Many thanks to Occupy Schagen --Sander--for his personal messages on autism research. Some of it I was familiar with; some not -- and it led a a whole new understanding. Occupy Schagen has a deservedly large following on X or Twitter And does a lot for the very diverse "ASD" community with great posts on political and social issues. Please follow him on Twitter and support him.
Is evil a disorder?
Putin is evil – Satan incarnate.
Otherwise, how could he survive cancer more than almost any man in history? Yet look pretty good? Are there good plastic surgeons in Hell?
So it is that a recurring theme in the Western media is that Vladimir Putin is sick – morally, of course – and physically and mentally.
Psychologically, Putin has been called a psychopath, sociopath, malignant narcissist, and obsessive-compulsive – maybe a few other nasty things. Pop psychologists go to great lengths to explain how his background, which they know nothing about, twisted his behavior, which they appear to know even less about.
Professional psychologists —who are just pop psychologists with certificates— do the same. The consensus is “deviant”.
The Pentagon calls Putin “autistic”
One of the more interesting assertions has been that Putin is on the autism spectrum.
That comes from a 2008 study done by the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), an internal Pentagon think tank that helps create long-term military strategy.
The Russians responded appropriately “That is stupidity not worthy of comment,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Gazeta.ru.
In the US, media and the Pentagon later disowned the study.
The US, you see, didn’t want to give Putin any excuses. There can be no redemption for Vlad’.
The Americans did the same with Julian Assange when he was diagnosed with autism. No, no…. he is just too competent to be autistic.
Being “woke” means somehow accepting people with autism for doing stuff you don’t quite agree with, as long as they look odd enough like Greta or the Good Doctor and complement —rather than threaten Power.
But in the political world, there can be no forgiveness for uncute people on the other side of the fence.
That aside, one can certainly understand why Putin himself would not want to be labeled “autistic” back in 2008, or even later in 2015—much less today. In Russia, autism was/is understood as it was when I was a kid – severely disabling motor and cognitive problems.
But America is Woke —is faux tolerance. Even in the US and Canada today a diagnosis of autism of any kind is still a discriminatory stereotype.
For example, it disqualifies you for service with the US and Canadian militaries, despite the fact that many high functioning autists have served honorably and well, including Canada's highest scoring fighter pilot, Buzz Beurling, and the top US military strategist of all time. Col. John Boyd. They served because in their day there was no such thing as"high functioning" autists.
That raises questions. Is ASD is a disorder of the mind— or really a disorder of psychological and psychiatric pretensions? Are autistic people sick— or is it our society?
In 2015, I knew that I was autistic, but I have only “come out” in the last year or two-- largely because of the stigma attached to this categorization.
Now that I’m older – it doesn’t matter that much. A lot better than dementia. People just say", He's old". As though that explained everything.
Autism is just a word
Nobody really knows what autism is. It is just a word for something most people don't understand.
Yet everyone pretends they know what it means, perpetuating not just ignorance, but mythology.
The American Psychiatric Association continually updates its Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders to include more and more formerly ordinary behaviors.
Yes, there is a disorder for everyone . Remember your friend Johnny in the Third Grade that Miss Clark hated — today, he would be labeled ODD — Oppositional Defiant Disorder /ADHD. Lots of drugs for that.
The irony is that while psychiatry and psychology sometimes use scientific methods-- they are not actually “sciences” in the same sense as biology or chemistry—which is why the Behaviorists limited themselves to only studying what they could test –in other words, mostly white rats.
On the other hand, DSMs tend to express mainstream attitudes towards moral and social attitudes. Now it is the white rats studying people.
So, masturbation was a once disorder in DSM, along with most “deviant” sexual practices, including oral sex up until the 60s,
In the 60s I had Asperger’s and was definitely a pervert—not that I could find a girl to help me out. Today I am a pervert no longer — although I still don’t have a girl to help me. Thank you Bill Clinton. But no thank you.
I don’t have Asperger’s— because it doesn’t exist anymore.
