[PEN-L:28218] query

[Jurriaan Bendien <j.bendien@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps you should not talk about dereism or autism in the sense of a
static condition, characteristic or symptom, rather look at it dynamically
as (the product of) a peculiar kind of personal development, which places a
person in a certain cognitive predicament, and which could be a passing
phase in a process of social adjustment.

Suppose, by way of thought experiment, you have parents who systematically
blot out a certain dimension of social reality because of some extreme
emotional (in-)sensitivity, and suppose for example they and their child is
uprooted from their environment and placed in a foreign environment with a
foreign culture. It might be, that the child grows up being, as it were,
"congenitally blind" to a dimension of (social or intersubjective) reality
which others take for granted as being a normal part of their experience,
something they are in touch with in daily life. It could be an aspect of
sexuality, love, having fun, a social practice, a way of relating, being or
perceiving etc.

But it might be quite possible that, although the child is blinded to an
aspect of reality, he is subjectively able to make up for this deficiency
by intelligently, playfully and creatively inventing social behaviours,
escape mechanisms and coping mechanisms which would make it almost
impossible for anyone but the experienced observer to notice something odd
or inexplicable - it might only show up in close social interaction where
some degree of intimacy was involved. It might be only that the motivation
behind what the child does is often unfathomable and puzzling for others,
they cannot work him out. He would appear normal in some, even most
contexts, but in others subjectivist, borderline or autistic. He might be
viewed as solipsistic at times because he cannot recognise or react
normally to something that people normally are able to recognise and react
to. He "sees" something else (maybe something no one else sees, and that he
would have difficulty explaining therefore), but he doesn't see what they
see. Others would think "he lives in a world of his own". (He might even be
a "pinball wizard" in some sense).

Suppose now that through receiving certain reactions, having certain
crucial experiences, challenges or criticisms, the child (or maybe the
grown adult he becomes) suddenly begins to cotton on very fast that there
exists a slice of reality which he has not been aware of all his life.
Well, the shells might fall from his eyes and he might have a tremendous
shock, so that he becomes very disoriented indeed. The problem would be
that he is now aware that there is a dimension of reality the existence of
which he was not aware of, but he has never learnt to cope with it or
adjust to it all his life, never "grown up" in this sense.

He might be effectively "crippled" in his life for a long time afterwards,
because (1) insofar as he knows at all what is missing, he has to learn a
whole set of new behaviours than he never saw as part of his identity, even
rejected (2) he has to undo a lot of his own behavioural "innovations" and
habits, (3) he has to review his whole life anew in the light of the "shock
of the new", (4) he has to renegotiate his whole relationship with the
external world (the "inner" and the "outer") and with other people. That is
to say his whole identity is at stake and put in question, it would be an
identity crisis of a specific, peculiar kind - because he already has a
worked out identity (one admittedly at odds with a basic dimension of
social reality), yet he has to make a new one more in tune with the real
world. It might be a terrible struggle hardly comprehensible for anyone
else. Depending on the strength of the personality and coping mechanisms
available, the person might or might not become psychotic or delirious, his
brain biochemistry might be affected in the wellknown ways. The "uneven
development" might never fully clear up, then again it might.

Regards

Jurriaan