Why do you even know what neurodivergent is? Because diagnosed cases of conditions under that umbrella have risen steadily for decades. Autism alone is now 1 in 36. Given a Dunbar Number of 150, you likely personally know at least 2-3 people legitimately on the spectrum. Similarly, autistics are overrepresented among tech workers and tech workers have become increasingly represented in mainstream media. I can think of several popular TV shows now explicitly about autistic main characters. It's normal for society to invent new words for phenomena that break through into the mainstream pop culture.
Do I think that advertising your condition FOR STATUS is appropriate? No. Do I think that people who seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions about someone's behavior should be given the relevant info to more accurately understand and take it into account? Yes, the same as I do for someone who is foreign,
Do I expect people with disabilities due to autism (formally diagnosed) to qualify for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990? YES. It IS a disability, THAT IS THE LAW.
Do I think that providers who address autism AS A DISABILITY are oppressive or ableist? No, it IS a disability. It CAN have certain useful upsides, like hyperfocus, but it's still a developmental disability. I can understand why certain people dislike talk about a "cure" (taking it personally as if they were being called a disease) and I HAVE encountered people who take that "cure" talk in a disturbingly "Final Solution" eugenics and genocide direction, so autistics have SOME good reason to guard the top of that slippery slope vigilantly, but I'm realistic about the fact that in the vast majority of cases it's debilitating and drastically impairs quality of life and a great many people would benefit tremendously from an actual cure. For every high functioning tech worker there are dozens more confined to institutions because they literally cannot function in society.
I didn't ask why I know what ASD is. There was already a term for that: autistic. As far as I can tell 'neurodivergent' is purely a confabulation of online people who DEFINITELY often want attention. The self-righteousness and censorious instinct that provokes the kind of harmful activism I already referenced is an outgrowth of that. I never need to know that someone is neurodivergent. Never. If I can tell that you're different enough then perhaps you might want to tell me that you have a disorder which impedes you in certain ways. If I can't then you probably won't. 'Neurodivergent' means too many things in practice. It would still be a useful term, though, if it hadn't been co-opted by thousands of attention-seeking young people online. Why have I seen 'neurodivergent' in people's bios literally dozens of times? I believe that this impulse is unhealthy, and keeps people from improving. You can either be the best version of yourself or you can advertise your disabilities to everyone. There are certainly cases where you can do both but not many, I don't think.
First, I do agree with the general thrust of the argument. Human actions are frequently complex, with multiple contributing factors, and it's often counterproductive to try to abstract that nuance down to "mental illness caused that" OR "mental illness doesn't cause that".
Secondly, I agree that mitigating factors do not absolve one of responsibility. We all have our particular challenges and need to work to overcome them as best we can. The existence of a handicap can be acknowledged as a valid reason that something is unusually difficult for a person without necessarily allowing that handicap to become a blanket excuse for not doing difficult things, especially when those difficult things are just part of your job description.
Lastly though, I do take issue with the level of shade you're throwing at the neurodivergent. I don't know what corners of the world or Internet you're hanging out where that label functions as a "get out of jail free card" or has "cashet" to it, but I'm an Aspy and that certainly hasn't matched my experience. I think you've rather overshot the mark in your criticisms there regarding reasonable accommodations.
I'll provide a specific example that came up recently in my workplace. We were conducting Sexual Harassment and Assault prevention training. During the discussion of non-verbal forms of sexual harassment, someone brought up "staring". I work in tech, so we have quite a few coworkers who ARE high functioning autistics. I asked the group to please be understanding of their autistic coworkers when assessing whether staring is likely to be sexual harassment and reminded everyone of the relevant standard (offensive conduct that is deliberate or repeated, as judged by a reasonable person standard including the totality of the circumstances).
Did I give autistic workers a free pass to eyeball attractive coworkers? No. Anyone who is made uncomfortable is welcome to ask the person to stop staring and they'll need to do so or it will meet the "deliberate or repeated" standard.
Should anyone made uncomfortable by a staring coworker immediately assume it's sexual and file a harassment complaint the first time it happens? No. A reasonable person, taking into account the totality of the circumstances (which includes relevant medical conditions, such as autism), should give the benefit of the doubt regarding intent and, taking into account that autistics are often poor at reading social cues, explicitly tell the autistic person they are making them uncomfortable and ask the person to stop staring.
Should the autistic person use their condition as an excuse to not TRY to learn socially acceptable eye gaze patterns so this doesn't happen again? No. Just because it's not intuitive doesn't mean it can't be learned by deliberate study and practice.
