The Standard Review

Dignified not Objectified

The most basic human right I can think of is being treated with dignity. If humans are simply, by the act of being human, seen as deserving of dignity, then most other basic human rights will follow.

Due to psychology being mass marketed the way it is, it doesn't matter so much that a particular psychological theory (or treatment that results from a theory) is meant to encourage dignified treatment or not. If those who implement the treatment are only interested in using the theory as a means for control, whatever dignity was intended gets lost in the translation.

I don't see enough acceptance in the implementation of psychology that most people being treated have rarely if ever been treated with dignity. If this population isn't who psychology is meant to serve then it is by default a means of oppression.

When this lack of being treated with dignity is due to their social class, and they are being asked to trust a treatment which is obviously being used for social reform, they are likely to ask, "If the class system is unfair (which it is) then how can a reform that accepts and promotes that class system be fair?" Without trust there is no environment for people to be helped.

Once the purposed treatment or therapy has been seen by them as part of the problem and the goal of that treatment or therapy is to achieve something, which seems to them to be based on the same type of objectification they are accustomed to, there are few chances to establish trust.

This is what I see as the biggest threat to autistic rights.

When self-actualization/awareness/humaness is a goal, people who are behaving in ways that don't appear to have reached that goal have their behavior (and what society has taught them is who they are by association) seen as an object to be fixed.

If the first step to turning that around is to teach them how to achieve dignity rather than be objectified, then the first message you have reinforced to them is that they are nothing but objects to begin with. It doesn't matter if individual therapists don't see them that way or, even if the therapeutic goal is more sophisticated than that. They will judge what they see based on what they have been taught is a threat. This will automatically be seen to them as a threat.

Too often people want to separate autistic kid's needs from those of autistic adults rather than looking at the similarities of how autistics are wrongly treated in public programs at all ages. It doesn't matter how old someone is, they won't be accepting much other learning or a lot of responsibility to change (including how to behave "properly") until, or, unless they are able to accept being treated with dignity. They must be taught that they and everyone else deserves it. People know this instinctively but yet are constantly taught otherwise.

It's not so much a matter of the government instilling dignity, but at this point they are too often stealing it (or at least discouraging it).

In public schools, at a certain age, they decide that the welfare of the mainstream is what's most important and that those who don't fit are either seen as not trying or not interested in education. This leads to the population who doesn't fit having their needs become secondary if not ignored altogether. Again their self-esteem, based on the dignity they are shown, suffers.

As they get older they are likely to be even more objectified by public programs and put in even more situations where they are warehoused without any goals for their betterment whatsoever. The cycle that teaches them that they don't deserve dignity also reinforces how they in turn objectify others. If schools accept the responsibility in the beginning and teach dignity before anything along with not trying to force any other teaching until that goal is met, we wouldn't need the systematized objectifying boxes.

If advocacy for human rights isn't willing to look at the system that teaches the denial of human rights, advocates will by default exclude and objectify people in the same way as the system they are trying to change. Ultimately, with this happening no changes are made.

That public systems that needs to be changed rewards the best and brightest and the most popular because to do otherwise would indicate that the system which evaluated and assigned them the distinction as that way in the first place was broken. Advocates that follow that system are ultimately sacrificing peoples human rights and their dignity for very little progress. In the long run, it will be worse than no progress at all.

 

The Importance of Every Effort

When working towards a combined goal or cause not all efforts are worth the same. In every case that the effort is towards that goal one effort is equal to any other. However, not everyone who gets involved can put away enough of their personal agendas and selfish needs in order to get involved with the community that is working towards a common goal. Any number of motivations can be more important to them that distracts them from the plural efforts but one way that a personal agenda is shown very clearly by someone is when they attempt to show their efforts and their personal identity as best or even the only "real" efforts that are important.

Neurodiversity can't include lots of demands on how people express themselves and what expressions are better or best.

As I wrote in my last post "The Hostages Have Been Identified", identity politics becomes nothing more than a game which is always won at the expense of someone else's human rights. People who flex their muscle to show themselves as being better or having a contribution that is more worthy of respect than someone else's have bought into a hierarchical set of values which by its very nature automatically infringes on someone else's right.

quotes from the main link referred to on that post:

"Identity encourages purity. If we believe that concepts like feminism can be embodied in individuals, then some people can be more feminist than others. This leads to debates about ‘real feminists’ and how feminists should act (e.g. debates regarding feminism and heterosexuality). Feminist purity allows for hierarchy (e.g. more or less and thus better or worse feminists) and encourages guilt (e.g. asking yourself 'should real feminists think/act like this?')."

AND:


"Identity creates opposition. By dividing the world up into opposing pairs (e.g. men/women, heterosexuals/queers, ruling class/working-class, whites/blacks), identity creates opposite types of people who perceive themselves as having opposing interests. This opposition means that people fail to recognise their common interests as human beings. The opposition of two forces pushing against each other means that very little changes."

I also see this leading to things such as cyber bullying and sexual harassment. Someone sees how their personal rights being infringed on is a justification for doing the same to someone else. This means that they are endorsing the myth that oppression isn't systematic and keeps them from seeing how they are privileged in a given situation. This attitude hurts everyone involved.

As far as contributions to a cause go, it shouldn't matter whose rights are being infringed upon or how their type of contribution is judged as being less worthy. If humans are all to have equal rights based on nothing more than being human than the only valid judgment that makes one person less worthy of respect than other must be based on how what that person does infringe on someone else's rights.

One of the worst ways I see these judgments being made is when someone has to make lots of assumptions in order to make someone else look bad. The more assumptions someone has to make about another person, the more likely they are to make wrong assumptions. The most obvious reason for making assumptions is to make someone else look bad so that you look better.

