In the early 1900s, the issue of whether color blindness was a disease that someone was afflicted by, perhaps due to their own bad habits, or whether it was a disability that entitled someone to some sort of possible remuneration if it hindered their professional life became a contentious legal argument in different jurisdictions of the United States. At this particular time, the precise genetic nature of the vulnerability that people had to becoming color blind, were not known in detail, but it was already understood that a considerable portion of people, mostly male, had moderate to severe color blindness in ways that were seen by writers and thinkers of the time as potentially very dangerous in certain professions where it was vital to be able to distinguish between colors. People who had developed color blindness could find their professional life considerably harmed and might find it impossible to earn the same kind of living that they would otherwise, and dealing with the possibility of these damages became more important to deal with as society sought to give detail and information to people through the use of color, as has been increasingly the case to the present day with contemporary technologies as well as printing.

As human beings, it is natural that we would tend to focus on our own struggles to a large degree and not always be as interested in or as understanding towards the limitations or struggles of others. There is someone I have to deal with who is pretty seriously color blind, and it has often fallen to me to give information about colors, text that is written that is indistinguishable to him because he cannot see it due to his color blindness, as well as the color of his cars, clothing, and various technological devices which have clues in their colors that he cannot recognize. Like most people, I find it easiest to deal graciously with people who are gracious in dealing with me, and it tends to irritate me when people do not properly understand principles of mutuality and reciprocity to any great degree. Even so, I often wonder why it is that if a substantial number of people, amounting to several percent of the population, have color blindness that can inhibit their ability to see graphics as they are designed or to pick up information from color and shade, why it is that so much about graphic design and technology is not designed with the color blind in mind. As far as I have been able to gather, there has been little if any writing on the subject of how to engage in graphic design in ways that are discernable to those who cannot distinguish between colors on color. This condition makes a great deal of graphical designs, where text of a color is over an image of only barely discernable difference even to those with normal sight, entirely incomprehensible and wasted, and yet it seems to be a pretty frequent occurrence that the cover design of magazines and books is not done in such a way that it is legible to all of a writer’s intended audience, and it can be rather irritating to see that people design without thinking of one’s own struggles and limitations of discerning based on imperfect senses.

Although color blindness is not a problem I struggle with, from time to time I find myself dealing with the issue of discerning sounds. Having always been interested in hearing and speaking as well as dealing with the different phoneme inventories in different languages, there are many striking cases where people find themselves unable to understand and distinguish between different sounds. At times, this is used for the purposes of what in contemporary times is judged as being problematic or inappropriate humor as when speakers of certain languages find themselves tripped up in distinguishing between l and r sounds. I have found for myself that there is a letter in certain Indo-Iranian languages that I cannot pronounce as I cannot distinguish the sound from its neighbor g, as it is supposed to be some sort of gh sound that is nevertheless distinct to those who are able to recognize the difference. Despite this lacking in my own personal phoneme inventory, I am still generally pleased that I was able to learn how to trill my r as well as to use glottal stops and laryngeals in ways that are unfamiliar to most English speakers to allow me to speak at least some other languages effectively.

The problem of distinguishing is a massive problem when it comes to issues of morality and justice. Given that it is a significant problem for us to distinguish things in sense data, it is an even harder problem to distinguish properly with regards to areas of moral and aesthetic judgment. Indeed, people who wish to be experts in certain fields must spend a great deal of time practicing and honing their senses to be able to distinguish between subtle differences of taste, smell, and appearance in order to be fit judges of certain products. By reason of practice, even if we are not really intending to master it, we can often become better at distinguishing between those matters where we have expertise in recognizing subtle differences between broadly similar productions. Through such methods we can become expert and recognizing the subtle bouquets of a wine, or the accent that someone speaks with when they communicate with us, or the specific genre of song or writing that we may be reading or listening to. But while we are acquiring and using such expertise, let us spare some compassion for those whose senses, through not fault of their own, are not fine enough to recognize what we would consider to be very broad distinctions. For to be without finely working senses is to miss a great deal of the beauty and variety that this world has to offer, and that is a type of poverty always to be lamented.