Is it just me or does this sound familiar?
GERSHON BLACKMORE
From message of 10/19, subject: Is it just me, or does this sound
familiar?, sent by Boucher David in response to Stephen Drake
>In short, the guy is arguing that deaf people have an impaired sense
>of "self". This is a classic example of a so-called expert who gets
>so caught up in his own theories that he loses sight of the very
>thing he is trying to explain. If he knows anything about deafness
>then he ought to know that almost all "deaf" people still have some
>residual hearing. Furthermore, even if you can't "hear" yourself, you
>can still *feel* yourself.
The EXACT same situation is true for autistics. I read the "Theory of
mind" bit in Uta Frith's second book, and I didn't believe it for a minute,
for the reasons above. I don't know about anybody else here, but I'm
"Frithing at the mouth".
>I wonder if it ever occurred to this guy that some of the "behavioral
>problems" of deaf people might have something to do with the way that
>other people treat them.
I wonder exactly the same thing about autistic "behavioral problems".
Sure, autistics can occasionally fly off their handle (I've witnessed such
instances), but everybody does. The difference between an autistic losing
it and a "normal" person losing it is that autistics flail around, scream
unintelligably...actually, "normal" people do that, too, sometimes. The
REAL difference could be mostly that autistics are treated differently in
the first place. I've never heard of deaf people having these problems
before, but it seems to be rooted in their treatment, not in their neural
network (again, a situation found in autistics).
Avicado