At first, I envision one of those old cartoon trains or factories. Some boiler made out of cartoon silly putty is about to explode. Then, just in time, they let the steam off and all is well.
Perhaps a better vision is a simple teapot. “I’m a little teapot, short and stout…hear me shout.” We fill the teapot with water and set it to boil. When it’s hot, it steams, and the steam goes through the opening and makes a whistling sound that calls us over to brew our tea. Letting off steam is not only functional; it is built into the design to serve a specific, automatic purpose.
And so, as I look around at all the bloggers who, upon on occasion, take a jab at the neurotypical world—making fun, building their fan base with a little humor—I try to see a teapot. But I’m not very good at making pictures in mind. In fact, I cannot. I spin words and concepts and feelings, and from them I shape pictures with the words I place on the page. Overwhelming any picture I try to construct in this manner is the feeling of sorrow and regret that comes creeping over me. These jabs are not a functional little teapot, however normal and understandable they are. These jabs are not “neurodiversity at its finest” or even “neurodiversity at its worst.” In fact, they cannot represent neurodiversity at all.
In an earlier post, I said:
5) You cannot claim to value diversity and dislike individuals or groups based on traits beyond their control. For example, you cannot dislike someone who embarrasses you by having a seizure in public and still value diversity.
Every time a neurologically atypical person makes fun of a neurological typical person because they’re neurotypical or attributes an entire set of behaviors to neurotypical people on the basis of a few representative examples, you are divorcing yourself (at least, for a little while) from the concept of neurodiversity. If neurodiversity, as per the meaning I proposed, is something you believe in, then you betray your own beliefs by doing this.
I’m not point fingers or citing names. My pot is just as black as your kettle, and I know that. It’s a very human pattern of behavior. We let off steam, especially in the face of adversity. It’s normal. It’s natural.
But it’s wrong.
It’s an act of prejudice. It’s counterproductive to the concept we purport and support. And we weaken ourselves every time we give in to this impulse. And we know better. We really do. We can say we don’t, we can justify ourselves, but these are excuses. We know better. If we didn’t—if our standards weren’t set higher than this behavior allows—we wouldn’t be demanding respect, acceptance, and dignity for neurologically atypical people. We do know better. Respect has to be mutual; it has to go both ways.
The stereotypical neurotypical person erects barriers for others, wrapping themselves in ignorance and privilege, ignoring neurologically atypical people, and forcing their ways on us. It happens. There really are people like that. But, it’s also a stereotype. The people who behave in this way represent only themselves; they do not represent neurotypical people and should not represent neurotypical people in our minds. If you do not recognize that or cannot acknowledge that, then you do not support neurodiversity as I define it. If you support any semblance of neurodiversity it is strictly on the basis that the concept empowers you. If that is the case, please stick to empowerment. You do not have to respect diversity to advocate for empowerment of unprivileged individuals. You do have to respect diversity to advocate for neurodiversity, otherwise you’re just a hypocrite and there’re enough of those in the world, thanks.
If you are making reference to posts about the “neurotypicality movement” that have been made at Here Be Dragons, my blog, and possibly others, they aren’t really meant to be making fun of people who are considered neurologically typical. It’s meant more to lampoon those who disrespect neurodiversity by showing examples of how alarmist/stereotyped language that is so often applied to autistics can also be applied to those who are non-autistic.
When I said I’m not citing names, I really did mean it. I’m not referring to any specific blog or any specific post. I’m not making accusations either. It’s something I’ve noted in many blogs in the last few months, and sometimes it’s not a post but a comment that triggers my reaction.
In regards to the specific posts you’ve cited, I have to apologize. I haven’t read them yet. I’ve been preoccupied with family matters and getting caught up on work and haven’t been blogging so much in the last few days. I will be writing up a follow-up post (this is sort of a continuation of the diversity post) that addresses another issue. Those posts may or may not fit into that one; but again, I’m not making accusations or trying to cite people for “bad behavior.” I’m trying to keep this as generalized as possible.
