Science fiction, Asperger's, and the future

[nancylebov]

http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Features/Westfahl_HomoAspergerus.html

Indeed, while one typically believes that people turn to science fiction in search of colorfully unusual vicarious experiences, an entirely different set of motives often may be in play: to a teenager in the 1930s with Asperger's Syndrome, a story about an astronaut encountering aliens on Mars might have had an air of comforting familiarity, in contrast to stories set in the bizarre, inexplicable, and thoroughly socialized worlds of Andy Hardy and the Bobbsey Twins.

Comments

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

I've been looking semi-seriously at the idea of human sub/split-species... my designation cognito-sapien...

[london-lights.livejournal.com]

Do you have links to those putting forward that theory? (Because it scares me.) I'm not a troll (I hope) - found this post by clicking on Wierdjews friends by mistake. I hope you won't mind me commenting.

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

In my case its been more occasional discussions with friends, usually via I'm and email and not specific too Aspies.

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, why does the thought of human genetic change scare you?

[london-lights.livejournal.com]

It doesn't. I have an autisic godchild and it seems to me that the environment may be safer in his hands than in those of the more average types. However, people talking about a new species or sub-species scares me, because of him and the thousands like him and also because it looks as though I'm on the Aspie spectrum.

I've read a lot of history and there was a Holocaust survivor in my family. When people start thinking and behaving as though a subgroup of the population are not really human it is never good news for that subgroup.

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

Reasonable, but its pretty much inevitable that the species drift and do so in ways that are incresingly tied to social ways. To me, the "epidemic" of Aspies is because of what can be called type inbreeding... I could probably ramble on about it but I keep promising myself I'll do a real post over in my neck of the woods someday.

And the clinical meaning of 'sub-species' is a very particular set of a larger group. If it helps think of it like the face cards being a sub-species of a house of cards.

[london-lights.livejournal.com]

Yes, I quite agree. Part of my family comes from the Hebrides - islands in Scotland. Genetic drift there means that furniture is often made to scale. The Scots may be "the little dark men of the North" but Hebridians can be big.

When it comes to the "epidemic of Aspies", I just don't know. (In my own pedigree, Jews have a much higher percentage of academic achievement than most groups. "All (male) Scots are engineers" and you don't have to read a machines body-language. I was consious that I like machinary for that reason long before I ever heard of Aspies.)

However, type in-breeding might have been difficult here, in the UK. During the 1950s and 1960s, a woman with a high IQ was at risk of psychiatric referral and interventions including psychosurgery - that is, theuputic brain damage - to "normalise" her.

It was a joke, during those years, that an intelligent woman was one with brains enough to pretend to be stupid. (Of course, she was at particular risk if she could not read body language, etc. accurately. Marrying a high IQ man was rarely an option.)

The trouble was, those women met another set of criteria. They were spread through the general population. (Like witches, like Jews.) They were part of that nation, they were a specfic, recognisable group who could be deprived of what civil rights they had - and they did not have anywhere to go. There was no way to escape. (To a great extent they were legally minors; women could not even buy on credit without the signiture of a man who would take responsibility for the dept.) Women as whole are, of course, necessary to any race - so to a great extent they were enslaved, not exterminated.

The legislation re. sexual equality was imposed from Europe in the 1970s. (I was stupid enough to believe it and started to take a degree at age 30. However, Racial Equality was imposed at the same time so, for many years, it was interpreted as racist for any woman to object to abuse from a man of different race. She did not have to deliberately associate with him for him to be able to claim that the abuse was normal behaviour for someone from his culture and was therefore his right... I've needed a wheelchair since I was 34, thanks to that loophole.)

You understand that I am not commenting on the US. This was happening in Britain. I'm in the UK now, being anxious.

I don't know if you are aware that Britain has a new Mental Health Act? It deprives people with "Personality Disorders" of a number of civil rights and persons classified as having a personality disorder can be taken for treatment (without "trial") without having relapsed and without necessarily ever having done anything wrong. They can be subjected to treatment which is not necessarily to their benefit, etc. That has just just gone through after years of opposition from civil rights groups.

Now, the labels of mental illnesses are being updated, "Anxiety Personality Disorder", "Depressive Personality Disorder", "Autistic Personality Disorder", etc. 20% to 25%.

I understand your point about the face cards being a subspecies of a house of cards, (as albino K. Pulcher are an aquarium subspecies of K. Pulcher,)
but suppose cards thought and reacted like humans?

"Our house of cards has collapsed."

"What do you expect? It was all face cards on that side."

"Huh?"

"Nasty complicated things, they can never do a day's work. Conceited too."

"Well, I suppose..."
"Now we're all going to get jammed back into the box."

"I hate that crush."

"It wouldn't have happened but for the face cards. Thay shouldn't be part of the set, anyway. They're nothing like us."

"I suppose there would be more room if ..."

"Yeah, we should get rid of them. It's all their fault anyway. Leibensraum!"

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the history, horrifying as it is-- it's information I didn't have at all.

I believe we need to work on encouraging rights, compassion, and good sense about differences. The problem is people who aren't willing to live well together, not that people notice differences.

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

I agree on all your points. But look how much easier it was to be a high IQ woman in 1950 vs 1890 vs 1550, and then look at how many fewer of the smart men as a precentage were sent/dragged off into religious orders and kept from breeding (mostly) when you combine that with the sort of physical mobility that has let smart men and women meet easier than ever...

And I think I'll not get into a discussion on mental health and politics today, screaming for no apparent reason is frowned upon.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Afaik, the idea that celibacy for Catholic clergy was taking a lot of smart genes out of the breeding pool isn't well supported. The Church was a place to dump excess sons more it was than a career choice for those who loved learning.

Also, celibacy meant no marriage, not necessarily no sex or no children. The purpose of the celibacy rule was to prevent dynasties developing inside the Church.

Literacy and abstract learning wasn't as important then as it is now.

On the other hand, Jewish people who think it's extremely important to argue that the Catholic Church didn't make the goyim stupid rather proves your point about the scariness of people taking group membership seriously. I don't know this stuff because of an abstract interest in Church history. :/

I think the increased mobility and communications combined with IT money might lead to homo aspergus, but last I heard, no one was really sure about what's going on. It's possible that geeky people have more knowledge and money and are therefore better at getting their kids diagnosed.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Not a problem-- I like getting readers.

[london-lights.livejournal.com]

Yhank you.