Interactions with the neurodivergent should be handled with the same general standard as any cross-cultural interaction: with the understanding that social cues are likely to differ, misunderstandings are therefore more likely, and BOTH sides of the interaction have a shared responsibility to extend good faith and try to avoid / correct those misunderstandings. The way you've written this article you certainly seem to be putting the entire responsibility for acting neurotypical onto the neurodivergent.
EVERYONE'S responsibility for acting according to social expectations falls on that person, and only that person. Everyone has a general duty to be kind, and understanding, but that's not the same as responsibility. Responsibility is usually understood as ownership of one's actions, right and wrong. It's not the same as maintaining social comfort or attending to nonverbal cues or being sociable. That's a much more subtle and nuanced area.
If you're a neurodivergent employee who can't keep up should your coworkers get administratively penalized for that? Do they deserve to lose money? If you're nd student do your classmates bear responsibility for your condition? Should they lose grades or earn suspensions if you can't keep up? THOSE are metrics of responsibility. Everyone should be kind and understanding at all times but everyone is ultimately responsible for their own behavior. That's what a disability IS, in my opinion-a recognized category for why people might want to relate to you differently or adjust their expectations or standards, a condition which makes life harder for you and therefore might occasion allowances. It doesn't diminish responsibility and if we make it so that it does we won't be helping the disabled, worthy though our intentions might be.
Fallacy of False Dichotomy. Any "duty" that you have IS something you are "responsible" for doing. If you have a duty to be kind, than you are responsible for all the implied requirements thereof, such as being polite and considerate of others. "I shouldn't need to know or care or have to accommodate someone else's special needs" is NOT kind. You have failed in your duty, you did not take responsibility for your own side of the social interactions.
As you literally just said, it IS a disability and therefore people may need to adjust their expectations and make certain allowances. Particularly in the contexts covered by the ADA, they are legally REQUIRED to do so.
The ADA is kind of a special case, but even there the law makes it the employer's responsibility to make arrangements for the employee. I don't think this is a good idea but it doesn't diminish the employee's personal responsibility whatsoever. They still have to perform to the standards set by the employer (with reasonable exemptions) and they still have to generate value or they're gone. It doesn't impinge on anyone else's personal responsibility and so it's kind of a legal fiction. It has nothing to do with my conception of personal responsibility here.
I selected the 'neurodivergence' instance as an example because there is a large cohort of people advertising that diagnosis now. Why do I even know what 'neurodivergent' is? Why is there even a WORD for neurodivergent (in medical terminology I think ASD sufffices)? I think it's because this is now a part of many people's identity.
Also, the 'neurodivergence lobby' is extremely harmful. They have worked to redefine ASD as not a disability (all while making it central to their identities). They have ruined careers and had conferences cancelled because medical professionals wanted to focus on the negative implications of ASD. In other words, many 'neurodivergent' people don't want this to be known as a disorder (despite the fact that it can leave patients nonverbal and barely functional).
Most people are reasonable in most contexts. This piece was about a tendency to base everything on subjectivity and to promote identity groups based on diagnoses and then to rework expectations and moral responsibilities according to those groups.
Do you think that advertising your condition for status is appropriate? Do you expect neurodivergence to give you automatic concessions at work or under law? Do you think that providers who work to address ASD AS A DISABILITY are oppressive or ableist? If it's no/no/no then we agree.
I selected neurodivergence because it seems to be a VERY popular new identity category. My rule is: when you have to add it to your social media biography it's probably bullshit... even if it's accurate. I actually don't think there's enough specificity in diagnosing ASD and the fact that we understand very little about etiologies and factors doesn't help... but that's a different conversation.
It's not that I don't believe these people are neurodivergent. I don't care. And strangers on the internet probably shouldn't either.
No one has a "responsibility for acting neurotypical". Perhaps that's at the root of our difference here. That is not a responsibility which exists, in any sense.
That is the unavoidable implication when you say that neither you nor anyone else should need to know or care or make any reasonable effort to accommodate someone with a disability that falls under that umbrella term. You're putting the burden entirely on the disabled people. That's not how social interactions work. Both parties to a social interaction have responsibilities to the other.
Yes, they do. Those burdens are reciprocal and extremely complex. That is not what I'm talking about when I speak about personal responsibility though. If you believe that even folks with ASD have a responsibility to observe social conventions and follow laws and perform at work then you and I agree.
We could parse the exact meaning of 'responsibility' all day... but it doesn't have an exact meaning. If you believe that even autistic people should be expected to meet the minimums at school and work and under the law then we agree. If you don't then we don't.