We all need reminders sometimes to think about perspectives other than our own. It’s hard being the “underdog.” It’s more difficult being the “underdog” and supporting diversity.
@Stephanie: I must apologize myself. I was not citing certain posts on neurotypicality as a disease. I only cited blogs. I will provide links to specific posts in this comment. Here Be Dragons has The Neurotypicality Open Thread, Meet Lisa Jo Kowalski, Operation Rescue, and Einstein and the Neurotypicality Movement. I have posted Another Diagnosis from Neuronormativity at my blog. I hope you enjoy these.
I finally got a chance to read those links. That wasn’t the kind of commentary I was referring to (though some of it was borderline). While I don’t particularly appreciate satire, I understand what you’re doing there. It’s a risky approach, because satire is a form of mocking something serious in nature, which tends to trivialize it in the process.
But there are those who’ve made similar comments outside of the satire form.
Stephanie
Honestly, I have alot of anger inside of myself. I almost let it consume me one time. I almost became the very thing I set out to challenge. What if I’m still heading in that direction?
Doesn’t the Bible say this “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”
I am nowhere near this. This is not easy to do Stephanie. This is what we all need to achieve and when I mean all I mean the whole human race.
We have do have enemies both in real life and on here. What if we could bless those like autism speaks, john best jr, etc. By the way, we’re supposed to hate what people do not the people themselves. Guess what, I’m guilty of going outside the bounds of what I am supposed to hate and so have we all.
I do have a question for you. I have the knowledge but why can’t I follow through with it?
Hate is a very powerful emotion that I do not own. I’ve seen hate–bigoted hatred, hatred from war, ect.–I’ve never felt anything that strongly negative. I dislike Autism Speaks as an organization. But I don’t hate them. When you hate someone or something, you give a part of yourself up to it. It is consuming.
Hate is very much the opposite of love. Obseessive, possessive love aside; when you love someone or something instead of losing something of yourself you gain more of yourself, instead of being consumed, you’re enriched. Also like love, hate goes beyond any why we can put into words (see The Little Things). Hate goes beyond the reasons that start the emotion, it goes beyond the reasons you dislike the person/thing, it goes beyond the pain they have caused you and others, it consumes and changes you.
Why do people hate even when they know they should not? We’re imperfect. Loving our enemies is not something we can do by ourselves. This ability is a gift. It’s one, in my experience, you have to pray to receive. I’ve a long way to go. While I do not love “those who despitefully use [me],” I don’t hate them. I pray to be changed, and I am changed, but sometimes the process is slow, other times its painful. The “antidote” to hate, to anger, and to the pain often at the core of both is God’s love. It sounds trite, but’s it’s not. It takes prayer. It takes a willingness to let Him change you (something I fought for years). And it usually takes time.
That being said, hate is often not the source of the prejudiced words that people fling about at each other. It can be. Bigotry and prejudice can grow into hate. More often, it’s about disgust, which is a form of fear. There’s also often a power need mixed into it. These emotions are not “better” than hate, but they’re different. Not all ugly, irrational, destructive, polluting emotions are hatred. I’m not saying this to convince you that you do not hate. Only you and God can really know that. But, hate is a word that is poorly used in our society. We plaster it on our media out of context, improperly used on a regular basis. Willy, for example, hasn’t learned to distinguish between hatred and anger. If Daddy yells at him, Daddy hates him. If Willy’s angry, he hates whatever made him angry. The distinction is too subtle, too abstract, and labeling emotions is too foreign (at least, it seems so) for him to understand it clearly at this time. But, he’s making progress.
