I do also wonder about the entire ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) system
of classification.
My sister said a while back of herself and her husband that "we're both
somewhere 'on the spectrum'", but the inverted commas were audible; at
other times she's expressed reluctance to adopt "labels", to name and
classify that atypicality (which runs in the family, to the extent that we
think of it as "Fox-ness" before anything else). Is the ASD label any more
(or less) meaningful than "personality type" indicators of the Myers-Briggs
variety? The language of "neurodiversity" offers to root differences in
socio-affective orientation in physical difference, in neurology. I take
some comfort in that, but it has its perils too - compare the "gay gene".
Must we supply every unusual way of being in the world with an aetiology,
as if it were a disease?
As I get older, I find myself becoming more tribal about aspies, more
strongly identified with the label, more militant in defending a way of
being, a structure of feeling, that I find I share with others. The
breakdown of my marriage may have had something to do with it. There's
nothing like being treated as ontologically malformed to make you want to
stick up for yourself.
Dominic
On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I've recently been enthralled by the gay comedian Jim Parsons's portrayal,
> in "The Big Bang Theory", of the decidedly aspie theoretical physicist Dr
> Sheldon Cooper. There's a zone of indistinction between Cooper's aspie/OCD
> tics and traits and high camp: the high pitch and swooping tone of the
> voice, the deliberateness of enunciation and facial expression, the waspish
> directness, the bemused distance from "normal" sociality. Cooper's a
> comedic stereotype, but which stereotype? And wasn't there always a queer
> subtext in the character of the mad professor?
>
> Dominic
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 1:17 AM, chris Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> On 26/10/12 22:52, Dominic Fox wrote:
>>
>>> that there were such people as
>>> aspies
>>>
>>
>> The other thing I question is making aspies a part of the autism
>> spectrum, according to the latest diagnostic manuals. This is a categorical
>> error which will only harm the special needs of aspies.
>>
>> Basically, is is simply wrong to consider aspies as autistism on this
>> scale???
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.abdevpoetics.**blogspot.com.au<http://www.abdevpoetics.blogspot.com.au>
>> http://www.facebook.com/**christopher.c.jones.161<http://www.facebook.com/christopher.c.jones.161>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Shall we be pure or impure? Today
> we shall be very pure. It must always
> be possible to contain
> impurities in a pure way.
> --Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
>
--
Shall we be pure or impure? Today
we shall be very pure. It must always
be possible to contain
impurities in a pure way.
--Tarmo Uustalu and Varmo Vene
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