Because they could have societies composed of nothing but those with the condition and then the problems they encounter go away. For example, if everything was designed without sound, you wouldn’t have issues like not noticing an alarm or needing subtitles on movies. This isn’t the case for quadriplegics.
Sign languages also have their own cultures built around them. There’s people who wouldn’t trade that for anything, in the same way anyone else wouldn’t want to give up their first language. For the deaf, being amongst the non-deaf is like being in a foreign country.
Anywho, there’s some neat stuff to find if you look into deafness groups. I do not know if there are neurodivergent communities living together, only that it’s been talked about.
Lol, I’m aware of the argument. Rather arbitrary and idealist. Anyway, sure deaf people can live together, but by definition they are disabled. They lack the ability to hear.
For neurodivergence, I’ve seen multiple people that were like “I’m not disabled? I literally get overwhelmed by touching a bit of grass or feeling sun on me.” Sure they can have shoes on and stay inside, but some of us also can’t stand shoes and love touching grass. I’ve spent a lot of time in very neurodivergent spaces, and it’s still a lot. As an AuDHDer most ADHDers overwhelm me, and I’m too much for most autists. Even in an ND utopia we’d all have to have lots of education and meds and hyper specific accommodations.
nonsense edit
Elaborating on critique of the model, why should our standard be “everything would be fine if [group] just lived with each other and made their own rules?” This is a terrible equivalency, but “Racist white people arent deficient in anything, they just belong in “whites only” places.” Idk, I don’t want to sound ablist, just critiquing idealism. My point isn’t aspie=nazi, but that we’re all human and different and we need to understand each other and seek accommodations, not isolate.
Of course all debate around language (“disabled”) is bound to be idealist, idk.
Ultimately a reasonable criterion is what do these groups themselves want to be called? I’m not in the blind community but I know lot of NDs consider themselves disabled.
Agreed… disability is a biologically relative term, not socially relative. A society which fully accommodates deafness would not actually abolish deafness.
Someone I know has a hearing disability. It’s not like they are unable to survive without me, but hearing would absolutely make them safer at times. For example, when walking through a dangerous part of town, there is a reason hearing people don’t wear headphones. In nature, it’s a good thing if you can hear rattlesnakes or idk, a bear charing at you lol.
Does that mean a deaf person cannot live a life as rich as a hearing person? I don’t believe that at all. Like said above, there can be certain subjective upsides to deafness that might balance the losses. But it’s still a disability.
