it's not "wrong" to suggest that the deaf would be well-served by being able to be granted hearing ... The argument that deafness and deaf culture are somehow *superior*, and therefore it's an insult to suggest that it would be a life improvement for a deaf person to (re)gain hearing? That's just ablism in the other direction, and it's just as sucky.
Oh yes, but they're not saying that. A lot of Deaf people use various sorts of hearing aids etc, and Deaf culture includes various people with no hearing problems at all (kids with deaf parents for example). They're just against better hearing/less deafness being pursued at all costs without considering the consequences due to an inflated sense of how bad being deaf really is, or the benefits of Deaf culture for the not-completely-deaf. All things being equal it's better to be hearing than deaf, but all things are not equal, and one can be both hearing and Deaf.
I'm sick, but I think one of the points they make and which I think is an important part of multiculturalism: you can think your culture is not better than another while still thinking it has particular advantages another doesn't. There is a particular beauty to sign language, for example, and you just don't get that from spoken languages. Doesn't mean it's better overall, but it does mean you can't just dismiss it as "the inferior language you use when you can't speak" and expect everyone to join you in looking forward to a day when noone is "forced" to use it and it dies out (this is different to looking forward to a day when everyone can hear). Different cultures are good in different ways, and it may not be possible to simply blend all the good bits into one even better culture, although there is certainly something to be said for trying to do this to some extent in terms of learning from other cultures to improve ones own.
Also, I don't think anyone's against christmas as long as it's not compulsory :) (Which I think is fair, I wouldn't want Ramadan to be compulsory!)
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it's not "wrong" to suggest that the deaf would be well-served by being able to be granted hearing
...
The argument that deafness and deaf culture are somehow *superior*, and therefore it's an insult to suggest that it would be a life improvement for a deaf person to (re)gain hearing? That's just ablism in the other direction, and it's just as sucky.
Oh yes, but they're not saying that. A lot of Deaf people use various sorts of hearing aids etc, and Deaf culture includes various people with no hearing problems at all (kids with deaf parents for example). They're just against better hearing/less deafness being pursued at all costs without considering the consequences due to an inflated sense of how bad being deaf really is, or the benefits of Deaf culture for the not-completely-deaf. All things being equal it's better to be hearing than deaf, but all things are not equal, and one can be both hearing and Deaf.
I'm sick, but I think one of the points they make and which I think is an important part of multiculturalism: you can think your culture is not better than another while still thinking it has particular advantages another doesn't. There is a particular beauty to sign language, for example, and you just don't get that from spoken languages. Doesn't mean it's better overall, but it does mean you can't just dismiss it as "the inferior language you use when you can't speak" and expect everyone to join you in looking forward to a day when noone is "forced" to use it and it dies out (this is different to looking forward to a day when everyone can hear). Different cultures are good in different ways, and it may not be possible to simply blend all the good bits into one even better culture, although there is certainly something to be said for trying to do this to some extent in terms of learning from other cultures to improve ones own.
Also, I don't think anyone's against christmas as long as it's not compulsory :) (Which I think is fair, I wouldn't want Ramadan to be compulsory!)