Probably because in humans sight is the primary sense and hearing secondary. Deaf people face a lot of challenges, but not nearly as many as blind people (amd I say this as someone with -10 prescriptions, which is close to legal blindness without my glasses)
I think some of this is just a matter of adapting to the bodies we have (we've never had great vision), but my sister and I, who are slowly losing our sight, both agree that we'd rather go blind than go deaf.
For us, it's about the ease with which oral communication connects to others, and a deep love of music. Both of us have an easier time recognizing voices than faces, and this was true even when we were younger and our vision was mostly normal.
This isn't to say one bodily sense or one way of engaging with the world is objectively 'better' than another. I don't think that's true. I'm sure there are many people for whom their vision (or some other sense or mode of engaging with the world) is much more dear to them for their hearing, and that's not wrong, either.
> I say this as someone with -10 prescriptions, which is close to legal blindness without my glasses
Given that much of the point of the designation 'legally blind' is that the impairment is uncorrectable, this is a pretty unfortunate phrase imo, common as it is. (I have about the same level of myopia, fwiw.)
> Given that much of the point of the designation 'legally blind' is that the impairment is uncorrectable, this is a pretty unfortunate phrase imo, common as it is
Why is this unfortunate? The designation also very much refers to the severity of the impairment, not just whether it's correctable. Perhaps this depends on the country?
Because the experience of someone whose impaired vision is fully corrected gives little to no special insight into what it is like to be blind.
(If you spend years where the best vision you get is worse than, 20/200 or whatever, because you don't actually have access to adequate correction, that is actually relevant to discussions of blindness even if your vision is in principle correctable, sure.)
Blind people have to adapt their lives in ways that are just not reflected in taking off one's glasses for a moment or wearing a blindfold for a bit. And when you're as myopic as a -10, the times when you go without correction are typically momentary because not having correction is not optional for you.
At the same time, the anxiety (terror, even) of suddenly trying to navigate the world sightlessly, whether because you're a visually impaired person whose glasses have been lost or crushed or because you're a signted person wearing a blindfold for a day as an exercise, isn't really representative of everyday blind life, either.
'Legally blind without my glasses' is a phrase that at best invites inapt comparisons, and in other cases falsely suggests the authority of highly relevant firsthand experience.
It's not the biggest deal in the world. I wouldn't say it's offensive. But it's just not a very clueful thing to say when talking about blindness or talking to blind people.