As for “hate the sin, not the sinner,” that’s another phrase I think is commonly misinterpretted. Acts of sin are attributed to being seduced by the devil. He’s the Master of Lies and leads us astray, chains us with sins, and carries us off to Hell. Or, so I’ve been taught. I’ve also been taught that human kind is fallen and imperfect. Natural man is sinful, and only by being changed by God can we hope to escape sin. I tend to see these descriptions as different and I believe the latter. I believe in free will. I have a very strong internal locus, meaning that I believe that I act and things happen, and I can change what happens by how I act. The Judaic culture (as per the Bible, not contemporary Israel), seems to have a much stronger external locus, meaning that God acts and things happen or the devil acts and things happen; people are just carried along in the wake of these mighty actions. “Hating sin” is a phrase that is attributed to the Bible; righteous people hate sin and disassociate themselves from it. I think that contradicts what Jesus said and what Jesus did. He walked through sin (the sins of others), took them upon himself, but they didn’t touch him, neither in life nor death. Jesus called us to show love and charity to all, including sinners. Through him, through praryer, we can begin to do just that. Jesus is called to judge sin, not us–we’re not qualified. “All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God,” (or, something like that, from one of Paul’s letters). Jesus also said something to the effect that he will forgive whom he will, but we must forgive all. While we should not accept sin as righteousness or say that it’s okay to commit sin, we should accept sinners as our brethren and forgive them.
I concur, though for any type of empowerment of which a person may be aware or unaware they have (most people are not aware of the amount of able bodied privilage until they aren’t anymore, for example). However, to assume neurotypical is also an act of predjudice, unless we all wear medical certificates on the outside of our clothes. I can never know another’s circumstances without communion with them. We live in a society which is impaired in many ways, one of them to expect the type of responses, viewpoints, ways of working and social interaction that everyone from Oscar Wilde to Leonardo DaVinci. And many people continue in that society because they don’t know people are hurt, lack appropriate access to education, lack avenues to employment, and are even homeless due to the impairment of society toward those who have neuro diversity. Perhaps some or many know and don’t care because it has yet to affect them, but that too is a sign of an impaired society.
Elizabeth McClung,
People are often unaware of the privilege, which is one of the reasons why I encourage people who are devoted to one issue (autism, for example) to explore advocates of other issues who may or may not be involved in the issue of choice. I’ve learned a lot about the wider issues of prejudice and privilege from interacting with others–it’s a big world and there are a lot of people hurting. You have to listen to be aware, and even then you may not be able to get in the same headspace.
I also agree that it is prejudice to assume you know whether someone is neurotypical or neurodiverse. A lot of neurodiversity involves “invisible” differences. But a lot of it also involves visible differences. People seem to get stuck on the viewpoint from where they’re sitting, not seeming to realize (as you pointed out in your recent post) that there are a lot more people than just one group who is different.
Sometimes I like to imagine what it would be like if all the people who were neurologically atypical got together and advocated together. According to the NIMH, that’s at least a quarter of the adult population of the US, and that’s just those who access services. Imagine if they joined with people who have other impairments. Imagine if all under-served and under-represented minorities joined together. Imagine if this happened all around the world, not just in one city or one nation.
Together we could actually and truly make the world a much better place for everyone.
So why don’t we?
I agree, that is my goal as well, and one I advocate to disability groups, as well as other groups. I have had limiited success. People often would rather not take the risk of opening themselves up, and to help others understand, at least some people have to do that. As well as listen, as you point out. I am completely for that vision and the society which could emerge from it.
I do understand the risk, and regret to say I’ve been part of the risk. For something like disability, it’s easier for me to understand. I read about accessibility issues, and it’s like my eyes are suddenly opened to a whole new view. I look at a bathroom door marked with an accessible sticker, but the arrangement is such that a wheelchair user cannot get into the bathroom independently–FAIL! It wasn’t something I could see without prompting, but with prompting it was relatively easy for me to relate with and get riled about.
On the other hand, gender-identity issues or sexual orientation has been much, much more difficult for me. Back when I was active in a more political sense, there was an individual who worked with me for months (via e-mail) to try to make it all make sense for me. She knew I wasn’t trying to cruel or thoughtless, but I couldn’t quite get it either. Sadly, I exhausted her patience and it’s taken years (and the help of many others) for the pieces to fall into place–and for me to overcome my own mental resistance–for me to get it, and it’s still a work in progress.
I know I hurt people along the way. And I regret that. If I could go back and find them all and apologize, I would. But…as much as it is a risk and as painful as it can be for everyone, it can also work. The change in thinking can happen.