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Comment by notahackeratll | Hacker News Reader

Consider this from the perspective of a deaf person. While it seems silly from the perspective of a hearing person, a lot of people in the deaf community are concerned that they are viewed as having a problem needing to be fixed, rather than competent, highly functioning people.

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Coming from somebody in the half-deaf community, please, medical science, find a cure for the problem that I have that needs to be fixed.

Thank you for saying this so energetically and straightforwardly. To the greatest extent possible, we should endeavour to call things what they are.

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.

What is particularly striking to me is bundling of two factors here:

  - Loss of hearing
  - Identity built around loss of hearing

To me these two are distinct. I don't value people based on their disabilities or lack there of. So for me the ability to fix a body's physical deficiency is always a good thing. It makes life better for the person inside the body. These arguments, that I called stupid, conflate both points and assume that seeing lack/loss of hearing as an impediment automatically passes judgement on people who suffer from it.

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.

The factor you are missing in the middle is “language and culture developed specifically around this loss of hearing”. The identity isn’t built around lack of hearing, it’s built around a society that will be literally destroyed if the specific feature that mandates membership is eradicated.

As an analogy, how would you feel about a new mandate that all babies learn English as a first language?

I know several hearing people who are part of the deaf culture. They grew up with deaf parents or otherwise interact with that culture to join. I'm sure their kids will not be. Just like my grandpa was part of a German speaking culture that my dad never joined.

> 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.

It’s not a new idea, you can go learn all about preserving languages and cultures and why and how people care. But even if you don’t do that you can stop giving ignorant takes like “they just have their identity wrapped up in their disability” and say “concern about preserving languages and cultures seems stupid”.

You are now putting words in my mouth. I said the quoted text was stupid. The stupid part was the statement, that framing deafness as a problem to solve is somehow hurtful and wrong.

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.

No, you didn’t say the quoted text was stupid. If you feel you have been misunderstood try reading your own words and figuring out why you don’t even like them yourself.

Come on. I quoted something, then wrote "This just seems so incredibly stupid to me." That's the post.

You didn't quote anything. It's right there to reference:

What is particularly striking to me is bundling of two factors here: - Loss of hearing - Identity built around loss of hearing To me these two are distinct. I don't value people based on their disabilities or lack there of. So for me the ability to fix a body's physical deficiency is always a good thing. It makes life better for the person inside the body. These arguments, that I called stupid,

Ah. We are talking about different posts. The top post in this thread is also by me.

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.

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.

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.

ok lol

I understand their perspective but it’s still silly.

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.

The difference between deafness and other disabilities is that deafness forces you to communicate differently. That communication difference creates a separate language community, which develops its own culture, just as every other language community does. When people belong to a certain culture, that belonging often forms a part of their sense of self.

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.

> 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.

It’s like raising your kid in a remote cabin without access to services and schools.

Its more like making that choice: and it having it be permanent. The child can never visit the city. You can always make someone deaf (unethical), but you can't always reverse hearing loss at an advanced age.

The child can never grow up with education and healthcare. That’s the choice being made.

It's not me that you need to convince.

I think your argument cuts the opposite way that you intended. IIUC, the majority of deaf children are born to non-Deaf parents.

It was not an argument at all: just trying to understand where other people are coming from.

Ok but maybe first we could start ridiculing people who skip infant and child vaccinations, or teach their kids religion.

Or have them gender-changed before adulthood.

Then they can just not get the treatment...?

Part of the concern is that if a cure for deafness becomes standard, then resources for the deaf community (e.g. sign language interpreters) may no longer be available for people who either cannot or choose not to get the treatment.

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.

I understand these arguments but don't find either of them compelling whatsoever.

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.

I wonder what the actual prevalence of this sentiment among deaf people is. I would expect it to be exceedingly low.

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?

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