Why do you even know what neurodivergent is? Because diagnosed cases of conditions under that umbrella have risen steadily for decades. Autism alone is now 1 in 36. Given a Dunbar Number of 150, you likely personally know at least 2-3 people legitimately on the spectrum. Similarly, autistics are overrepresented among tech workers and tech workers have become increasingly represented in mainstream media. I can think of several popular TV shows now explicitly about autistic main characters. It's normal for society to invent new words for phenomena that break through into the mainstream pop culture.
Do I think that advertising your condition FOR STATUS is appropriate? No. Do I think that people who seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions about someone's behavior should be given the relevant info to more accurately understand and take it into account? Yes, the same as I do for someone who is foreign,
Do I expect people with disabilities due to autism (formally diagnosed) to qualify for reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990? YES. It IS a disability, THAT IS THE LAW.
Do I think that providers who address autism AS A DISABILITY are oppressive or ableist? No, it IS a disability. It CAN have certain useful upsides, like hyperfocus, but it's still a developmental disability. I can understand why certain people dislike talk about a "cure" (taking it personally as if they were being called a disease) and I HAVE encountered people who take that "cure" talk in a disturbingly "Final Solution" eugenics and genocide direction, so autistics have SOME good reason to guard the top of that slippery slope vigilantly, but I'm realistic about the fact that in the vast majority of cases it's debilitating and drastically impairs quality of life and a great many people would benefit tremendously from an actual cure. For every high functioning tech worker there are dozens more confined to institutions because they literally cannot function in society.
I didn't ask why I know what ASD is. There was already a term for that: autistic. As far as I can tell 'neurodivergent' is purely a confabulation of online people who DEFINITELY often want attention. The self-righteousness and censorious instinct that provokes the kind of harmful activism I already referenced is an outgrowth of that. I never need to know that someone is neurodivergent. Never. If I can tell that you're different enough then perhaps you might want to tell me that you have a disorder which impedes you in certain ways. If I can't then you probably won't. 'Neurodivergent' means too many things in practice. It would still be a useful term, though, if it hadn't been co-opted by thousands of attention-seeking young people online. Why have I seen 'neurodivergent' in people's bios literally dozens of times? I believe that this impulse is unhealthy, and keeps people from improving. You can either be the best version of yourself or you can advertise your disabilities to everyone. There are certainly cases where you can do both but not many, I don't think.
First, I do agree with the general thrust of the argument. Human actions are frequently complex, with multiple contributing factors, and it's often counterproductive to try to abstract that nuance down to "mental illness caused that" OR "mental illness doesn't cause that".
Secondly, I agree that mitigating factors do not absolve one of responsibility. We all have our particular challenges and need to work to overcome them as best we can. The existence of a handicap can be acknowledged as a valid reason that something is unusually difficult for a person without necessarily allowing that handicap to become a blanket excuse for not doing difficult things, especially when those difficult things are just part of your job description.
Lastly though, I do take issue with the level of shade you're throwing at the neurodivergent. I don't know what corners of the world or Internet you're hanging out where that label functions as a "get out of jail free card" or has "cashet" to it, but I'm an Aspy and that certainly hasn't matched my experience. I think you've rather overshot the mark in your criticisms there regarding reasonable accommodations.
I'll provide a specific example that came up recently in my workplace. We were conducting Sexual Harassment and Assault prevention training. During the discussion of non-verbal forms of sexual harassment, someone brought up "staring". I work in tech, so we have quite a few coworkers who ARE high functioning autistics. I asked the group to please be understanding of their autistic coworkers when assessing whether staring is likely to be sexual harassment and reminded everyone of the relevant standard (offensive conduct that is deliberate or repeated, as judged by a reasonable person standard including the totality of the circumstances).
Did I give autistic workers a free pass to eyeball attractive coworkers? No. Anyone who is made uncomfortable is welcome to ask the person to stop staring and they'll need to do so or it will meet the "deliberate or repeated" standard.
Should anyone made uncomfortable by a staring coworker immediately assume it's sexual and file a harassment complaint the first time it happens? No. A reasonable person, taking into account the totality of the circumstances (which includes relevant medical conditions, such as autism), should give the benefit of the doubt regarding intent and, taking into account that autistics are often poor at reading social cues, explicitly tell the autistic person they are making them uncomfortable and ask the person to stop staring.
Should the autistic person use their condition as an excuse to not TRY to learn socially acceptable eye gaze patterns so this doesn't happen again? No. Just because it's not intuitive doesn't mean it can't be learned by deliberate study and practice.
