Autism, like other “mental illnesses” has been defined again and again in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, or DSM. It has been revised many times, and because the American Psychological Association has input and the American Psychiatric Association publishes it, definitions and diagnostic criteria have been polluted for years with ideology. I don’t want to open the transgender travesty again, but it is a model to show how much these “professional” “Societies” have deviated from scientific endeavor. In the case of Autism and spectrum disorder, it has been defined so broadly that now over 1 in 36 boys are “on the spectrum”. This is also driven by the school systems, who receive additional funding for students with such diagnoses. Hence, it is school districts’ distinct advantage to label as many children as possible with these diagnoses. No one is allowed to be shy or even introverted any more. Just as ADD/ADHD seemed to be the diagnosis for any child with XY chromosomes, because boys didn’t sit for hours a day in primary schools as easily as girls did, so a child who prefers not engage at all times with others is “on the spectrum”. This is not to say that these disorders do not exist, but that the diagnosis has been horribly abused for purposes other than to help the child.
I have long felt that the boys with “ADHD” are the boys that were constantly on the hunt for lions, cowboys, Vikings, adventurers. They were not the boys in Oxford or the Vatican. We need the both the academic adventurers like the Klavans and adventurers that are starting new companies, diving with the sharks, and breaking boundaries to find cures for cancer. It has always made me wonder how the concept of diversity got reduced to race and “gender” when true diversity is the physical, cognitive, spiritual, and adventurous spirits that we should nurture to enable not only individual growth and development, but that can contribute to the development and growth of the world.
Technology can certainly be the distraction that keeps us from seeing God, or worse brings us a bottomless pit of porn and hateful commentary to fuel persecution.
On the other hand, we can access truth and beauty via forums like this one, Word on Fire, Hallow, etc.
We still have the free will to drink the water of life or eat the crap the deceiver sells as sustenance.
Machines can never be human. We've been told that statistics and data to back up stats is all that matters. As the developer of a psychosocial wellness program for active aging adults, I collected stats on a practice for two years. But relying on the stats (no matter how positive they are) will never move facilitators to institute the program or participants to engage. Each person must experience the program, face to face, with another. Face to face interaction, human to human contact, is necessary for the program to be successful. That experience is human and is far more compelling than any statistic.
Lent is a good time to discuss these things. Perhaps it's just the aging process, but as I am on the verge of turning 60, I realize the importance of the Lenten experience--and I also realize that, unconstrained by mandates, I get to choose what I give up--whether trivial or significant. There is no punishment if I choose to give up flour tortillas or ice cream, and there is seemingly no reward if I give up bitterness, anguish and anxiety -- yet, anyway. Perhaps the problem with technological progress was divinely gifted to Mary Shelley when she wrote Frankenstein, broken down so elegantly by Mr. Goldblum in Mr. Spielberg's fine film about dinosaurs: "Your scientists were so busy trying to figure out whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think whether or not they should..."
I sent this in an email to Andrew several months ago. It is pertinent, so I share it again now for a wider audience.
I have autism. Formally diagnosed through intensive neuropsychological assessments, not some two bit social worker just throwing it out there. I thank you for not using it as an insult, but would also like to share how the inner autistic experience actually is, and how we certainly do not have, as a defining feature, lack of knowledge of other people’s inner lives.
Autism has three main components:
1) sensory processing disorder --common manifestations include inability to filter multiple sensory streams, making multiple simultaneous conversations, spaces with lots of unrelated movement, or extreme olfactory experiences like candle shops very stressful. It is also why we have complicated feelings about socks.
2)Difficulties with emotional expression, which is why we can either act rather erratic/rude or have a very flat affect.
3)Black and White thinking across a wide variety of areas, especially in matters of morality and social convention. It also leads us to grab onto ideas, have a touch of difficulty accounting for more than first order effects, and also have difficulty with being overly credulous.
So, we have a very high level of empathy, but often don’t know how to show it, plus we find the normal places where (non autistic) socialization occurs to be painful and struggle to understand social rules with unstated assumptions very well (this is also why we tend to be so good with computers and math, because we’re good at taking things very, very literally, which those areas need). But this tends to lead to us being loners, because we struggle to communicate and share interests with non-autistic people. Some of us withdraw from the world and turn bitter as a result, and can develop strange ideas (like Harari), but others care very deeply for others, even if we aren’t quite sure how to show it. In short, any disregarding of other people's inner lives is a result of our own inner lives being perceived as being consistently disregarded.
Thanks for humoring me, and have mercy on us poor autists. I was lucky to be raised (Roman) Catholic by patient and knowledgable parents who could actually supply all the answers I needed, but so many of my brethren are casualties of all the senseless lies, especially the atheist and LGBT ones. Pray through the intercession of our patron, St Thomas Aquinas, for us.
You got me with that closing line. Like a coda, it wrapped up everything. It made me smile, and even feel a little emotion. Nicely done.
