magnetic fields, were advantageous in the context of everything else that you are, for passing down your genes, you would have it by now.
Migratory birds can sense the Earth's magnetic field for navigation; if you needed to migrate thousands of kilometers every year (due to lacking other advantages to make that unnecessary), you might evolve that.
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> if I could sense electromagnetic fields, but no one would describe me as disabled for not being able to sense these fields—unless, perhaps, everyone else could.
Light is EM fields. A possible scenario is a battle at night with others having night vision equipment and you don’t. You can absolutely be described as disabled or being at a significant disadvantage.
Because, like you say, what we consider normal in that scenario is to have a proper night vision equipment.
>So what we consider to be a disability does seem to be a function of what we consider to be normal.
Obviously? How could it be based on anything else? People are just much more uncomfortable with making normative statements than they used to be.
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You've set up a straw man here - nobody in this thread is claiming that it's not detrimental to be missing a sense.
The point is that disability exists within the context of the world we live in, and the society we've built is one that largely assumes people have both sight and hearing.
> Sensory disabilities like deafness and blindness are disabling because the world is not oriented to people with sensory disabilities.
Implying that they wouldn’t be detrimental if the world was “oriented” differently.
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