Sloth III by Lorena Santos I enjoyed reading Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth by Marxist philosopher Kohei Saito. His work has already been a surprise hit in Japan, being widely read and causing much excitement. I hope Slow Down will likewise be widely discussed in English-speaking spaces. In his earlier work Saito examined Marx’s turn towards focusing on how capitalism was increasingly causing “metabolic rifts” that disrupted the natural cycles and processes of the ecosystem. In his new work, Saito goes further. The basic move he makes in Slow Down is re-reading Marx throu ..read more

William Hogarth (1697-1764). The Rake’s Progress, Plate VIII “Scene in Bedlam”. People involved in the neurodiversity movement have long used the concept of “aspie supremacy” (coined by Mel Baggs) to denote a certain ideology that may superficially look like neurodivergent liberation politics but is in fact anathema to our liberation. As I understand it, the aspie supremacist is defined by the way in which certain people reclaim what they often call ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ or ‘high-functioning autism’. (It is important to note that both of these terms are now outdated, but ..read more

A black and white photo of the head and shoulders of a statue of Karl Marx staring into the distance. Copyright: wal_172619/Pixabay Three Approaches I’ve written before about how the concept of neurodiversity means different things to different people (see here and here). I want to build on this by thinking through some different approaches to neurodiversity advocacy. This should be seen as a first attempt to clarify these different approaches rather than the final word. The three quasi-sociological categories I propose are Neoliberal Neurodiversity, Marxist Neurodiversity, and Intersectional ..read more

Sir Francis Galton by Charles Wellington Furse, given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1954. [A middle-aged white man wearing a suit, sitting at a desk that has an open book on it] In recent days a lot has been written about the Spectrum 10k project, which seeks to develop an autism DNA database that will then be shared with other researchers. The focus of discussion has been on how many autistic people are worried by the very real threat of eugenics. Among other issues, many autistics have expressed concerns about the Principle Investigator, Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor at the ..read more

Geralt/Pixabay To explain why I identify as ‘unselected’, it will help to begin with an imaginary (if all too familiar) scenario: Well-meaning But Problematic Neurotypical Researcher, Professor of Controversial Ideas at the University of OxBridge, stumbles across a demonstration by Neurodivergent Neurodiversity proponents, where activists are raising awareness through a megaphone. First, he hears a bit about how scientific ableism has routinely portrayed Neurodivergent cognition as inherently deficient maladaptions, or broken mechanisms, and as a threat to Neuronormative Supremacy. A bit late ..read more

Someone with good executive functioning, probably. Copyright: Mohamed Hassan/Pixabay Executive function is a general umbrella term for various cognitive functions, most notably those related to planning, impulse control, working memory, and for monitoring action. Executive dysfunction, by contrast, is a term used to describe cases where executive functioning of the individual seems to have broken down in some sense, leading to impaired functioning in day to day life. I am interested in executive malfunctioning because it is associated with neurodivergence more broadly rather than a specific di ..read more

The Scream (1893), a painting by Edvard Munch expressing feelings potentially in need of formulation. In recent years, a variety of medical professionals who often identify as ‘critical’ psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists seem to have reached a consensus. This holds that psychiatric diagnosis is scientifically invalid and harmful, and that person-centred psychological formulation should take the place of diagnosis. This has become especially influential in the UK, where large, mainstream professional bodies such as the British Psychological Society and the Critical Psychia ..read more

Theodor Adorno I wrote recently about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). In particular, I focused on the possibility of reclaiming PDA as a positive label, arguing that while worries about the role of bio-politics in the construction of PDA are legitimate, existing analyses may nonetheless have overlooked the positive possibility and actuality of reclaiming PDA. My argument emphasised how Milton’s notion that PDA could be seen as an expression of autistic agency might be taken as supporting the PDA identity rather than undermining it. I did this by looking at PDA as a kind of resistance to ..read more

Geralt/Pixabay Do autistics have intact moral agency? A claim forwarded in Deborah Barnbaum’s book The Ethics of Autism (and echoed by several other philosophers and psychologists) is that we don’t. On this analysis, neurotypicals are presumed to have intact moral agency.  By contrast, it is argued that autistics are comparatively less capable of ethical comportment and decision making, and thus that we aren’t full moral agents. While there’s a few variations of this argument, the basic reasoning typically goes something like this: 1)     autistic individuals have an ..read more

FotoEmotions/Pixabay I regularly come across individuals with intersecting neurodivergent disabilities. For instance, its very common to find autistics who are learning disabled, dyslexics with ADHD, and so forth. But one intersection I very rarely see are mad autistics, but which I mean individuals who identify as both autistic and mad. This seemingly elusive intersection is particularly important to consider given the common goals of the neurodivesity movement (which has mainly focused on autism and other developmental disabilities), and the mad pride movement (which often focuses around c ..read more