Comment by giraffe_lady

14 hours ago

A thing that's striking if you spend any time around deaf people is that at the very top there are exactly two distinct branches of human language: vocal and sign. Once this settles into your understanding the implications are profound and it makes it impossible to dismiss as merely failing to love themselves. (??)

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.

2 comments

giraffe_lady

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akoboldfrying  13 hours ago

Sign language can be learnt by hearing people, but spoken languages cannot be learnt by deaf people.

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.

neonstatic  10 hours ago

Where did I say that:

  - 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

Please, tell me where did I say any of those things.

> 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

It is a problem and there is a need to solve it. Simply because a healthy person can hear. If we can help restore hearing, how could that be controversial? I don't understand. Btw. using the word "eradication" is already a strong sign of emotional imbalance of the speaker

  and that the only solution for disabled people to fully assimilate into society is through a medical intervention

If you read the article, noone said anything about this medical procedure being "the only solution (...) to fully assimilate into society". In other words, the person who said this is unhinged.

There, that's what I said and meant.