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hi, some interviewed pwds (japanese with disabilities) commented me that "you know, wearing glasses also means they have disability because they can't see things without them" implying that the baseline of wearing glasses and, for instance, using a wheelchair is the same. and they have a point here: disability is context-dependent; that is, for example, most graduate students would not function at all and be handicapped at schools if they are not allowed to use the glasses or contact lenses (therefore, they would become the disabled, they said) whereas not being able to run like karl lewis is not so salient in the classroom context. they seemed to use this kind of parable to suggest that "no one is perfect" and a distinction between the non-disabled and pwds is not concrete and distinctive as the general perceive, which both are convincing to me. . Carolyn Tyjewski wrote: > I think the problem you're struggling with is the assumption that because everyone > supposedly has a disability that everyone identifies as Disabled or having a > disability and the misconception that culture means conformity and solidarity. In > other words, these ideas are only mutually exclusive and contradictory if one > believes that identity conforms with reality and/or that culture means conformity > and solidarity and both just aren't true. > well, certainty, having disability does not mean you automatically belong to the disability culture, just as not all deaf people belong to the Deaf culture. you need to "identify" with a particular group of people. ok, i think you made a point here. > As for conformity and solidarity within a culture, name a culture that has > conformity and or solidarity amongst its people. i'm not referring to a specific culture because, as you mentioned, no existing culture of people is independent from other cultures' influences. i don't deny that. what i'm talking about is a definition of culture which is a behavioral or psychological similarity of people. ok, since some people seem to have a trouble with the terms i used, conformity or solidarity, i'd use (a tendency of ) similarity or carolyn's term, "feeling of kinship" because it implies one's consciousness involvement, which i agree with. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%