It doesn't matter so much who someone relates better to, whom they are best able to encourage, or how their advocacy efforts are presented. Doing your best and being yourself is never ablist. It matters most if their efforts are geared toward encouraging others or are geared to discouraging them. Anyone whose goal is to encourage is worthy of respect no matter how efficient they seem to others to be accomplishing that goal or how far they are along on their personal journey toward learning how they can best do that.
When people believe that political efforts for human rights can be made at the expense of the respect and dignity I'm describing, those efforts are worse than just being inefficient. People get hurt as a result.

Human rights and equality are not separate issues. Principles must be followed so that individuals don't get hurt. It's completely impractical as well as being void of ethical considerations to hold certain personalities or political agendas above the very principles of the goals you are trying to achieve. It doesn't make sense and ultimately people lose their human rights as a result.

The Hostages Have Been Identified

The autism rights movement is defined by Wikipedia as a group involved with identity politics. Identity politics makes hostages of the nonpolitical (less active politically) people who identify with the same label by adhering to the same political hierarchical judgments about peoples worth. Identity used this way can hinder rather than help a group's cause. When the methods you are using for liberation are completely controlled by those who need to oppress you the result won't be liberation at all. In other words, " The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

The people who are in the most affected by political decisions are always the most discouraged from getting involved. They are usually the least educated and therefore, are thought to be unable to offer valid opinions due to their lack of how things work in "the real world". As always, this makes their experience unworthy of attention or respect so the knowledge of *their* real world is never known or considered in political decisions.

There is a corporate need for exclusion and hierarchy and hierarchy is identity politics. Confining neurodiversity, autism rights movement, etc. to being a movement of nothing more than identity politics is sentencing some people to be excluded and abused.

Here is a link to a page that I believe explains the problems with identity politics very well.:

Note: Also, here's a link for further reading on the problems of identity politics in an interview with Cornell West.

This is a link to what I discussing in this post:  Maintaining the Borders: identity & politics

Jamie Heckert

30 October 2002



Here is some of what it says which I feel is very important:

(The parts of this article are written in green)

"Identity is the process of creating and maintaining borders, creating different kinds of people. This keeps the world packaged in tidy little boxes. These boxes, in turn, are necessary for the violence and domination of hierarchical societies. There cannot be masters or slaves, bosses or workers, men or women, whites or blacks, leaders or followers, heterosexuals or queers, without identity

 Identity separates people. It encourages us to believe that 'we' are different from 'others'. Identity can also encourage conformity. How else do I show that I am one of us other than conforming to the accepted codes prescribed to that identity? This construction of similarity and difference exists whether we are talking about traditional identity politics groups like 'disabled people' or political identities like 'environmentalists'. This separation of us from them has serious consequences for political movement.

 

Identity encourages isolation. Political ghettos cannot exist without political identity; and their existence reinforces it. Not only are the 'activists' separated from the 'non-activists', but within a broad political ghetto, anarchists, feminists, and environmentalists (amongst others) often see themselves as involved in separate struggles. People who consider themselves politically active are separated both from each other and from others who do not share an 'activist' identity. Effective movement for radical social change cannot be based on such divisions.

 

Identity reduces social phenomena to individuals. Concepts like anarchism and racism are social. They are not embodied by individuals as terms like 'anarchist' and 'racist' suggest. Rather, they exist as ideas, practices and relationships. In most societies, racism is inherent in our institutionalised relationships and ways of thinking. We can and should be critical of racism, but to attack people as 'racists' can only further alienate them from our efforts.[iii] Besides, it is a dangerous fantasy to believe that 'racists' can be separated from those of us who are non-racist. Likewise, anarchism exists throughout every society. Every time people co-operate without coercion to achieve shared goals, that is anarchy. Every time someone thinks that people should be able to get along with each other without domination, that is anarchism. If we only see racism in 'racists', we will never effectively challenge racism. If we only see anarchism in 'anarchists', we will miss out on so many desperately needed sources of inspiration.

 

Identity encourages purity. If we believe that concepts like feminism can be embodied in individuals, then some people can be more feminist than others. This leads to debates about ‘real feminists’ and how feminists should act (e.g. debates regarding feminism and heterosexuality). Feminist purity allows for hierarchy (e.g. more or less and thus better or worse feminists) and encourages guilt (e.g. asking yourself 'should real feminists think/act like this?').

 

Political identity simplifies personal identity. A related problem for feminist identity, for example, is that it demands we focus on one aspects of our complex lives. Feminist movement has often been dominated by white middle-class women who have a particular perspective on what is a 'women's issue'. Many women have had to choose between involvement in a woman's movement that fails to recognise ethnicity and class issues, or in black or working class politics that did not acknowledge gender. But, the alternative of specialised identity politics could get very silly (e.g. a group for disabled, transgender, lesbian, working-class women of colour). Likewise, if I describe myself as a feminist, an anarchist, and a sex radical, I am suddenly three different people. However, if I say I advocate feminism, anarchism and radical sexual politics I am one person with a variety of beliefs.[iv]

 

Identity often imagines easily defined interests. Feminism is often presented as for women only; men are perceived to entirely benefit from the gender system. Many men do clearly benefit from the gender system in terms of institutionalised domination. If we perceive interests as inherently stemming from current systems, we fail to recognise how people would benefit from alternative systems. If we want to encourage and inspire people to create a very different form of society, we should share with each other what we see as beneficial. We must recognise that different value systems (e.g. domination versus compassion) result in very different interests.

