Alt.Lifestyle

[AnthonyByakko]

A question was recently posed to me regarding the "legitimacy" of so-called "alternative lifestyles." Among those referenced by the speaker as being "alternative" was of course homosexuality, along with such sub-cultures as the "furries", "goths" and even MMORPG zealots.

As a global community continues to become more interconnected each day, and individuals have increasingly greater choice as to who they communicate and interact with, these sub-cultures will continue to grow and flesh out into what I believe will be their own fully-formed lifestyles - presuming that they survive the test of time and their adherents continue to embrace it. Yet an inexorable slide towards socialistic societies in most industrial and post-industrial nations would seem to come in to conflict with this kind new kind of culture in the future, as what is considered "legitimate" and acceptable will continue to narrow as government's flex their social control through an even wider array of means - a state frowning on a particular sect of individuals could be the kiss-of-death for such cultures.

Highlighted in a recent episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent was a case involving the deaf-culture and the controversy of cochlear implants. For those not in the know on this particular issue, some parts of the deaf community are aggresively against the use of the new technology, as they feel it implies that deaf people are 'broken' and need to be 'fixed' with medical technology. They imply that deafness is a culture under attack, and that the expansion and social acceptance of such technologies constitutes a "cultural holocaust" not unlike that perpetrated by assimilationists against Native American cultures.

But I digress. I am not fully convinced one way or the other. What do you think?

[jotabe]

That reminds me of a case that happened in Spain, maybe a year ago. A couple of homosexual blind women wanted to have a child. So they started to publicly look for a sperm donor who had to be blind, in order to insure that the child was blind.
They said exactly that, that being blind was not any kind of failure in themselves, that it was just a different way of living. They were talking about the blindness as a culture.

I have no problem with people living the way they want. Goths and furries, as you said... well, it's their choice. I don't really see anything inherently wrong in them, and they could have their attractive from a esthetic point of view. In any case, even if i thought they were repulsive, it's their freedom, and as long as the "tenets of their culture" keep out of the crime, my oppinion shouldn't really count.
But blind people, deaf people... they really have something wrong with them. They have a part of their bodies that doesn't work as it is supposed to. They are disabled. The word might not be pretty, but the problems these people have because of their disability aren't either, and they are real. They can't do some things we can do. For other things they have to go through a lot of problems.
They can chose to live as if it wasn't a problem. Actually, it's in their best interest that they do, otherwise they could suffer psychological problems, too. But reacting badly when a cure is possible is simple stupidity. Denying freedom for other deaf people to get cured is stupid fanaticism (well, fanaticism cannot be intelligent, anyway).
About the couple i talked about at the beginning... they are being selfish beyond measure. Usually parents want their children, not to be like them, but to be better than them. To have all the opportunities they didn't have, in the hope of living through them. Consciously denying your child the possibility of seeing is selfishness beyond measure... towards your own children. This isn't a crime, according to the law. But it makes them to be, anyway, horrible people, and horrible parents.

[AnthonyByakko]

That's the way I see it, Jota.

To consciously bring a child into the world and force a disability upon them is an act of pure selfishness. I know I've talked about the value of self-interested action in the past, but to force another individual (a child no less, who gets no voice in the matter) to live with a disability is another thing entirely. Certainly, some of these alternative cultures have developed an almost instinctual, knee-jerk reaction to anything that threatens the fabric of that culture - while this is a normal part of the growth process in a society, some aspects can be dangerous - some deaf people who marry/get involved with non-deaf people are sometimes ostracized from the rest of "deaf culture" for what is seen as an act of "betrayal." In one scene from the Law & Order episode I mentioned, a deaf person is holding her newborn child, and she mentions that the child was born "perfect" - when asked to clarify what she meant, she states that the child was born deaf, just like her, as if, had the child been born with normal hearing, it would have been "not perfect." This kind of ignorance is exactly what most people try to fight against (think of the example of a straight parent who does not accept a gay child - the child has to be born just like the parent in order for it to be "perfect" so to speak) yet seems to have become a part of new cultures trying desperately to remain cohesive.

At any rate, it's a complicated issue, but one which can't be allowed to cause innocent children to suffer.

You're right about another thing, too - some of these alt.lifestyles have a certain... aesthetic quality to them.

[Eaquae Legit]

Don't have a comment yet, but thanks Satya for cluing me in to the whole hullabaloo. I've been getting emails about this on my disability studies listserv and no one's actually told me what the episode was about. Or if they did, I deleted it (there's a high chance of this). Either way, I'm glad not to be in the dark and now I can go re-read those.

[anonshadow]

Part of the problem I see is that it means identifying what a disability is.

Take, for example, ADD. Some people might call it a disability. I, on the other hand, would not call it that, especially not if it gets caught early, before it wrecks havoc on your self-esteem. There are a lot of positive sides to it, too. Some other disorders, on the other hand--like dyslexia, in the learning disability category, or bipolar disorder, in the mental illness category--have few or no positive parts to them. They are made up entirely of pain, trouble, and heartache for everyone involved.

I think it also probably has something to do with the parents wanted to be able to identify and understand the child, and they may feel as though they'll be out of their depths with a child who goes through a radically different experience than they do. (Note that I am not using this as an excuse--I can understand that, but really, what parent doesn't worry about connecting with their child? Get over it. If it's not that, it'll be something else.)