[PEN-L:31506] Re: Re: Autism on the rise

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Charles' set of articles is interesting.  However I would like to add a
social dimension.  We tend to think of Autistics as defective.  Do we think
that way about Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Orangutans?  The crucial element
of course with Autism is social development that all the other primates
can't achieve either.   The main social structure of human beings is a type
of social interaction that arises from language use.  For Autistics language
use is greatly affected and this is the 'problem' for them.

We use animals all the time in our society.  They can't speak and we don't
expect them to.  But as so many people testify their love for their pet is
greater than for their fellow human being.  So the pet is quite successful
at doing 'love' work.  If the presumption is that language work is the
central aspect of human existence what does that mean?  It is  social
framework that fails Autistics in terms of every day living.  For them the
capacity to suddenly have cognitive abilities we don't have in the language
group of human beings is of no value from the language enabled network
without the Autistic person participating in the framework that language
creates.  So Temple Grandin is successful, but other Autistics are not.

The obvious point then is that the framework is not working right.  One way
to say that from an anti-disabled perspective is that Autistic people are a
defect in the developmental process.  This focus upon genetic 'defects'
inevitably accompanies the discussion to explain what it is we seek.
However, as Lewontin and others might suggest it is complex relationship
with environmental factors that makes problems for Autistics and Language
enabled human beings.

The key factor really is that Autistics don't participate in the social
framework that language enabled humans do.  For parents of Autistics the
distance of their children from them is particularly painful.  They don't
respond to love that parents feel toward the children.  However, we don't
understand what it is that the parents are doing in a labor process to
'love' a child.  We tend to reject emotions as non-essential brainwork to
which a rational mind is contaminated.

Let me state that in a particular way.  If you shift brain resources from
language areas in the left brain to other areas of the brain, that person
can then do certain kinds of brain work because their resources are adequate
for certain kinds of tasks.  (prodigious memory feats!)  So we assume that
the level of brainwork (language enabled) people can do is what we want, but
in fact what we want is to build a social framework that brain work can be
done in period.  Even now for an Autistic doing brainwork may be what is
valued about them, Temple Grandin, or Blind Tom.  And their ability is
recognized in terms of brainwork outside the language framework, but for
others, the capacity to do Autistic related non-language brainwork is a
great social difficulty because the framework which is assumed about
brainwork includes devoting extensive human brain resources to language and
the framework that language produces.  Which may make assumptions about
social structure which are unexamined and impoverished as to outcomes that
brainwork might produce were we to better understand what language work
really accomplishes.

Of course we can provide something for Autistics so they can live a long
life, and occasionally some Autistic does something we think worthy of our
social system, but for the most part it is a mystery to us why Autistics
can't 'love' us.

Socialism is not about constructing a particular language framework for
brainwork, it is the social whole and how it works.  Do not be fooled by
demands of language structure into thinking it is the end-all-be-all of how
socialism will build human society.  We may at some point finally come to
the conclusion that what we want in terms of brain work is more than what
language enabled human beings can do.  In that arena an Autistic person may
fit well.  That isn't to say that is an either/or situation for language
enabled humans.  We don't understand how the re-allocation of brain
resources from language to other brain work could be implemented in our
system as yet.  We don't see the framework clearly enough of what it is that
is being built in language to understand how that framework could include
other kinds of brain work outside the norms of the language framework.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor