NeuroDiversity - Light and Dark
When I wrote the lines below in 1997, I was hoping to kickstart a last great Liberation movement: I hoped a NeuroDiversity movement would do for Autistics and other "Odd People Out", what the Women's Movement had done for women.
Just as the Women's movement shifted the focus from the pathology of individual women to the pathogenic social beliefs that drove women mad, I knew that the "Neurological Different" could similarly be freed from oppression
But now that the Neurodiversity Movement is established, a word of caution.
Neurodiversity is not "All Good"
It's simply "All Diverse"
I have created this site to reset the balance. It contains some of my articles, which look at boths sides of Neurodiversity, the light and the dark, advocating for autistics on one hand, but throwing light on where society needs to get real. .
The Dark Side of Neurodiversity
We know who the autistic geniuses are, but what about the Bad Guys?
ASpar Blog
Telling it like it was.. Controversial stories of children raised by autistic parents. The website that upsets the Autistic movement.
Where the idea of NeuroDiversity came from
Including:
placing ideas about Neurodiversity in the context of post-modernism, disillusionment with identity politics, my conversations with Harvey Blume, the controversy over the right of children of autistic parents to speak out about their suffering at the hands of their parents.
Why can't you be normal for once in your life?
From a "Problem with No Name" to a new category of disability/
Published in Disabilty Discourse, Open University Press, UK 1998. this article was the first to attempt to map out a sociology of the rise of the Autistic Spectrum as a New Disability
My other articles
Essays, papers, book chapters looking at both sides of Neurodiversity
Titles include::
| Uncovering the Neuro-logical Procrustean Bed | When Cassandra was very, very young | The Old Woman of the Sea | Genius and Moral Responsibility | Human Rights for “Nerds, Wierdos, and Oddballs |
Quote calling for a Politics of Neurodiversity
For me, the key significance of the "Autistic Spectrum" lies in its call for, and anticipation of, a politics of Neurological Diversity, or Neurodiversity. The "Neurologically Different" represent a new addition to the familiar political categories of class/ gender / race and will augment the insights of the social model of disability.
The rise of Neurodiversity takes post-modern fragmentation one step further. Just as the post-modern era sees every once too solid belief melt into air, even our most taken-for granted assumptions: that we all more or less see, feel, touch, hear, smell, and sort information, in more or less the same way, (unless visibly disabled) are being dissolved.
Judy Singer, 1997-8, Quotes appearing in:
Odd People In: Honours Thesis, University of Technology, Sydney
"Why Can't You be Normal for Once in Your Life?" Open University Press, UK
