People trying to remove the disability from autism is frustrating. I argue with them online frequently. I am willing to agree that there may be a few autistic people who are not disabled but it is not the majority. And they should only be able to speak for themselves. Not the rest of us.
In terms of neurodiversity contributing to society I think it's important to distinguish between left-wing and right-wing framings on neurodiversity. Right-wingers do sometimes talk of how those who are neurodiverse can be useful in a business context but this goes alongside their complaints about many autistic people being an economic drain, exaggerating or even inventing autism to avoid employment. Right-wingers certainly do see a person's worth primarily in economic terms. By contrast those who are left / liberal or more generally progressive are just trying to show that autistic people and those who are disabled more generally can make big contributions and challenging stereotypes of incapability. Even where disabled people cannot contribute economically and need to rely on others or the state for support they would argue they do have inherent value as human beings. Clearly there is a risk of their views being misinterpreted and maybe their focus has been too narrowly on the most able autistic people but I think they would also be eager to challenge the bad treatment of those whose disability is more profound.
And so by bringing Nick Walker into the discussion Chapman reveals the queer theory origins of much of the NDM's thinking. Of all the critical theories that owe their origins to classic postmodernism, queer theory is the most anti-empirical which is why I dislike it so much. Walker promotes the idea that because psychiatry under the influence of a homophobic society once labeled homosexuality as a disorder, so therefore everything that psychiatry labels a disorder today is also ultimately just a normal variation that is being pathogised under the service of the oppressive and hegemonic discourse of 'normality'. I think this is such a reductionistic, irrational, simplistic, and unscientific over-generalisation that it leads to the denial of reality that some in the NDM engage in. As an aside I do wish queer theory scholars would stop misusing Thomas Kuhn, whose philosophy of science is very important, and whose argument they frequently distort. Like you I'm gay and like you I have never in my life experienced it the way I experience either autism or OCD for that matter. There is nothing whatsoever objectively or subjectively impairing about my sexuality. In fact I'd argue it isn't even different from heterosexuality, in that I don't see how my emotional, physical, sexual attraction towards other men, is experienced any differently from heterosexual men's emotional, physical, sexual attraction to women, or heterosexual women's emotional, physical, sexual attraction to men etc. Fundamentally it is the same, non impairing, phenomena. When Walker compares 'neurodivergence' to ethnicity it becomes even more absurd. Yes back when I was growing up the homophobia all around me made my life difficult, but that difficulty vanished the moment I was either on my own or in gay-friendly spaces. The difficulties I experience as a result of being autistic however, don't completely vanish when I'm on my own or when I'm in an autism-friendly space, because they are intrinsic to me. I totally agree with you that we can challenge ableism, stigma and oppression without denying that autism is a disorder, without denying reality.
Great point on individualism, so true.
People trying to remove the disability from autism is frustrating. I argue with them online frequently. I am willing to agree that there may be a few autistic people who are not disabled but it is not the majority. And they should only be able to speak for themselves. Not the rest of us.
In terms of neurodiversity contributing to society I think it's important to distinguish between left-wing and right-wing framings on neurodiversity. Right-wingers do sometimes talk of how those who are neurodiverse can be useful in a business context but this goes alongside their complaints about many autistic people being an economic drain, exaggerating or even inventing autism to avoid employment. Right-wingers certainly do see a person's worth primarily in economic terms. By contrast those who are left / liberal or more generally progressive are just trying to show that autistic people and those who are disabled more generally can make big contributions and challenging stereotypes of incapability. Even where disabled people cannot contribute economically and need to rely on others or the state for support they would argue they do have inherent value as human beings. Clearly there is a risk of their views being misinterpreted and maybe their focus has been too narrowly on the most able autistic people but I think they would also be eager to challenge the bad treatment of those whose disability is more profound.
And so by bringing Nick Walker into the discussion Chapman reveals the queer theory origins of much of the NDM's thinking. Of all the critical theories that owe their origins to classic postmodernism, queer theory is the most anti-empirical which is why I dislike it so much. Walker promotes the idea that because psychiatry under the influence of a homophobic society once labeled homosexuality as a disorder, so therefore everything that psychiatry labels a disorder today is also ultimately just a normal variation that is being pathogised under the service of the oppressive and hegemonic discourse of 'normality'. I think this is such a reductionistic, irrational, simplistic, and unscientific over-generalisation that it leads to the denial of reality that some in the NDM engage in. As an aside I do wish queer theory scholars would stop misusing Thomas Kuhn, whose philosophy of science is very important, and whose argument they frequently distort.
Like you I'm gay and like you I have never in my life experienced it the way I experience either autism or OCD for that matter. There is nothing whatsoever objectively or subjectively impairing about my sexuality. In fact I'd argue it isn't even different from heterosexuality, in that I don't see how my emotional, physical, sexual attraction towards other men, is experienced any differently from heterosexual men's emotional, physical, sexual attraction to women, or heterosexual women's emotional, physical, sexual attraction to men etc. Fundamentally it is the same, non impairing, phenomena. When Walker compares 'neurodivergence' to ethnicity it becomes even more absurd. Yes back when I was growing up the homophobia all around me made my life difficult, but that difficulty vanished the moment I was either on my own or in gay-friendly spaces. The difficulties I experience as a result of being autistic however, don't completely vanish when I'm on my own or when I'm in an autism-friendly space, because they are intrinsic to me.
I totally agree with you that we can challenge ableism, stigma and oppression without denying that autism is a disorder, without denying reality.