It turns out that last Friday’s post on Dan Haggard’s in-depth movie review The Social Network, the End of Intimacy, and the Birth of Hacker Sensibility went up one day shy of a year since I wrote about asking the question “What can we be doing here [at Shift] that isn’t already being done well elsewhere?” I emailed Dan last Friday as well, just to say hello and give him a heads-up about having linked to him, and it took us only a couple quick exchanges before he offered up the sharpest, most far-sighted answer to that question I think we’ve seen in the intervening year. As an update on where Shift Journal is at, where it may be headed, and why it may matter, I’d like to share one relevant section of our conversation.
Obviously, I’m speaking first and perhaps only for myself here, but in the interest of transparency and candidness here is one excerpt from an exchange which neither party anticipated being made public at the time of writing:
That said, the ideas that drive me to be involved here are that there is a huge undercurrent of autism in modern society, that there is no meaningful dividing line between diagnosed autistics and the rest of us, that autism is such a significant part of who we are as a society and as a species that we would not recognize ourselves without it — and that all of this is hidden in plain sight, visible only for those who have eyes to see.
The trick then, the ongoing challenge, is to make this apparent to others. The lot of the explainer is not an easy lot — so when someone like you takes such care to explain and make apparent one of those hidden aspects of the big picture, and to take stock of the stakes and declare what they are, you’ll have all the support I can give you.
Or, at this point actually I think what we are doing is simply building community among those who feel what you were writing about, but are unable to articulate it. We’re not really at the point yet of triggering epiphanies so much as validating the perceptions of those who are hearing from every other corner of the world that their experience of intimacy is invalid. So that’s a very powerful thing in and of itself, that validation. Baby steps, but if the big picture is as I outlined above, there’s a staggering potential for momentum on down the line — whether you and I are still around to witness it or not. And in this lifetime for certain, there is the challenge of [as Dan had put it in his review –ed.] an “ever encroaching, fascistic, corporate reality.” No need to sell me on that, as I live in Wisconsin, currently ground zero for American fascism.
And (with his permission) Dan’s reply:
Well that’s all quite interesting isn’t it? I think if you guys keep talking to each other and developing your voice then eventually you won’t have to worry much about marketing that message to the world because people will come crowding in to partake in it. In a sense, you could think of yourselves as a counter culture – in much the way African American culture of the 80-90s or even the Beats in the 50s. What made those cultures so successful and influential is that they were so deeply invested in their own stories and developed extraordinary skills in expressing them. Their perspectives fell way beyond the mainstream of their respective times – but they managed to change things enormously. Just keep writing, thinking and talking to one another about what this whole crazy life-thing is all about for you guys – and eventually a few of you will figure out how to nail what it is that needs to be said. People won’t be able to help but listen – because it’ll blow their minds.
My two-part post from a year ago might be boiled down to just that: a suggestion that it is time for us to talk to each other, to develop our voices, invest deeply in our own stories, and develop extraordinary skills in expressing them. My own “blown” mind came about a dozen years ago with the aid of a woman who while a gifted writer managed to nudge me to epiphany almost entirely by nonverbal means. I’ve been grasping for the words to make this new, much larger world apparent to others ever since.
That the stakes are high, that social conditions not just for diagnosed autistics but for many others might differ enormously depending on how well we manage to tell our stories is a sense that Dan, along with at least a few of Shift’s readers and contributors, seems to share. He approaches these stakes mostly in terms of interpersonal relationships – intimacy – but he does so in good part through the lens of George Orwell’s 1984 which itself viewed fascism through the lens of one particular relationship, one targeted for destruction by a government that well knew it could not afford to tolerate authentic connections. No accident that what is generally and correctly taken to be a political novel is also and actually the story of Winston and Julia, and as Dan says, “one of the most most important essays on intimacy, signalling and authenticity that we have.” In 1984 we at least find those other notable soul-mates, Personal and Political, still together.
Both in my mind then and in the mind of Andrew Lehman – who chose Politics as one of the organizing categories for posts on this site – autism, social structure, and its attendant political expressions are inseparably entwined. Their relationship is a substantial part of what I was referring to above when I asserted that we would not recognize ourselves as a society without the influence of autism – as in fact many are now declaring themselves unable to recognize Wisconsin.
No reader or contributor at Shift is required to sign on to – or even be aware of – Andrew Lehman’s theories regarding the interplay of hormonal influences in the womb, women’s freedom (or the lack of it) to choose whose babies they will bear, and the sorts of long-term social structures that come about as a result of these factors. And in fact my own epiphany came a decade before I made Andrew’s acquaintance, and would remain intact even were the particulars of his work proved conclusively wanting. Particulars aside and at the very least though, his general approach provides a template that de-literalizes and extends the idea of “autistic” in a way that not only makes it much more accessible and familiar to those who hold stereotypical views – including our own stereotypical views. It also renders plausible some surprisingly far-reaching possibilities about the effects of autism on society which otherwise seem unintuitive, nonsensical, or incomprehensible.
As we keep an eye out for our emerging Orwells, Ginsbergs, and Chuck D’s, all while struggling to emulate their accomplishments, I hope we will avoid the kind of blinkered, literalistic thinking exploited by climate-change deniers who delight in seeing any contrary run of data such as an extended cold snap – or the fact of winter itself – celebrated as a refutation of a larger picture. Both the particulars and the generalizations even we can offer about autism as we know it may not map well onto autism as it actually extends into the world.