DSM has purged Asperger’s. Times change.
Yet being "on the spectrum" still means mentally disabled .
Do a little research and you will find confusion. It’s a bit like mRNA, another of those words bandied about when most people don’t know what they refer to including the “experts”.
In the case of ASD, 90% of studies, are done with “classic” autistic types, with obvious and identifiable physical behaviors and comorbidities.
But 90% of people on the spectrum are not classic types— it’s you and your mother-in-law. Maybe your dog too.
Where is my mental wheelchair? I want an electric one. With Wi-Fi. What? Most health insurance doesn’t cover ASD?
All that science can tell us is that there are people who are “neuro- atypical’. Yet, science cannot tell us what “neuro-atypical” is! It can also not tell us what Neuro-typical is.
Do you want to be typical?
As I’ve mentioned, I could not be diagnosed as autistic as a kid because I did not exhibit serious impediments in movement, motor function, speech, and emotional control. I had trouble reading. And simple arithmetic. Making friend was difficult. I was clumsy. I often talked to myself and had trouble with social conversation. I also had a lot of “special interests”, almost obsessive— including animals.
That was the 50s. I was just considered “different”.
But isn’t every kid “different”? Even today. Lots of kids have difficulty fitting in, for different reasons. Are you “typical”. Do you want to be “typical”? Why are you spending all that money on your kids’ education?
It seems that in the 21st century you can be “different” only if you have the appropriate designated box, with walls and a top and the flashy label to provide a “safe” Social Place. Has to be the right color too. And everybody in that box has to be the same.
It is what you might call “subtle segregation”—a kind of covert apartheid.
The trouble with people on the spectrum, however, is that they are hard to categorize.
That’s what the “a” in atypical means.
How many million separate boxes are needed?
Or maybe atypical is typical.
The real (unreal) meaning of autism
Autism equals neuroatypical equals neurodivergence.
It psychological multipolarity.
Yes, that can mean disability —or giftedness —which is qualified by disability --always.
Einstein couldn’t spell and was lousy at arithmetic.
In the 21st century, it is not easy to be truly different. It wasn’t in the 20th century either when I was growing up.
School was a challenge, and I was frustrated and lonely.
But I was studying quantum physics at 14. I received 33 awards and prizes in college, including a Fulbright. I was accepted at Harvard and Stanford. But that wasn’t really what I needed or wanted.
Then again, isn't being a Harvard dropout a Badge of Honor?
I found myself on a different path and ended up in Asia during the Vietnam war— doing a whole lot of things I could never have done in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That’s why I’m in Japan. Here I’m a Gaijin—not just a foreigner— but an outsider, which means an outlier —culturally and in all ways. My role and function in this society is to be different, to provide an out-of-the-box perspective. And I’m valued for that.
Who is autistic?
Most of my family is “on the spectrum” also. Some are very gifted and include writers, artists, politicians and a couple of Supreme Court judges. Others just fall into the category of ordinary people— but each one is different from all the others —just like your family.
No two “normal” people are the same—if only because “normal” is a statistical concept, an abstraction, irrelevant to the experience of any authentic and unique individual.
Normalcy is a form of programming—and who wants to be a robot?
Let us consider some examples of “autistic” people….
Albert Einstein
Isaac Newton
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Vincent Van Gogh
Alfred Hitchcock,
Charles Schulz,
Thomas Edison,
Mark Twain,
Bill Gates
John Boyd
Buzz Beurling
Guy Gibson
Abraham Lincoln
James Taylor
Adam Young
Craig Nicholls
Charles Darwin
Nicola Tesla
Steven Spielberg
Tim Burton
Dan Akroyd
Keanu Reeves
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lewis Carroll
Stanley Kubrick
Glen Gould,
Michelangelo
Darryl Hannah
David Cavendish,
Emily Dickenson
Henry Ford
Bob Dylan
Bejamin Franklim
Leonardo Da Vinci
Richard Bransom
Stephen Hawking
Tom Cruise
Elon Musk
Steve Jobs
Mark Zuckerberg
Robin Williams
Julian Assange
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Thomas Jefferson
That’s a short list! I am sure you can think of lots of others.