 

Identity discourages participation. If people are worried that they might be excluded through labelling (e.g. racist or homophobic), they won't feel welcomed and won't get involved. Likewise, people do not get involved if they believe that it is not in their interests. If we pepetuate the idea that feminism is for women, men will never see how it could also be in their interests to support feminism. Or they might support feminism, but feel guilty for their male privilege. Either way, men are not encouraged to be active in feminist movements. Radical social change requires mass social movement. Identity politics, by definition, can never achieve this. Political identities, like ‘environmentalist’, can likewise become a basis for minority politics.

 

Identity creates opposition. By dividing the world up into opposing pairs (e.g. men/women, heterosexuals/queers, ruling class/working-class, whites/blacks), identity creates opposite types of people who perceive themselves as having opposing interests. This opposition means that people fail to recognise their common interests as human beings. The opposition of two forces pushing against each other means that very little changes.

 

Identity freezes the fluid. Neither individual identity (the 'who am I?' kind) nor social organisation are fixed, but are in constant motion. Political identities require that these fluid processes are frozen realities with particular characteristics and inherent interests. In failing to recognise the nature of both identity and society, political identity can only inhibit radical social change.

 

 




The mentality of identity politics (since it falls into to place with all other politics) silences people who are (by that mentality) unimportant. Identity politics is comparison politics. It is impractical and stirs superfluous debate. If we concentrated on getting those people involved who aren't we would have the right ideas to come up with the political changes that are needed. Too often we serve the system that is already in place by committing to the oppressive old methods of government.

You can't get an acceptance for neurodiversity without challenging the current system which needs to (by the very nature of what it is) not accept it.

"It may not be perfect, but can't it still be a useful strategy?

 

It is a very good strategy if you don't want to change things very much. Identity politics fits in nicely within the dominant neo-liberal ideology. Groups created around oppressed identities can lobby the state for civil rights. This idea of trying to protect individuals without changing relationships or systems of organisation is compatible with the individualistic basis of capitalism and representative 'democracy'.

 

I would never argue that a strategy has to be 'perfect' to be useful, but it must be consistent with its aims. Ends and means can only be separated in our minds. If the aim is to reduce or eliminate hierarchical social divisions (e.g. gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, class), a strategy which depends upon those very divisions can never be successful."

One of the reasons people won't let go of identity politics may be due to how doing that would make them less identified as being important if their cause was diluted by too many other people with independent views. (especially uneducated views....which means most people since most people are uneducated)

"If political identity is such a poor strategy, why is it so common?

 

On a personal level, political identity makes us feel part of something larger at the same time that it makes us feel special were different. In the short-term, this can be very successful defence mechanism. For example, I'm sure I would have been a lot more damaged by the sexist and homophobic environment in which I grew up if I had not been able to convert stigma into pride. However, feeling yourself to be different and separate from other people is not a successful long-term strategy, either psychologically or politically.

 

What's the alternative to political identity?

 

If borders are the problem, then we must support and encourage each other to tear down the fences. Two crucial tools for dismantling borders are systematic analyses and compassionate strategies.

 

We should recognise oppression is not simply a practice of individuals who have power over those who do not. Instead, we could see how forms of organisation (including institutions and relationships) systematically produce hierarchies and borders. People will only see an interest in getting more involved if they realise that their individual problems – anxiety, depression, exhaustion, anger, poverty, meaningless work,unsatisfying sex lives, etc – are not unique, but are systematically produced. Furthermore, their action will only be effective if they work to reduce all forms of hierarchy and domination. Constructs including gender, sexuality, capitalism, race and the nation state are interdependent systems. Each system of domination serves to reinforce the others. This doesn't mean we have to solve every problem instantly, but we must recognise that all issues are human issues. At the same time, we must not imagine that a particular system of domination (not even capitalism!) is the source of all others.

 

Radical politics is rarely appealing because it focuses on the evils of the world. This offers little that is hopeful or constructive in people's daily lives. If we want to see widespread social movement for radical change, we have to offer people something they value. Listening to people's concerns, caring about their problems and encouraging and supporting them to develop systemic solutions requires compassion. Offer people a better quality of life instead of focusing so much on depressing aspects of our current society.

 

We should also recognise that people positioned in more privileged categories may in some ways suffer. At the very least, people who feel a strong need to dominate and control must suffer deep insecurities, the results of competition and hierarchy. Insecurity, domination and control are not conducive to fulfilling and meaningful relationships with other people. Attacking people in 'privileged' positions does little to dismantle these systems. It also gives entirely too much credit to people in those positions – they are both products and producers of systems, just like the rest of us.

 

To radically reorganise our society, we should aim to both diminish systematic domination and suffering and encourage systematic compassion. Just as apparently disconnected and often incoherent forms of domination can reinforce and maintaining each other, so too can a compassionate organisation of society become systematic and self-sustaining.

 

Encouraging people to be more comfortable with sexuality in general has been a key focus of my own political efforts[v]. But, sexuality is only one area in which a compassionate and systematic approach has much more radical potential than politicising identity.

 

Find sources of suffering, whatever they are, and support and encourage people to find ways of relating to themselves and others that reduce that suffering. Help build compassionate, co-operative institutions (e.g. social centres, support/discussion groups, mediation services, childcare support, food not bombs). Tell people when you admire or appreciate their efforts. Support people trying to change their environments (e.g. workplace resistance). Offer alternatives to people who are involved in or considering authoritarian positions (e.g. military, police, business management).

 

Demonstrating the pleasures and benefits of co-operative, compassionate organisation offers a strong threat to the world of borders and guards. I suspect that fragmented groups, anti-whatever demonstrations, unfriendly, exclusive meetings and utopian 'after the revolution' lectures will never be quite as enticing to people outside the activist ghetto."


