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Eesh, another SMBC that’s aged poorly. This comes across as a ham-handed parody of the debate about Cochlear implants in the Deaf community, not Zach’s intention but…
Meh, that debate deserves it.
If you were T1 diabetic, would you not consider it a handicap and not use insulin appropriately? Both conditions are caused by dysfunction in the body, and are treatable.
Would you not use a cane or crutch if you had a malformed, untreatable condition in your leg?
And I say this as someone with a neuro disorder - If there was a surgery with an implant that could fix it, I’d be knocking at their door yesterday.
Eh, the debate is a little more nuanced. Deaf people don’t die if they don’t get medical intervention, not would most categorize their deafness the same as a person with a missing limb would.
Diabetes also hasn’t developed it’s own language and culture.
The core of the debate is around children very often. Is it better to have a limited sense of hearing (the implants don’t provide perfect hearing. Far from it. ) that can really just make speech intelligible and potentially be shut out from a rich culture that can communicate with you better than you can with the hearing world with the implant, or to be introduced to that culture fully at a young age and make the choice for themselves when they get older, but potentially have the integration be less likely to work or of lower quality?
It’s far from the same, but left handed people face difficulties in life. Handwriting is harder, many manual activities in the sports and arts are more challenging to learn, and you’re more likely to hurt yourself in any number of ways because the world just doesn’t fit with your default.
We long ago decided that we didn’t need to correct left handedness in children anymore because it does not impair their quality of life in a way that’s worth the cost of correction.
The debate in the deaf community is similar. It’s a difference, and it does have difficulties, but many contend that they’re not being deprived of anything that’s worth the cost of correcting things in a child.It’s not at all like insulin. Diabetes can kill you, deafness does not. Your crutch example is equally as bad but for other another reason:
Cochlear implants are an extremely invasive surgery that does NOT fully restore your hearing. Success rates very wildly but even at its best, your hearing is still bad. Sign language is the crutch and dead people already use it.
I minored in ASL and a lot of people who have had the surgery choose not to wear the device. The consensus was that it sounds too bad to be helpful - one person I knew who lost their hearing as a teen described it as (paraphrased) “sounding like a speaker in a tin can” and he had a LOT harder time tuning background sounds out.
That said, I dropped out of the program because the teacher for the non-language classes was fanatical about deafness being a disability and I completely disagree.
It IS a disability…but don’t think negatively of people who are getting by just fine without getting their head cut open. Cochlear implants are option for some but there’s a lot of good reasons to dislike them.
It’s entirely a matter of what the disability is depriving you of, and if the intervention provides enough to be worth it.
It’s dishonest to say that deafness isn’t taking something away.
Where you have to do the radical thing you’re proposing of “talking to the affected people” is when you’re trying to find out the impact of what’s being missed, the value, and how intervention would change that.I’m not deaf, so I don’t get a say in how cochlear implants are received by the deaf community. Most I can do is try to understand and ponder edge cases.
What’s the best course of action if you can’t be near a proper deaf community and a hearing couple has a deaf child?Just to reiterate, I DO think deafness is a disability. I’m just saying it’s very reductive to compare cochlear implands to either of those things. And the big debate about them is because they get pushed to parents as THE solution for their deaf child when that’s often not the case.
Parents of deaf children should learn sign language which is pretty easy compared to verbal language and get familiar with the ADA (if in the US) because schools and government buildings are required to provide accommodations.
With a bit more precaution than a hearing person, deafness is not nearly as debilitating as blindness - you can get by in the world just fine
And just to be clear as well: I was agreeing with you and just expanding a little bit. :) The hearing world doesn’t really get a lot of say in the opinions of the non-hearing world.
Yeah, no matter what if you have a deaf kid you should learn sign or you’re kinda crud.
I think my main “concern” would be less on school and government accomodations, and more the culture aspect.
If you’re in someplace like New York, you’ll probably be able to find a place in a community where they can have deaf friends, teachers who sign natively and all that stuff. You’d probably be able to find someone who has been in the childs position and get their perspective. Probably several.
If you’re in someplace that doesn’t have that, I think it’s a much more difficult question. Being in a situation where you’ll have limited options for who you can communicate with via sign and, while doing their best, teachers who have limited resources to convey lessons, and generally much less community you can communicate with easily is a situation where I can see someone having the weigh those realities while not being fully able to take the feedback of other deaf people.
How about, listening to the deaf community instead of random extrapolations about something you don’t know much about?
You say that, but people who have grown up without vision but been given it have often found the experience unpleasant.