Of course, there is disagreement among the “experts” about who should be on this list—or should not be—but rest assured they are all neurodivergent.
What do these people have in common in personality? Nothing much. Although most are polymaths and autodidacts, they are all individuals.
What they have in common is giftedness.
Especially the ability to see things that others cannot, and to make connections that others miss.
This is not a result of high IQ. Einstein and Hawking had IQs in the 160 range— not really that high. IQ tests do not measure creative intelligence. No standardized test can recognize originality.
The giftedness that all these different people demonstrate eally comes down to multi-perspective perception, self-generated principles and the intelligence to use those things.
Note: also most of these people are polymaths and autodidacts.
Also, as mentioned, that their abilities come with certain inabilities and issues – although these vary from person to person, expressed situationally.
While not all gifted people are neurodivergent— and most neurodivergent people are probably not gifted to this extent (I am definitely not on the list), the vast majority of people who we regarded as” geniuses” in one field or another fall into this open category of excellence—the one which we have misnamed “Autism Disorder”.
Giftedness: The genius of Vladimir Putin
Putin demonstrates giftedness, a.k.a. creativity, a.k.a. genius.
If he is autistic, it is not a disorder.
Yet another word for creativity is originality. Simply put, gifted autists are all “originals” —each is the first of his or her kind— and the last.
In Putin’s case “autistic” and “Asperger’s” which the media misuse as discriminatory and demeaning labels for him—along with Thug, Murderer, Dictator, Monster, ad nauseum. Sticks and stones…
Putin rises above it all—he has singlehandedly created a new and much better Russia.
Multipolarity— and multifaceted— are related concepts. Putin is a statesman, a lawyer, an economist, an historian, a family man who also forms strong friendships— lifelong bonds—not to mention, an athlete, a spiritual person, and the guy who cries at weddings and funerals, and gets along well with children and animals. He resists a single definition. As Walt Whitman would have it, he “contains multitudes”.
This man is constantly studying and learning – with the multidimensional creative intelligence which realizes creative political and social solutions. His intelligence is not binary— not "either / or". Instead, Putin Is a quantum thinker.
His mind does not work with bits— but with Qubits. And so he is always one step ahead.
The Russian people trust him because they think he’s honest and has integrity. Do the American people trust any American politician in that way?
What’s not to like?
Oh, I forgot – he’s the —Devil.
Christ or Antichrist, he is working to create a new and much better, multipolar world – a better future for all of us.
AND….unlike Biden’s dogs, his don’t bite people.
!
Notes from Japan
This week I took the ashes of 15 rescue cats to Japan’s only Buddhist temple dedicated to animals. The priest chanted the Sutra and consecrated their remains as part of my family, which they were/are.
This temple was created in the 19th century by a Buddhist priest whose best friend, his dog, had died. Such a temple was of course not accepted by his school of Buddhism since animals, for them, are lower in their Chain of Being. However, the priest believed that all life must be revered. And so the temple was born and exists today.
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
Anatole France
If you liked this article, please buy me and my boy cats Jet and Ichi, a coffee. You can click here or on the photo below. This is one of those rescue cats, Chibi, who lived to be 16.
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Sander has written about "sensimotor" spaces. According to Piaget, the "sensimotor" state is the first stage of cognitive development after birth-- with several stages, the first being reflexes, the first of which is the beat reflex--and pitch reflex which are basic not just to music but to pattern recognition and language. Sander (I think correctly) distinguishes between 3D and 2D perception-- which is to say, somatic perception as opposed to abstract / symbolic perception. People with ASD tend to be visual. They understand and use words visually. For example.
I haven't seen is article, but I had already analyzed Putin's Valdai speech and was preparing to post. It is a very important speech. Also indicative of some of the concepts that you and I have been talking about.