In as much as there is an autism community it is now following the medical model of autism in that it too often is exclusive and discourages ideas and thoughts that go beyond political pragmatism. That's not practical and if not corrected it (as a movement) will dissolve into the sea of business as usual politics, there will be no expanding of class or the low classes, and negative stereotypes that accompany being something other than neuro typical will continue and become even more common.

Conflict of Interest

One myth that causes a lot of confusion and upset is that people are either competitive or lazy, or they are instead being passive/aggressive. Such motivations can only be attributed to people based on their behaviors and behaviors are too often narrowly judged by too few comparisons.

Once these judgments have been made in error they are too often accompanied by undue punishment. This is one reason that behavioral therapy can be so destructive even when it is described as constructive.

Due to the way that society is taught to chase trends based on emotion and impulse, independent thinking and the liberation it encourages is greatly discouraged. The ways we are taught to be consumers is heavily influenced by behavior modification methods.


Once people who for whatever reason are otherwise unable to determine their circumstances has their motivation judged by a narrow set of standards the ways they can be controlled and manipulated have few limitations.

It is very inconvenient to not be chasing what someone else claims that the majority wants (which is typically motivated by commercialism) or to want something so extravagant as safety and individual expression. It is typically fine for people to join in and advocate with others to attain something so that everyone can be judged by the same standard but to individually express what no one else seems to be in control of, even an expression that is an essential need such as safety or human rights, it is seen as aberrant and dangerous.

At the same time, evidence is growing to show the mental health industry as serving as the protectors of the public rather than wanting to provide therapy and rehabilitation to the population they label. The education that psychology provides is also meant to provide a standard of normal behavior that they know will exclude many people who society wants to dispose of. What are described as learning disorders can exclude people for racing thoughts, attention deficit, being overly excitable, and for generally not being able follow directions.

Thinking in specific ways and the ability to chase trends is very important in today's society. It not only determines what we buy and when we buy it, but it also impacts what products are chosen for international trade, what employers are looking for, and therefore, how we judge intelligence and even character.

The combination of quick prejudicial and unreasonable judgments about what people think along with a growing demand for a mainstream consciousness allows autistic people to be very vulnerable to abuse and neglect along with warehousing for the disenfranchised or for when all else seems to fail.

The best way I know for including more people and changing the thinking that leads to so much oppression is encouraging people to think independently and express independent thoughts. The narrower our judgments become about what people want and what their motivations are the more dependent we are on people who can make our decisions for us. Including more people who think different things or think in different ways is an important part of what will turn that around.

Incomplete Assignment

The judgment of how people think as in good vs. bad and smart vs. not smart is how the terms high vs. low functioning are justified.

When it comes to types of thinking (in three divisions of intelligence, pathology, and neurology) all labels are assigned in terms of severity by the amount which is determined that someone's thinking deviates from the norm.There is no diversity but instead only hierarchy.

People who are with the least resources will ultimately have all these divisions disappear and will be classified as simply having their thinking to be wrong and bad. The only reason the divisions exist in the first place is so that supposedly there will be therapy and/or accommodations but once someone has reached a level of convenient isolation from the public, they are all placed in one group who are simply seen as bad and a drain on public resources.

Sometimes that includes warehousing with walls and sometimes the warehousing that is isolating and abusive by the same institutional methods is without the walls.

Advocates often dismiss this population in the same way as public programs do. People who have attempted to create advocacy movements or a culture who speaks on a behalf of a group that includes this population have been every bit as exclusive.

Debates are held within a realm that discounts every statement made by them and demeans them as much and sometimes more than those who were considered their oppressors.

One of the ways people in the United States declare a democracy is by those who have the power to do so assigning a false label of power to oppress populations so that they will seem justified in further oppressing them.

It's sort of like planting a weapon on someone after they've been killed by someone else with a weapon. The weapon really never did them any good, but now it can be seen as though the killers aggression was justified by needing to protect themselves.

This is the largest group of people and yet those who claim to be helping them never encourage them to have independent thoughts or to share what they have learned from their experience.

For whatever reason they have become isolated, they are now seen as the craziest, the dumbest, or those with the greatest impairment in thinking for whatever reason in order to justify the original false hierarchy of judgments that divided them in the first place. My experience is that these judgments are due only to their circumstances and resources and serve only to "protect" the public from having to acknowledge their existence by conveniently making them invisible.

The moral justification for excluding this group has no basis in fact. Yet they are further labeled as having rights and being empowered in places where they are not. The claim is that the standards are the same for everyone, but it is not factored in how most people who have no way of determining our fate do not have anything like the level of resources as those who speak on our behalf.

The claims I have seen of creating an autistic community have not accepted any responsibility for avoiding this injustice as they move forward. Instead I see political pragmatism as being a guide for all decisions made on behalf of the autistic population. I sincerely hope this will change.

I have never seen a political effort to liberate this group. I have never seen a culture who aspired to include them. Many who are part of this group at this point will tell you that they don't care. Many are also accepting of the value judgments of others who see them as unworthy of encouragement. For this group to be encouraged the standards that exclude them need to be reviewed. The walls created by privileged peoples attitudes need to be torn down and then people will see this otherwise invisible group and hear from them as to what they want and need for true inclusion to occur.

Chasing Validity

Chasing the valid opinion or trying to determine how others will decide what is the most popular opinion is such an exercise in futility. As long as the unreasonably justified methods of such determinations are not honestly evaluated and a fairer and more honest system of equal justice is demanded so much of what we do becomes useless.

Relativity is usually just an excuse for drama and games of better than less than. It needs to be understood by more people that being in the right place at the right time and absorbing the most popular view typically creates nothing more than delusions of grandeur.

