Nut grafs or otherwise relevant excerpts from entries which appeared last year at this time.
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2009/2010
By now I had started to get a truly eerie feeling, as if I had somehow found myself in one of those old stories where the changeling fairy-children, all unknowing, were suddenly called home from the drudgery of their ordinary human lives to the magical castles where they had been born. I knew exactly what was being described, but how could we all have had the same experiences?
A path, I typed, leading somewhere wonderful.
Needless to say, after this conversation, none of us actually vanished away to castles in the sky; and the forum eventually shut down, ending up as just another casualty in the virtual graveyard of cyberspace. Its former members all went in different directions, some of them writing activist blogs while others chose to spend less time on the Internet.
There are still moments, though, when I feel the deep connection to life’s enduring rhythms. And I know that the world holds many more like me, a widely scattered tribe becoming self-aware, forging stronger bonds of community and vibrant cultural traditions as our shared quest continues—to find the path home.
• Autism: Canary in the Coal Mine
The idea is not to make the autistic child normal. We can seek to make it possible for the autistic child to become what they are naturally inclined to be. The evolutionary theory that this website often discusses has its foundation in an understanding that the autistic are emerging in a society behaving in deeply inappropriate ways for autistic health. Our society is changing. It is my belief that it is changing in the direction of becoming a healthier environment for the autistic and neurotypicals. Still, it is necessary to understand the context of autism, the ways that humans have evolved, to understand the ways the world would best nourish the autistic. Neurotypicals may profit handsomely from these insights. Understanding health for an autistic child is to understand foundations for human health.
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There is a canary in this coal mine, a signal to society as we navigate the passageways of society’s Great Recession and the toppling of our hierarchical conventions. That singing bird is our autistic. Understanding autism, we understand ourselves. Not only are we notified of dangerous paths by those environments deleterious to our autistic, but maybe we can allow ourselves to be guided forward by what we learn about ourselves learning about our autistic.
As Baron-Cohen noted, autism is not a cancer. Autism is not a disease. Autism is quite possibly an integral part of human illumination. Understanding our origins, we understand ourselves. In autism is an understanding of how we came to be.
In terms of a public face or image which serves to hide autism’s true nature then, one need look no further than the world’s worst public relations firm, the well-funded autism “advocacy” organization Autism Speaks, which this past year managed to roll up every negative stereotype about autism into one ad campaign based on a public service video spot titled I Am Autism. While depicting autism itself as a capable, sinister force intent on the destruction of families, the campaign managed to portray autistic people as helpless, ineffectual objects, wholly incapable of any discernible positive effect on the world. On the other hand, from the Bilderberg Group to Abraham Vereide’s evangelical mafia “Family”, no secret organization could wish for better public relations cover to throw investigators off the scent of their true capabilities.
Mark Stairwalt on 12/27/10 in Art/Play/Myth, featured | No Comments | Read More
