Humans are not going to find solutions for the polycrisis, conquer new planets, the galaxy, and the universe, fully understand the human condition, or develop technologies that replace anthropocentrism with technocentrism. Minimising suffering beyond the human translates to nurturing ecologies of care beyond the human, and to falling in love with human limitations.
The Autistic Collaboration Trust has been active in researching cultural and psychological safety from an intersectional perspective. We now explore the level of cognitive dissonance that is generated by the societies that people are embedded in. You are invited to contribute! The results of this research will inform the education services we provide to healthcare professionals and education providers.
Autistic people support each other, love each other, and care for each other in ways that go far beyond the culturally impaired neuronormative imagination. It is time to remind the so-called “civilised” world about non-pathologising and coherent theories of human ways of being that are integrated into ecologies of care and the evolutionary flows of life in-formation.
April is Hypernormative Culture Awareness Month. Please spare a moment for all culturally well adjusted people, who are unable to speak about their many fears and the many sources of cognitive dissonance in their lives.
Following the trail of where Hans Asperger picked up the term autism I ended up reading a fascinating 1919 German book by Eugen Bleuler titled ‘Autistic and undisciplined thinking in medicine, and how to overcome it’. The content is not at all what you would think. The sands of pathologisation have shifted significantly.
Sebastian Rubino looks into the Spectrum 10K research announcement that many autistic people fear is another step in the direction of eugenics.
Dinah Murray was so much more than a “productive irritant”… Like the grit in the oyster shell that produces the pearl, Murray’s life and work was a treasure of immeasurable value.
The definition of normality in the industrial era is based on the metaphor of society as a factory and on the metaphor of people as machines. Our laws and social norms have been shaped by these metaphors to a far greater extent than most people are able to comprehend without an in-depth explanation.
A research article concluded that autistic people cared too much about others, citing inflexibility to be an issue by following moral code even when individual gains are high. In my personal opinion as an autistic person, I would argue that the non-autistic participants did not weight the negative consequences of their actions enough, and simply chose individual benefit over other people.
They mention creating a “coaching process” using artificial intelligence, as if autistic people haven’t been “coached” enough into neurotypicality. Unfortunately, our entire lives are made up of neurotypical “coaching.” We often in fact, receive too much coaching in how to act or generally exist among other people.