Interactions with the neurodivergent should be handled with the same general standard as any cross-cultural interaction: with the understanding that social cues are likely to differ, misunderstandings are therefore more likely, and BOTH sides of the interaction have a shared responsibility to extend good faith and try to avoid / correct those misunderstandings. The way you've written this article you certainly seem to be putting the entire responsibility for acting neurotypical onto the neurodivergent.
EVERYONE'S responsibility for acting according to social expectations falls on that person, and only that person. Everyone has a general duty to be kind, and understanding, but that's not the same as responsibility. Responsibility is usually understood as ownership of one's actions, right and wrong. It's not the same as maintaining social comfort or attending to nonverbal cues or being sociable. That's a much more subtle and nuanced area.
If you're a neurodivergent employee who can't keep up should your coworkers get administratively penalized for that? Do they deserve to lose money? If you're nd student do your classmates bear responsibility for your condition? Should they lose grades or earn suspensions if you can't keep up? THOSE are metrics of responsibility. Everyone should be kind and understanding at all times but everyone is ultimately responsible for their own behavior. That's what a disability IS, in my opinion-a recognized category for why people might want to relate to you differently or adjust their expectations or standards, a condition which makes life harder for you and therefore might occasion allowances. It doesn't diminish responsibility and if we make it so that it does we won't be helping the disabled, worthy though our intentions might be.
Fallacy of False Dichotomy. Any "duty" that you have IS something you are "responsible" for doing. If you have a duty to be kind, than you are responsible for all the implied requirements thereof, such as being polite and considerate of others. "I shouldn't need to know or care or have to accommodate someone else's special needs" is NOT kind. You have failed in your duty, you did not take responsibility for your own side of the social interactions.
As you literally just said, it IS a disability and therefore people may need to adjust their expectations and make certain allowances. Particularly in the contexts covered by the ADA, they are legally REQUIRED to do so.
The ADA is kind of a special case, but even there the law makes it the employer's responsibility to make arrangements for the employee. I don't think this is a good idea but it doesn't diminish the employee's personal responsibility whatsoever. They still have to perform to the standards set by the employer (with reasonable exemptions) and they still have to generate value or they're gone. It doesn't impinge on anyone else's personal responsibility and so it's kind of a legal fiction. It has nothing to do with my conception of personal responsibility here.
I selected the 'neurodivergence' instance as an example because there is a large cohort of people advertising that diagnosis now. Why do I even know what 'neurodivergent' is? Why is there even a WORD for neurodivergent (in medical terminology I think ASD sufffices)? I think it's because this is now a part of many people's identity.
Also, the 'neurodivergence lobby' is extremely harmful. They have worked to redefine ASD as not a disability (all while making it central to their identities). They have ruined careers and had conferences cancelled because medical professionals wanted to focus on the negative implications of ASD. In other words, many 'neurodivergent' people don't want this to be known as a disorder (despite the fact that it can leave patients nonverbal and barely functional).
Most people are reasonable in most contexts. This piece was about a tendency to base everything on subjectivity and to promote identity groups based on diagnoses and then to rework expectations and moral responsibilities according to those groups.
Do you think that advertising your condition for status is appropriate? Do you expect neurodivergence to give you automatic concessions at work or under law? Do you think that providers who work to address ASD AS A DISABILITY are oppressive or ableist? If it's no/no/no then we agree.
I selected neurodivergence because it seems to be a VERY popular new identity category. My rule is: when you have to add it to your social media biography it's probably bullshit... even if it's accurate. I actually don't think there's enough specificity in diagnosing ASD and the fact that we understand very little about etiologies and factors doesn't help... but that's a different conversation.
It's not that I don't believe these people are neurodivergent. I don't care. And strangers on the internet probably shouldn't either.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-wrong-way-to-help-disabled-kids
No one has a "responsibility for acting neurotypical". Perhaps that's at the root of our difference here. That is not a responsibility which exists, in any sense.
That is the unavoidable implication when you say that neither you nor anyone else should need to know or care or make any reasonable effort to accommodate someone with a disability that falls under that umbrella term. You're putting the burden entirely on the disabled people. That's not how social interactions work. Both parties to a social interaction have responsibilities to the other.
Yes, they do. Those burdens are reciprocal and extremely complex. That is not what I'm talking about when I speak about personal responsibility though. If you believe that even folks with ASD have a responsibility to observe social conventions and follow laws and perform at work then you and I agree.
We could parse the exact meaning of 'responsibility' all day... but it doesn't have an exact meaning. If you believe that even autistic people should be expected to meet the minimums at school and work and under the law then we agree. If you don't then we don't.