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@linguacelta@toot.wales

2026-09-18 21:53 UTC

Had some interesting conversations recently about ableist metaphors in moral/ethical philosophy, particularly ones using blindness or deafness as metaphors for being unwilling or unable to recognize or understand something: "ethical blindness", "deaf to oppressed voices", etc. Someone asked me what I would say instead. I have some ideas, but I'd love to know whether there are any good resources you'd recommend about this, particularly by blind and/or deaf people?

Replies (2)

  • @linguacelta@toot.wales As a blind dude myself, I genuinely don't care about the blindness metaphores people use. It doesn't really offend me and I think is really a crock of nonsense if people do get offended by it. We all know what they are talking about, there are to many bigger problems in life to be worrying about than some usage of the word blind in science.

    Open ##4760101

  • @zersiax@cupoftea.social 2026-09-18 22:58

    @linguacelta@toot.wales They are an extremely telling linguistical phenomenon... blind in such idioms often seems to be essentially a complete lack of sensory input of any kind, which in turn seems to highlight just how central one's sense of sight is and how one's life would immediately be over if one were to lose it. Meanwhile, as I'm sure you know, there's plenty of blind people who live fulfilling lives, although I won't discount that there's also a huge amount that are struggling, be it minorly or catastrophically. I have a harder time seeing, pun partially intended, the issue with "deaf to oppressed voices". Deaf would seem to mean unable to hear said voices, is the ablist angle that it is used here as something one can selectively "turn off and on" as it were? Selectively deaf?

    Open ##4762927