Growing up one of my cousins had autism. S was a nice kid, but pretty much non-verbal, had great difficulty with social interaction, and engaged in repetitive behaviours that are typical of autistic people. S loved any kind of machine that made a noise and/or vibrated, and was delighted if he found a machine that did both. At the time, my Mum had a big bulky vacuum cleaner typical of the 1960’s and S would turn the vacuum on and stand on it for hours and hours uninterrupted. Before my Mum lost her memory to age, she would fondly remember S and his penchant for her vacuum cleaner with great affection. My Dad too, when he was alive, also remembered S with deep and abiding love. When S came to visit, Mum would get the vacuum out and Dad would go through his entire tool shed trying to find another machine that would make noise and vibrate. Dad never stopped trying to interact with S but never in a way that was forceful or difficult for S. At the time, we were all a bit bamboozled by S but we all knew that he was one of those precious people that we keep close and treat with extra tenderness.
But S and his family had a tough life. S was never able to live alone, get a job, meet a partner, get married, have children; he required constant care and missed out on all the things that we neurotypicals (and in fact most people who now call themselves neurodivergent) enjoy in life, both simple things, like sunrise in the morning, and complex activities, like graduating from university. Of course, the entire family was affected because there were three children and S required such a high level of care from his parents that the two normal children, by necessity, received less attention. When his parents (my aunt and uncle) were too old to be the primary caregivers for S, his siblings had to step up. S was never, in his entire life, able to live independently.
If you have some first hand experience with true autism, it is impossible not to greet the almost innumerable people (frequently young women) who claim a diagnosis of autism or neurodivergence and yet who live fulfilling and by all outward appearances completely normal and often privileged lives without some kind of scepticism. At least I do. Both because I am a sceptic and because I recognise in myself so many traits that neurodivergent people claim represent them. To prove the point, I took this online test and discovered that my “score is typical for many people with autism spectrum disorder.”
But, I don’t think I have autism or neurodivergence or ASD or any other psycho-social diagnoses. I think I’m a bit different to other people but, with modifications to my behaviour and some degree of social (and intellectual) intelligence, I can function in society even if I never feel like I really fit in. I don’t need a label and, in fact, a label would inhibit me from learning to deal with things in appropriate and responsible ways. We grow from difficulties not from having society or family or friends or even paid caregivers cater to our every whim. Fitting in (masking as the neurodivergent call it) is part of life as an adult. If you want adult privileges you must meet adult responsibilities.
In a controversial move – at least in highly politicised circles – the ABC (at great cost because everything the ABC does seems very costly) is producing a series of podcasts called “Autistic AF with Grace Tame.” These four episodes of the “Ladies We Need to Talk Podcast” seek to connect “with other neurodivergent women to get a better understanding of what life is like as an autistic person, beyond the stereotypes.” Now I’m not going to listen to these podcasts. That’s above and beyond what I will do for a simple and rarely read blog. In all honesty, I would rather eat cane toads for a week than listen to a podcast that is entitled “Ladies We Need to Talk” because I don’t fit in with 99% of women. I am much more comfortable around men not only because I do not understand female ways of connecting but also because some of these women are – at least in my opinion - insufferable.
Tame, who was the darling of both the left and the centre, became a target for criticism after a highly emotional speech at a Palestinian rally where she gave the mobilising cry “From Gadigal to Gaza globalise the Intifada,” which was followed up with an interview on ABC radio where she made the statement that sexual assault of women by Hamas on October 7th had been “debunked” and was “propaganda.” As an aside, if you haven’t seen Tame’s Globalise the Intifada speech it is worth watching because Tame is really, really good at delivering speeches. Whether you agree with the slogan or the rally or are just an average human and plain horrified by the Israel-Palestine conflict you have to recognise that Tame is a consummate speaker. She is so good at giving speeches that you might be mistaken for thinking that she is actually really good at connecting with people (not a common trait among autistic people).
In an interview with Rebel News, outside of the ABC studios where a motley gang of folk were protesting the four episodes of the podcast featuring Tame (not something that I could be arsed doing but something I support in a democratic society), Charlie Pickering spoke a few sentences, barely a paragraph that, in my neurotypical or is it neurodiverse way of thinking was pretty banal all things considered. These are his exact words: “I do actually think it’s problematic, that’s my personal opinion. As you would understand, and as a Jewish Australian, there’s a complete misunderstanding of a lot of the words that are said and what [the] true meanings of them are. A lot of people are using words and phrases that have meaning well beyond what they think they do. I think you could argue that a lot of people who jump on protest bandwagons are ignorant a lot of the time.”
I might be wrong, because I may not be completely normal, but I don’t think the average Australian is offended by this. Certainly, the average Australian should NOT be offended by it because Pickering preferences all he says with the words “that’s my personal opinion.” A personal opinion was something we were all entitled to until we invented micro-aggressions and lateral trauma, and suddenly discovered we were all victims. A society of victims, what could possibly go wrong? But, of course, the left has lost it’s mind and has engaged, as it so often does, in a full scale social media lynching. Left wing media outlets were aghast when the NSW government floated a proposal to ban the words “Globalise the Intifada,” and yet, the same people who insist on protections for free speech have roundly condemned Charlie Pickering and would happily see him taken off the air. Free speech is never free I guess.
I haven’t watched or listened to Charlie Pickering since the Covid years when it became obvious, at least to me, that a segment of society was becoming increasingly authoritarian and coercive. I might be forced to live under regulations which I considered antithetical to basic human rights (Covid was never like Ebola, an infection that needed draconian social policy to manage) but I didn’t have to make things worse by being listening to Orwellian level propaganda. But I would, if pushed, be inclined to agree with Pickering.
We have immature 20 and 30 something neurodiverse people speaking with complete confidence and authority about issues which are complex, historically and culturally deeply rooted, and, are, at their most basic level, so far outside their area of expertise, personal knowledge or even thoughtful reflection, that it would be akin to me giving a lecture on string theory to Stephen Hawking. I would look a fool, as do the young women (and men) who confidently proclaim authority on world affairs. Hubris is the burden of youth which unfortunately gets inflicted on an entire society when the protagonists are elevated beyond their level of intelligence because they meet an idealised version of the oppressed (who frequently turns around and becomes the oppressor).
But back to podcasts about autism. I can’t really comment because, as I said previously, I’m not going to actually listen to the podcast, but I certainly feel that the true experience of autism is unlikely to be communicated in the “Ladies We Need to Talk” podcast, because, the true experience of severe autism is not something that is easy to confront. The type of autism my cousin had is deeply distressing, exhausting to manage, and requires unrequited commitment in the face of zero positive feedback. It is not conducive to quirky social media posts or $20K per engagement speaking fees. It is the life long sorrow of something that could have been but was not. Human potential never truly realised, the greatest loss we all are forced to witness.
For an interesting analysis of the explosion of autism and ADHD diagnoses read Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan's book The Age of Diagnosis.
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