Having what you say be seen as valid often has very little to do with being right or saying what is true. It's usually more of a political game or an arbitrary declaration of what events are historical and what is judged as hearsay due to not enough important people declaring it worthy of their attention. The objective of these games is for enough people to join the group for whatever reason in order to overpower the another group they oppose. Once the total focus of a group is to discount what another group says or even one person whose focus is to discount what another person says often the other views that need to be discussed are similarly discounted due to the blindness which comes from seeking the thrill of victory at all costs. Within such an environment, all variations of opinion along with all efforts dissolve into the wave of the mainstream consciousness.

This mainstream consciousness is encouraged by ugly stereotypes that polarize people's opinions
 so that the standards and the people who are already in positions of power as a result of those standards doesn't change. This begins by people being defined as either for or against something or someone. The fate of an idea or even the person who brings up the idea is validated based on the personality of the presenter. To whatever degree this is inappropriate and harmful to other groups having to fight for their civil rights, it is crucially detrimental to autistics who have to do so.

What is unpopular and uncomfortable about autistic people did not only come from the label itself. Instead it is how the characteristics themselves have traditionally made people uncomfortable that created societies need to create a label in the first place. Trying to give credit to the functioning levels of autistic people will continue to isolate and hurt rather than help everyone's cause as long as functioning remains an arbitrary value judgment attributed to the people themselves.

When people try hard to not qualify their statements in an effort to allow an idea to either be seen as valid or invalid based on nothing more than the merit of the idea itself, often people are prone to not be able to suspend their typical and unfair methods of judgment.

An experience demands ownership. There are as many different ways of describing the very same experience as there are people who have the experience. Because no two people can have the same experience the experience itself becomes relative. The trouble is therefore, in the judgment of how others determine the validity of the experience. Because societal rules demand certain types of evaluations of a person's validity based on the unreasonable and unfair classifications and assumptions, fighting against those rules is really the only way to liberate an otherwise marginalized group of people. Attempting to do that by any other means is just a part of the same typical cycle of oppression, which unfairly gives more to those who already have power at the continued expense of those who don't.

However the societal rules that are now in place came into existence it was not done fairly.  It was also not done without giving power to people due to nothing more than their name, social status, or how their particular set of skills (often a matter of personable and personality skill) were arbitrarily given status that would be undue to them in another place and time.

Autistics are an oppressed group. Not just because some are less capable than others or just because some can pass societal standards when others can't. It's also not necessarily because some are employed and others are described as dependents. The main reason is that what autism represents is something that makes people uncomfortable. It doesn't need to make people uncomfortable and all that would be needed to overcome this discomfort is by the same means of understanding and liberating any oppressed group.

This understanding comes from evaluating why the discomfort and therefore, the disrespect exists. It is because people don't ask why certain aspects of people make them uncomfortable that people are marginalized and disrespected due to unrealistic assumptions. That is where opinions are truly made valid or invalid because taking on honest inventory of those discomforts and adjusting ourselves accordingly is what makes people whole and makes us a whole society rather than fragmented by unrealistic and unfair judgments. With fair unprejudiced evaluations, people would naturally be accommodated without all the unfair treatment that typically goes along with that.

The way the United States has traditionally learned to expediently and conveniently deal with unwanted populations is by a method of warehousing. Warehousing (or institutionalizing) provides a way of categorizing people similar to the franchising principles of McDonald's, the auto industry in the way that Henry Ford designed, or the construction practices of the Hoover dam, the interstates, the railroads, and some of our largest bridges. Much of the surviving population who was on this land before the European invasion is today warehoused on land that is sometimes glamorously referred to as "reservations". Many of the surviving populations who were enslaved are warehoused in what are glamorously referred to as ghettos and housing projects. If you look at the way the residents of New Orleans were treated by what was glamorously described as a natural disaster, you will further see an example of the methods the United States uses to herd its most unwelcome citizens.

Every time a decision is made in the United States that does not factor in the well-being of everyone who is affected by that decision, the warehousing principles are again reinforced as to how we do things. I can't think of a phrase that I find more offensive than "that's just the way things are". Every bit of the way things are would change tomorrow if everyone were given a vote. The problem is that this opportunity at this point can only come with encouragement. Without this it is no opportunity at all.

If all opinions were judged equally based on their own merit with personalities not be the deciding factor we would have freedom of thought. Until that happens, we don't have the right to free thinking.

The part of the autism community who is judging expressions based on how they assess which is the most important expression are the ones who are ultimately creating more marginalization, more institutionalizing, and more oppression of autistic people.

When people claim that we as the autistic community should try harder to get along, they often reinforce the validity of the already bad typical standards which create the biggest division of all. The attitude expressed in this validation is ablism. Ablism is the pathway to warehousing. Warehousing for autistics will come in the form of mental institutions and the public programs (including behavioral programs) designed for people who have supposedly been "freed" from institutional living. These opinions are as oppressive as the forces that result from them. Encouraging those opinions is how people have been oppressed all along.

Ghosts Matter; Autistic Inclusion

There are many reasons that so many people in our society are silent or are hidden. As I have written about in previous posts one of the reasons for this is that forms of media, which are considered mainstream encourage a narrow set of unattainable elite standards, which encourages people to want to achieve what they can't and are reminded of how they are seen as unimportant until they do. However, the main reason for this group's exclusion (which most other reasons can be attributed to) is the lack of encouragement.

It's not just that this population is fed a constant stream of images, which reminds them of what it takes to be considered important but everyone else in their environment is fed the same. This is how people draw conclusions about themselves as well as how they judge and often discount others. Oppression is most easily achieved when the oppressed accept standards that can be used to discount each other.

