Friday, June 17, 2016

Reading Neurotribes, part 2

(part 1)

I'm continuing this week with the reading of the excellent book NeuroTribes, by Steve Silberman.  The book has now turned to the life and work of Leo Kanner, the man to give his name to Kanner Syndrome, another name for autism.

I... do not find myself overly fond of Leo Kanner.  This may be part of the bias of the author, or perhaps merely the man's actions.  I don't think I've read the word "egotistical" in conjunction with the man, but all the same it seems to apply.  In very very brief, the book contrasts the viewpoints of Hans Asperger with that of Leo Kanner.  Asperger had the more modern (and correct, thank you) theory that autism was a spectrum, and that each person affected by it might be very different, and quite intelligent.  Kanner more or less deliberately squashed that viewpoint, preferring to advance his own decidedly binary theory, which included the false (and highly detrimental) refrigerator mother theory.  He also had several excellent opportunities to champion the disabled people of the US, and more or less threw them under the bus.  So perhaps my opinion of the man isn't terribly pretty regardless, given my modern sensibilities and the fact that I would very likely have been treated poorly during that time. 

Silberman makes careful note of the circumstances surrounding Kanner's decisions, and in truth, I can kind of understand why the man made some the decisions he did, given the circumstances.  He did not, for instance, fly in the face of eugenics (again, popularized in the US first, then picked up by Nazi Germany to disastrous effect).  He leaned with the trend, stopping only at euthanizing the mentally ill.  Institutionalization, work without pay, and other generally dehumanizing conditions, those were just fine.

My last word on that particular subject is that I'm really disappointed in the lack of empathy.  Kanner was Jewish, eugenics in practice slaughtered the Jews.  Why, then, did he insist on treating his patients as subhuman?  But perhaps I shouldn't bother asking that, given that we're still treating African Americans like their lives don't matter (see Black Lives Matter movement) and telling women their bodies aren't their sole jurisdiction (see the case of Brock Turner or... really any other of the zillion rape cases recently).


I mentioned my horror of mental institutions last week.  Reading these further descriptions in chapter five, needless to say, has not helped.  Nor, really, should it.  The concept of being subjected to a horrifying cocktail of drugs the institution staff likes hardly seems to me like a reasonable mode of facilitating recovery or improvement.  Rather, it seems like the prisons of the current era: punishment-centric, a life sentence from which there is no return.  (We don't, after all, make it very easy for an ex-con to get a job.  So what are they going to do?  Starve?  Or do the thing they're good at and makes lots of money, but might put them back in prison?)

The next section of the book discusses what those autistic people who escaped institutionalization were up to in the 1900s.  Silberman rather grandiosely (in my opinion, but I haven't finished the chapter yet), describes this as, "putting its autistic intelligence to work by building the foundations of a society better suited to its needs and interests."  He names several names, the first two of which I recognized.  Nikola Tesla, the Internet's beloved inventor.  And Hugo Gernsback, who I am only familiar with because of his relationship with my favorite author: Isaac Asimov.  Asimov speaks fondly of the latter for giving him the first chance to make money writing.  but Gernsback did a great deal more than creating a magazine for science fiction, and NeuroTribes details it in good depth.

It occurs to me, in reading the exploits of the Aspergers-people in the 1900s, that perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to consign myself to an institution if I had lived in the past.  While the book deals almost solely with men in this time period, men were also socially the primary movers of society since women were still busily being treated as second-class citizens.  Furthermore, it's been noted time and again that autistic women tend to blend better, or act differently, than autistic men.  So perhaps fictitious past-me would have escaped notice in the same way that real present-me has.  Minus the diagnosis in the early 20s, I suppose.

The next section starts on the subject of the man who finally destroyed the refrigerator mother theory, ie: it's the parents' fault the child has autism.  And just as well, because the parents of people on the spectrum do not need any more guilt or stress than they already put up with.  Unfortunately, the man apparently idolized Kanner, and so went into his life and experiences with his autistic son from quite the wrong viewpoint.

My last comment for today on NeuroTribes is regarding the origins of the word autism.  Autos, the Greek for self, and -ism.  In definition, the preoccupation with fantasy over reality, to the point of being unable to function in reality.  That, apparently, was what people initially conceptualized autism was.  That's kind of annoying, honestly.  In my viewpoint, any preoccupations or disconnections from reality are due to not fitting very nicely into society to begin with.  Depression, anxiety, hyper- or hypo-sensitivities, dietary issues... all of these things can show up around autism, and all of them make the standard lack of social intuition that much harder to deal with.  That's not even counting the near-inevitable shunning and poor treatment by one's peers and others, which is nurture rather than nature.

Perhaps a rather poorly named disorder.  Slightly amusing, taking the original meaning of autos and applying it to my blog title/moniker: The Realistic Autistic.  The realistic self-focused-person?  Sort of accurate, but not really.  I have to carefully balance self-focus and others-focus, lest my alien reactions and tendencies hurt feelings or otherwise upset people.  But I also have to know myself well, so I can properly take care of myself and make sure I'm not running myself to exhaustion.

Not sure if I'll finish the book for next week, or if it'll take another couple installments.  But hey, the author himself apparently stopped by my blog for the last installment, so that's pretty cool. 

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