Thank you for all of those times you said, Hey! Look at that guy in the gorilla suit!❤️🙏
Autism, like other “mental illnesses” has been defined again and again in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, or DSM. It has been revised many times, and because the American Psychological Association has input and the American Psychiatric Association publishes it, definitions and diagnostic criteria have been polluted for years with ideology. I don’t want to open the transgender travesty again, but it is a model to show how much these “professional” “Societies” have deviated from scientific endeavor. In the case of Autism and spectrum disorder, it has been defined so broadly that now over 1 in 36 boys are “on the spectrum”. This is also driven by the school systems, who receive additional funding for students with such diagnoses. Hence, it is school districts’ distinct advantage to label as many children as possible with these diagnoses. No one is allowed to be shy or even introverted any more. Just as ADD/ADHD seemed to be the diagnosis for any child with XY chromosomes, because boys didn’t sit for hours a day in primary schools as easily as girls did, so a child who prefers not engage at all times with others is “on the spectrum”. This is not to say that these disorders do not exist, but that the diagnosis has been horribly abused for purposes other than to help the child.
I have long felt that the boys with “ADHD” are the boys that were constantly on the hunt for lions, cowboys, Vikings, adventurers. They were not the boys in Oxford or the Vatican. We need the both the academic adventurers like the Klavans and adventurers that are starting new companies, diving with the sharks, and breaking boundaries to find cures for cancer. It has always made me wonder how the concept of diversity got reduced to race and “gender” when true diversity is the physical, cognitive, spiritual, and adventurous spirits that we should nurture to enable not only individual growth and development, but that can contribute to the development and growth of the world.
Once again, follow the money.
Technology can certainly be the distraction that keeps us from seeing God, or worse brings us a bottomless pit of porn and hateful commentary to fuel persecution.
On the other hand, we can access truth and beauty via forums like this one, Word on Fire, Hallow, etc.
We still have the free will to drink the water of life or eat the crap the deceiver sells as sustenance.
Machines can never be human. We've been told that statistics and data to back up stats is all that matters. As the developer of a psychosocial wellness program for active aging adults, I collected stats on a practice for two years. But relying on the stats (no matter how positive they are) will never move facilitators to institute the program or participants to engage. Each person must experience the program, face to face, with another. Face to face interaction, human to human contact, is necessary for the program to be successful. That experience is human and is far more compelling than any statistic.
https://substack.com/@add151763
Gen 28:16 after Jacob dreamed of the ladder to heaven “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it”.
Perhaps in a gorilla suit.
Lent is a good time to discuss these things. Perhaps it's just the aging process, but as I am on the verge of turning 60, I realize the importance of the Lenten experience--and I also realize that, unconstrained by mandates, I get to choose what I give up--whether trivial or significant. There is no punishment if I choose to give up flour tortillas or ice cream, and there is seemingly no reward if I give up bitterness, anguish and anxiety -- yet, anyway. Perhaps the problem with technological progress was divinely gifted to Mary Shelley when she wrote Frankenstein, broken down so elegantly by Mr. Goldblum in Mr. Spielberg's fine film about dinosaurs: "Your scientists were so busy trying to figure out whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think whether or not they should..."
I sent this in an email to Andrew several months ago. It is pertinent, so I share it again now for a wider audience.
I have autism. Formally diagnosed through intensive neuropsychological assessments, not some two bit social worker just throwing it out there. I thank you for not using it as an insult, but would also like to share how the inner autistic experience actually is, and how we certainly do not have, as a defining feature, lack of knowledge of other people’s inner lives.
Autism has three main components:
1) sensory processing disorder --common manifestations include inability to filter multiple sensory streams, making multiple simultaneous conversations, spaces with lots of unrelated movement, or extreme olfactory experiences like candle shops very stressful. It is also why we have complicated feelings about socks.
2)Difficulties with emotional expression, which is why we can either act rather erratic/rude or have a very flat affect.
3)Black and White thinking across a wide variety of areas, especially in matters of morality and social convention. It also leads us to grab onto ideas, have a touch of difficulty accounting for more than first order effects, and also have difficulty with being overly credulous.
So, we have a very high level of empathy, but often don’t know how to show it, plus we find the normal places where (non autistic) socialization occurs to be painful and struggle to understand social rules with unstated assumptions very well (this is also why we tend to be so good with computers and math, because we’re good at taking things very, very literally, which those areas need). But this tends to lead to us being loners, because we struggle to communicate and share interests with non-autistic people. Some of us withdraw from the world and turn bitter as a result, and can develop strange ideas (like Harari), but others care very deeply for others, even if we aren’t quite sure how to show it. In short, any disregarding of other people's inner lives is a result of our own inner lives being perceived as being consistently disregarded.
Thanks for humoring me, and have mercy on us poor autists. I was lucky to be raised (Roman) Catholic by patient and knowledgable parents who could actually supply all the answers I needed, but so many of my brethren are casualties of all the senseless lies, especially the atheist and LGBT ones. Pray through the intercession of our patron, St Thomas Aquinas, for us.
Technology enters the world like a child (a barbarian that needs to be nurtured into a human beings world)
Wrong starting Life , bad environment, poor education.
Nurturing as an instrument that needs to be played well
As usual Lewis was spot on 82 years ago with The Abolition of Man.
Wasn’t the bloke in the gorilla suit Phil Collins?
Jim Belushi, Trading Places.