I'm glad that something I say on the internet sometimes seems to be important to others. If I was required to say these things by being directly in front of someone rather than writing them (even if I could string words together) many things about my appearance and my presentation would remind people of how unimportant my thoughts were. I have found though that there is enough lacking in how I present myself on the Internet also which reinforces the same standards.

I have heard that even the Internet may become much more exclusive soon. It seems to me that it would of course become that way. This means that more of a financial investment would be required to have a website that the general public can access. This means that this medium (the Internet) will become more exclusive, more commercial, and the commercial interests of those who run the websites will demand the same typical unattainable and exclusionary standards of those who present their message.

I don't believe that anyone ever thought that the Internet would be used much as a tool for liberating oppressed minorities. To whatever degree it has been used in this way I imagine this window of opportunity is quite limited by time.

I'm very appreciative of others who have spoken up on the internet before me about the things that I feel are important and those who continue to do so. I especially appreciate when they've done so in an environment where it wasn't popular.

What is considered truth and even the so-called facts that we use to determine what is logical are tainted by a set of values, which excludes the worth of most people.

At times when I was hospitalized, I would see someone who was being treated badly by a staff member fighting back in a quite unfashionable manner. I look back at that now, and I consider that to be advocacy. The only place that advocacy may have really changed things is in the mind and heart of the person who is being abused by helping them to realize that they didn't deserve to be treated that way. However, now for those who read what I write I can tell you that you also benefit from what those patients did because what I saw ultimately affects what I write. It also affects why I write.

Too often I hear people speaking of solutions to oppression by means, which are less-than-radical when they aren't considering how unreasonable that it is to expect in some places and by some people based on how they have been treated, and what they have been taught about their personal worth. If we wait until everyone meets the typical standards for expressing themselves before they are listened to those standards will continue to become narrower as will our version of the truth.

Whatever I have felt I needed to do to get heard is something that I hope others won't need to do. All the abilities I have, which are the result of extreme pressure and abuse (which pretty much includes all of them) are worth very little to me except for how I'm able to protect myself and others.

I appreciate hearing comments on blogs from people who are speaking up and speaking out more than I do from what is otherwise considered a formally educated opinion.

The autistic people that aren't being heard right now are most likely not formally educated nor do they most likely appear fashionable. Sometimes they are people who have put up the worst shit and told more often and more strongly than anyone, of how they are viewed by society as worthless. Typical standards are not likely to encourage these people and adhering to those standards is not likely to encourage them to begin to feel empowered and to speak out.

Without what I am suggesting autistic people will have a few (or only one) political groups with very narrow views who speak on our behalf and those groups will not be required to accept much if any alternative opinions.  Like most political groups the objective will be pragmatic and momentum will be protected at any costs to the population being advocated for. Autistic people will continue to be divided between the high functioning token performers and the low functioning who are considered to deserve pity and treatment by whatever means necessary.We will have one monopolizing commercial method of control used by schools (sometimes referred to as  educational supports) and all other public institutions which will define us as behaviorally challenged and will set and change the rules at will by which we are restrained and punished.  We will need to qualify our every statement and refer to how it qualifies as valid based on the statements of celebrities whose accomplishments set the standards by which we are judged.

This is the future I want to avoid. Autistics just like all minorities need to speak out with whatever means they have available. Even more importantly I hope those who can see how these voices have been suppressed will be encouraged to find more ways to include them. The standards and values we show appreciation for are what will determine our future and the typical standards we have now were not created with these voices in mind.Our inclusion won't be created without work, and if we want a society that includes more people we need to include those who are now excluded in the decision of what the society we hope for will look like.

Where Everybody Knows their Place

One of the themes I often write about is how the U.S. mental health care system is too often misinterpreted. This system was designed to protect the public rather than aid the recipient of the care.

The attitude that has been developed from this original design still compliments the goals of many of the enterprises that provide this care and that continues to greatly influence how that care is given.

Many modern Americans who got involved in attempting to change the government at one time or another were misled (or rather betrayed) because they were raised to believe in an unattainable status of middle class citizenship that they hoped to secure. In such a world of unattainable ideals there will be chaos, which demands uncreative minds to seek better methods of control. The more chaos they see the stricter they make their methods of control.

A corrupted system causes people to feel betrayed. Feeling betrayed leads to more erratic emotions and chaotic situations, which can again lead to the lack of inspiration and creative thinking where people again seek inappropriate methods of control. Of course inappropriate methods of control are how people again feel betrayed and how systems are further corrupted.

Psychiatric medications are advancing at a much slower rate than other medications with the same high level of demand due to how the population of people who take these medications are respected (or rather disrespected) in society.

The number of people receiving these medications is increasing and the age at which they begin taking these medications is decreasing.

The health problems these medications causes which are described as side effects are revealed in how the lifespan is shortened (this study says by 25 years) in mental health patients.

You will also find many school systems now describing a type of restraint known as chemical restraints. This is of course psychiatric medication.

One of the safety measures that is used for these medications is known as a "therapeutic dose." While such a therapeutic dose is written on the labels of medication bottles these standards do not apply when authorized by a physician in a mental health facility as a type of restraint.

Furthermore, in a mental institution a patient is given more privileges due to their lack of what is considered by the staff to be misbehavior. Of course not only are these privileges taken away when someone is seen to be misbehaving but force that is justified by the claim of needing to restrain is often nothing more than physical punishment.

With more children being diagnosed with psychological problems at earlier ages, more police officers being used in classrooms, and children being tried as adults at earlier ages, the public school systems are merging with mental health systems and corrective institutions.

As I said earlier in this post, the mental health system in the United States was designed for the safety of the public rather than the aid of the client/patient. (the term mental health consumer which is often used indicates choice where there isn't any) In addition to this influence today more than ever we have industries that are dependent on the misbehavior of children as well as adults.

