"If you prick us, do we not bleed?" - Autistic people are not aliens!

The other day this blog entry appeared and it seemed to get parts of the autistic world in quite an upset although its been around a while:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201608/autistics-undomesticated-humans

Quote intro:

"Autistic authors often describe themselves as aliens from outer space, but remarkable new research by Antonio Benítez-Burraco, Wanda Lattanzi, and Elliot Murphy suggests that people diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might more accurately be described as less domesticated members of our own, self-domesticated species."

I am no natural scientist so I am not going to attempt to critique the article from that standpoint because I am only armed with a CC grade at Double award GCSE Science! I think it best to leave that to those who know what they are talking about... however....

The article was dismissed instantly by some and I can agree that the author used ableist language and some of it was offensive but it did get me thinking.

I don't personally go along with the whole "I am an alien/from a wrong planet" line. There's a brilliant support website called http://wrongplanet.net/ for those with Asperger's Syndrome but I do find the name increasingly irritating. I dislike the overemphasis of the differences between the neurotypical and autistic when actually we share a lot of common ground in feelings, functions and experiences. 

That 'focus on the difference' view just further punctuates the line of being "the other" and how helpful is that when there's so many similarities with those with autism and those who are neurotypical? We end up making ourselves out to be something unique when we aren't. Many people share some of our autistic characteristics in terms of their own medical and cognitive challenges and we certainly don't have the full ownership of sensory overload. 

If we keep pushing this agenda that we are alien and from another planet and keep underlining the point we are different, don't then get offended when the neurotypical people then agree! We can help to foster this kind of view. For example, where a child has a very healthy interest in a minority sport, the child may be criticised for it but their neurotypical peers may have the same level of depth and fascination in another sport, but its the socially acceptable one of football, they are not. This repeated restating that autistic people are significantly different from the neurotypical person can have damaging impact so that we end up marginalising ourselves. 

I take exception regarding the position that my lens in which I look through at life is so fundamentally different to the neurotypicals (excuse the generalisations here!!) that I am actually another species, at least cognitively speaking. At times people won't get me but all humans go through that, right?!?

So if we call ourselves aliens from outer space, don't then be surprised if others refer to us as being animal like and undomesticated because actually we invited that criticism in when we overstated our differences.

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

As stated by Shylock in Act III, scene I

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Ok, perhaps not the last but autistic or neurotypcial, we are all one species.

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The power in how we describe autism

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

In the play "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Juliet suggests that it does not matter that Romeo is a Montague, from her rival's house of Montague. Here, the surname means very little to her, but it is the worth of the individual that counts.

This is noble stuff. Touching. And naive. Names and language have power.

Something I got really into during my Political Science and International Relations studies was the idea of constructing an identity. My masters degree dissertation was on the construction of the terrorist identity and in this case, it explored how an identity can be used for political purposes. Now, I am not going to politicise autism, although I suspect that might be interesting for those into disability politics, but I think there's something in identity construction. My thesis was about how the media created or at least repeated a narrative around what a terrorist should be and it helped to inform the consumer of such media (print in this case) about terrorism. This was framed in a post 9/11 era that polarised the terrorist and freedom fighter in a good versus evil dialogue.

A brilliant book on the subject is this:
Jackson, Richard (2005). Writing the war on terrorism: language, politics and counter-terrorism. New approaches to conflict analysis. Manchester University Press.

Anyway, autism.
What got me thinking is how language has power. Juliet is right in that if Romeo was Romeo Smith, he'd still be this great guy to her but she misses a point: Montague is part of his heritage and his family and he can't just shake that off like it never existed even if he became a smith.
So how do we frame autism?
Do we approach it socially? Culturally? Medically?
If we describe it in different terms, does it change how it is and suddenly cease sensory overloads? No, but it changes how we as society approach it and that is what is important.

I am listing some words and to see what sort of identity they create:

Negative	Positive
Disease Impairment Deficit Disabled Diagnosis Weakness Abnormal Disorder Treatment Limited "Special" Cure Genetic fault Problem Burden	Condition Difference Unique Diverse Acceptance Useful Integration Welcomed Contribution

I am sure there are lots of other words we could add.

I wonder, where do you think autism should fit into? The left column or the right?
See how that now shapes how we see autistic people?

When Juliet said a rose wouldn't change in of itself if it was called something else, I agree. If we called it a tulip, it is still a rose. But that isn't what matters here. Language is how we understand each other and confer meaning to concepts. What matters is not just what Romeo or Juliet thought but the thoughts of "others too" since they shape the narrative in which we must all live.

Whilst we don't need to take our lives to change such identities and force harmony, the way we use language about ourselves as autistic people helps us move from the left to the right column.
We have it within ourselves to change the perception of autism.

"Two households, both alike in dignity

(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage—

The which, if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."

Romeo and Juliet, Prologue

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