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From: William.Wilson@f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (William Wilson)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Basic Math
Message-ID: <16259@handicap.news>
Date: 19 Jun 91 20:54:07 GMT
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[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 MD> Thanks!  Okay, now, there are folks like you and Willie and
 MD> maybe others who were sighted and lost sight later in life.
 MD> What I'd like to know as far as information/learning is:  If
 MD> you think that losing sight later might make it seem to you
 MD> that traveling as a sighted person is superior because you've
 MD> known about sight, versus the individual who has been blind
 MD> since birth and who hasn't known aboug sight--such as myself

Margo,
    Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak out on this to you,
cause frankly, I think you know me pretty well by now, and although I
already responded to Beth about this, I'm going to kill it now, as she
might not know me quite as well as you.

     Margo, you and Beth are constantly using words like "superior" and
"better" in your messages when you describe what those of us who
disagree with you on certain issues said, but I have not seen one
message from us using those terms!  We have said on occasion how in
certain situations sight can be a benefit, and we have even insinuated
at times I suppose that not having sight can put us at a disadvantage,
but none of us has used such overall judgemental terms as "superior" or
"better", you and Beth have judge falsely attributed them to us!
Likewise, you seem to be saying that this is divided along the lines of
congenital versus adventitious blindness, but that simply isn't the
case!  I can honestly say that even in this issue, opinions are not that
clearly divided between those of us who have had sight and those of us
who have not, as even some of the people you used as examples of people
who have never had sight lie closer to the position you are attributing
to adventiously blind people than they do to yours and Beth's!
     Here's the way I figure it Margo...4 is in no way intrinsically
better than 5, it is simply 1 less!  If, for example we multiply the 4
by an intelligence value of 6, it comes out to 24, but if we multiply
the 5 by an intelligence value of 3, we only get a 15!  This, in fact,
seems to be the multiples that both you and Beth use when leaving your
"I'm as good as a wink" messages, and that is ok, except we don't
compare individuals in the statistical world when discussing issues, we
discuss averages on both sides of the fence!
     How important one ranks the presence of a 4 or a 5 in the basic
equation varies for several reasons, including accuracy of imagination
in the case of a never sighted person, and accuracy of memory in the
case of someone who once had sight!  I have honestly met people who
never had sight that I thought had a more accurate imagination of what
sight was than many people I've met who lost their sight had an accurate
memory, and that is no bull!  Perhaps this is because some people do
lose their sight are never able to deal with the loss, and this is the
saddest thing I have ever seen!
     Ok, so what I am saying is, admitting that having a fifth sense can
be an advantage in certain situations doesn't at all mean that a blind
person lacks confidence in their own abilities, or that they feel
inadequate in any way, or that in fact they, as an individual, arn't
more competant than the average sighted person in many if not most
situations!  It means simply that they are playing the game with a 4
rather than a 5, and in some situations they have to add to the
multiplier to come out even!  Personally speaking, that is one of the
reasons I am proud of my citizenship in Blinkdom!  At least in this
echo, I see a bunch of blinks who have such a higher multiplier than the
typical citizen of the world at large, I am still impressed every day I
participate here!

     Now then, does that sound like someone who thinks sight is
superior?
                                                        Willie

... BlinkTalk, Dr. Deb and Silver in Pittsburgh!

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