Practically all commercial developments related to autism depends on the mainstream media negative stereotype of autistic people. A public institution will grow to rely on the demand for the services they provide and corporations align themselves with public institutions so that both entities are strengthened. With such alliances all programs involved are given even fewer incentives to change their policies that don't work.

No revisions to the medicare and medicaid programs will be made until the abuses are correctly attributed to the medical profession rather than continuing with the false accusation that the problem is due to the recipients.

Placing the blame on those who don't obtain an education or vocational training justifies a lack of new standards set for the public systems that claim to be providing that.

The reasons mental institutions provide control rather than aid for the patients is because that's what they are designed for.

NAMI (National Alliance for Mentally Ill) describes itself as:

For three decades, NAMI has established itself as the most formidable grassroots mental health advocacy organization in the country.

Over half (56%) of the funding for NAMI comes from the pharmaceutical industry who of course expects them in return to promote their political agenda.

NAMI supports Kendra's Law, which provides more power to parents as well as state and federal authorities to force someone into a mental institution against their will.

They also support this:


A major concern is forced outpatient drugging, which is legal today in 37 states.  Last summer, a similar bill in California, AB1800, was defeated through the help and work of a coalition of human rights organizations and people against forced psychiatry.   Under these laws, a person can be court-ordered to take psychiatric medications, and in fact in 6 of these states it is enforced through dose drop-in visits to verify that the person takes his meds.   This program, named the Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT), has been supported by NAMI, something that many local NAMI groups, and this reporter, object to. The National Empowerment Center has put together a program called PACE to promote the recovery model and provide an alternative to PACT.  The approach of forced drugging has also been introduced in prisons, where the prisoner can be both physically and chemically restrained, creating a chemical prison.


Their reasons for not supporting deinstitutionalization are described here:

*    failure to properly invest in community-based housing and services,
*    lack of accountability in ensuring that public mental health agencies focused limited resources on people with the most severe illnesses
*    inability of states and communities to follow and adopt best evidence-based practices in their public mental health systems, and
*    legal barriers that prevent the most severely ill individuals from accessing needed treatment.

Each of these reasons is the result of pushing for other agenda's. The wording doesn't clearly state what those agendas are at all. The needs that are expressed for this population can't be based on a broad set of ideals. Instead laws must reflect the acceptance of the type of system that is already in place in order to be passed.

Of course NAMI also endorses statewide PBS (Positive Behavioral Supports) in public schools.

Ten Best Practices for Mental Health and Schools by NAMI states this for #2

2. Training school professionals in effective research-based teaching methods and behavioral interventions including positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS).

The need for this PBS in schools is based on the misbehavior of students that is now out of control. Someone who is seen to be misbehaving is labeled as having a behavioral disorder. Once labeled a person is in a category where misbehavior is suspected.

Public institutions want stricter authority on a wider group of people with a staff trained to control behavior. They would claim that this is in the best interest of education. However, in cases where such programs have been implemented an increase in the participants becoming more educated and better trained for vocations has not been shown.

What the US government does not want to admit is that it uses public institutions to label and warehouse misfits. Whenever training is seen as a priority the type of thinking that goes with typical labeling and warehousing becomes a method of exclusion rather than inclusion.

If the United States was truly interested in including a broader majority of the people into the society that is respected, the employment rates would go up, the population of educated people would increase, and the public systems that are already in place would show how they are empowering more people.

Since all the indications are that this is not a government priority it must be understood that government officials will not favor any program that radically shows that any previous inappropriate motivations.

At this point, it is too important for the government to show that the fault with the programs is in those who were receiving them rather than in the providers. This is why when you see the support of government officials for more training in public programs you will see how that training provides more control rather than more motivation and empowerment for a broader group of people.

If it were just a matter of people not doing enough to alter the systems that are already in place you would already see a majority of people benefiting from them. If the majority of people aren't benefiting (which is now the case) you can expect that the public who is being served are those within the minority who have the most influence on public policies and laws.

If a policy or program is introduced to make the system better and doesn't demand a radical change in the attitude that created the faulty system in the first place, you can expect that the goal is to hang on to the old system in a way that the unsuspecting public still views what's happening as improvement.

The Focus on Behavior

Whatever the difficulties of children were in the 1980s and 90s, the biggest claim was that many had Attention Deficit Disorder and needed medicine to calm them down along with better methods of restraint.

Teachers discussed how it would be better (even when some didn't have the disorder),to have more kids in their classrooms taking a chemical restraint like Ritalin. Some schools had one or more physicians that they routinely recommended parents to for the drugs and the school kept in close touch with those physicians.

The common view was that mothers were taking bad medications during their pregnancy and/or that the children's diet was filled with too much sugar and that this was the cause for the disorder..

This certainly was part of how the US school systems gained more authority to treat behavior problems based on the public's understanding of how many and how severe the behavior problems in school really were.

Today more than ever young children are prescribed strong psychiatric medicine. This is due to the growing belief that more children's behavior must be restrained. The medicine is just one way they are attempting to do that. This report states : the life expectancy of those treated in community mental health centers has plunged to an appalling 25 years less than average.

This is just one of the physical aspects of how restraint is abused by professionals who are given a license to do so. The emotional trauma this causes is often expressed in ways that are dismissed as not being connected to the abuse.

As more children are being diagnosed on the autism spectrum, and there are more bogus and negative claims about autistic behavior being taught to the public, some are asking the US government to make into law that the restraint that they claim is needed in the schools be made by teachers who are trained in "how" to restrain kids and how to modify kids behavior. They claim that once all teachers are trained in what is called statewide PBS more attention can be made to behavior problems which they claim is how behavior is made better.

These are the categories of people who will be treated by professional ABA/PBS restrainers(autistics will of course be part of the top category that may require the most severe type of restraint that comes with the assistance of police):

The US is known for how much of their population is warehoused.The  lack of training or rehabilitation that is offered to this warehoused population is a sign that behavior modification and behavior control is more of a priority than encouraging achievement.

There more bogus rumors of how people are violent who are supposedly diagnosed to have intellectual and psychological disorders for the sake of receiving aid.

With autistics, police are trained that they can determine a persons functioning level on sight and then treat that person with the "appropriate" amount of restraint. This is of course based on the claim that low functioning autistics are violent but don't know any better and high functioning autistics are violent but DO know better (or should be taught).

The US court system is set up so that lawyers can charge fees that only the very wealthy can afford. This makes it so that an autistic who is defined as violent (which is how we are all described) must have abundant resources to disprove public opinion. Bound by this type of legal system, we are guilty until proven innocent. (but of course "self" advocates are only allowed to have a limited interest or view of autism issues)

While plenty of money is supplied to the US military efforts that govern the behavior of people in other countries, the school system is governed based on the view that there are too few resources to fund those schools well enough so that the students can be controlled properly.

The quality of education continues to get worse and the type of behavior modification that governs the other public human warehouses is seen to be more of a priority in schools. Wikipedia says about the US school systems:In 2008, there was a 77% graduation rate from high school, below most developed countries.^[7] 

This report states:  On the new international math & science test series, the Associated Press reported "American high school 12th graders scored near the bottom of all nations - out performing only Cyprus and South Africa. A comparison of the high-school elite - those who took physics and advanced math - showed American tied for the bottom.

So where is the US focus on behavior leading?

This is the new report advocating for trained behaviorists to be demanded to be in all schools.

The report describes a situation where more people in schools are being violent these days. It claims that autistics (who are often seen to be part of a recent epidemic)  are typically violent. What they describe is a situation where more kids are needing to be restrained, and therefore, we need to put more trained restrainer/behavior modifiers/ABA specialist in the schools. Never mind that behavior modification doesn't seem to be doing more than making us a more restrained nation,they believe that this is what is needed for school children.

Autism's Highest Bidder

Neurodiversity as a concept and an ideal has always meant to me something that challenged the commercial/political designs that are objectifying a population of people and keeping those people and their family hostages to a school of thought that demeans their existence. The rational in-depth understanding of human nature as it relates to and is born from neurodiversity is a view that is challenged as much as it is coveted. Those who go along with selling humanity to the most current and fashionable method of objectifying who we are by the deficits that don't adhere to convention have a mind that is easily swayed and requires little convincing. It's more difficult to re orient a rational view.

The acceptance of diversity is what naturally sustains and promotes the human race but convenience rules the business world so that what is natural gets packaged in a way that it can best be sold. It's only when nature can be commercialized that the mainstream whose lives adhere to commercialism can see it as valuable.

In a world where commerce rules, we believe such things as we need to bleach flour and add preservatives to our food so that people can afford to eat. At the same time, a government that finds more immediate profit from a factory that preserves and stretches food are less inclined to provide incentives for farmers who grow the food.

What journalists are allowed to print has more to do with what advertisers support than what the public needs to know. In the same way, a commercial program that gains a monopoly over school systems will eventually not adhere to public standards or government standards. Instead they will create their own.

In psychology, the majorities' brand of choice was not decided by the public's needs or desires. Instead that brand was first introduced within the public systems such as schools and "re"habilitation for the nonconformists. The reason that quicker and more convenient types of psychological profiling that can be used to "reform" a larger public is widely accepted is because it was first introduced as a public normalizer.

Of course neurodiversity advocates are not against therapy. However, the real acceptance of diversity would naturally take a close critical look at what the broader goal might be for all therapies that relate to mental health and behavior. Overcrowded and under funded schools, lack of moral guidance in the home, and a society less concerned about ethics ha not been the main sources that have created worse behavioral problems in schools any more than such things are the main cause of misbehaving adults. Instead the main source is the broader societal claim that societal ills are caused by individual choices, which must be discouraged by controlling therapies and broadly accepted (even mandated) therapeutic programs.

The commercial product known as Behaviorism (ABA, PBS, etc.) has taught people what they supposedly need. Behavior doesn't need to be changed so that academics have an opportunity. With enough true academic opportunity there won't be time or need to misbehave and therefore, no need for fixing a perceived problem. Any public program without ample opportunities is involved in this cycle of an inappropriate focus on behavior. It's not a coincidence that most people in the United States (the country with the highest rate of human warehousing) has always had more than enough money to educate and employ its citizens and yet most are denied this opportunity.

The claim that we have an epidemic of autistic or any other design of maladjusted people we consider aliens entering our society can and ultimately will be easily disputed and as a result society will eventually assume its rightful role in making the necessary adjustments to include this diverse population. However, the real threat to neurodiversity is the claim that these diverse groups are misbehaving and need a structured program to "save" them from punishment.

Forced normalization is what truly contradicts diversity rather than bogus claims about unnatural ways that people got that way and why research is needed to find out how to prevent diversity from occurring .People without opportunities are prone to misbehave, just as people who are not providing opportunities are more interested in controlling behavior (which is the door to warehousing) then they are of creating opportunities. The answer to providing opportunities for people who are considered disabled will come by understanding more about who they are and creating pathways for them to grow and prosper. All that labeling, diagnosing, and treating behavior has ever done is lead to worse stereotypes, institutionalization, and more opportunity for abusers who are protected by their authority.