While all we can do is tell our own stories as vividly as we can, when we are successful I think what we will see is a shower of sparks, a frisson-shower of connections being made all over between what we all thought autism was, and what it really may be.
[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]
Mark Stairwalt on 03/18/11 in featured, Politics | 3 Comments | Read More
Comments (3)
I think the counter-culture of which you speak has been emerging and continues to emerge. However, one of the key components to that culture is the arts itself. Novels, short stories, poetry, painting, sculptures, photographs, movies, songs and the like. The essence of any counter-culture is not simply in the people, but carried on through the artistic works wrung from those people.
One difference I see-and I’m not sure how accurate this is of past counter-cultures or the current autistic culture-is that many counter-cultures created their arts for themselves, the audience was insular, whereas much of the work I’ve seen has been an attempt to reach out to the culture at large, to communicate with those external to that culture.
In that sense, I’m not sure counter-culture is what we’re working towards or even what we should be working towards. After all, part of being a counter-culture is accepting, to a degree, that you are unwelcome in the mainstream culture. Embracing that and even flaunting it.
It seems acceptance is a much bigger goal for the autistic cohort. The message is less “We’ll be ourself no matter what” and more “We’re here too and you need to see that.”
I think it all depends on your frame of reference and where you see yourself and choose to speak from — along with how much freedom you have to move between different frames of reference. In and from a more encompassing frame, you’re right about what we’re working towards — but it’s not as if I’m talking about a wholesale autistic separatist movement. There’s room for paradox here as well.
If one counts the larger portion of the cohort that isn’t aware of any connection to autism, this is a group which accomplishes and contributes more before breakfast than most any other minority group in history — we’ve already proven we’ll be ourselves no matter what, and we’ve not only reached out to those external to the culture, often enough we have invented new ways for everyone to communicate in the process.
On the other hand, from the perspective of a smaller, intensely self-aware subculture such as Dan seems to be referring to, that business of “no matter what” comes at considerable cost, and the awareness, among other things, that payment due exceeds accounts received creates a sort of insular container in which cultural alchemy can happen, of the sort that happened in the examples Dan offered.
Once that contents of that container are properly cooked, unstoppered, and loosed upon the world, the larger culture receives a twist it wouldn’t have otherwise, and the situation of the entire cohort is altered even without most having directly participated. So, some of us perhaps “should” be working towards a counter-culture, but it’s not as if it need be a unified effort, as others “should” indeed be emphasizing commonalities with the larger culture — those are bridges by which the container’s contents may travel once they’re released. Like I say, plenty of paradox, lots of cross-currents, no one true way — and room for everybody.
To paraphrase Uncle Walt, “Do we contradict ourselves? Very well then we contradict ourselves.”
Curious though, because it seems you have specific examples in mind — who do you have in mind as cohort artists who attempt to reach out to the culture at large?
My disorganized response:
“Curious though, because it seems you have specific examples in mind — who do you have in mind as cohort artists who attempt to reach out to the culture at large?”
Many books have been written and published (Rachel & DJ Kirby are examples), Estee Klar has helped autistic painters and other visual artists show their work collectively and those artists have also shown their work individually, Michael Moon does both photographs and music, some people (not sure on names) have posted songs written and performed by autistic artists up on YouTube. And, though I’m still at the beginning of my career, autism has a significant impact on my fiction and nonfiction, both in relation to my children and, in the non-diagnostic sense, in relation to myself and how I see and experience things differently.
There is a lot of art by and about autism that targets the mainstream audience. And while advocacy is a part of some it, like any artwork it’s also about sharing experience and self with the audience apart from any other goal.
“If one counts the larger portion of the cohort that isn’t aware of any connection to autism, this is a group which accomplishes and contributes more before breakfast than most any other minority group in history — we’ve already proven we’ll be ourselves no matter what, and we’ve not only reached out to those external to the culture, often enough we have invented new ways for everyone to communicate in the process.”
I’m not sure you can prove yourself and be unaware of yourself at the same time. The larger autistic cohort that is unaware of its proximity to the autism spectrum as-publicly-recognized does not have to deal with the stigma of autism (though they do have to deal with other challenges), which gives them something of an advantage when it comes to dealing with the world on their own terms. For example, in many ways I “passed” better when I didn’t know I was passing; but I also expended a great deal of unnecessary energy doing so. Now I am more successful, but also more obviously quirky. Self-awareness is, in my opinion, a big, big factor in the success of a larger autistic cohort.
“On the other hand, from the perspective of a smaller, intensely self-aware subculture such as Dan seems to be referring to, that business of “no matter what” comes at considerable cost…”
I guess the difference I was seeing was more that, for many counter-cultures, it’s a matter of choice. Hippie culture, the Beats and various phases of luddites are the ones that come to mind (because they are the ones I studied in school) and one thing they all had in common was that the participants chose to participate; whereas self-aware autistics are on “the outside” of the mainstream culture by necessity. Even people like me, who aren’t diagnosably autistic, are left on the outskirts through no choice of my own. My choice is to embrace who I am and who my children are and to be proud of that or resign myself to the pity and contempt of all those “normal” people who are so much better than me. (To clarify, I’m not agreeing that normal people are better, but that seems to be a pretty solid belief among those who think that autism is just wrong, whether they are professionals, lay people, parents or autistics).
Even regarding my arts, it’s not that I intentionally go out to make something different, something that is “autistic-like”; that I do is just a reflection of who I am and what I know and experience.
“Once that contents of that container are properly cooked, unstoppered, and loosed upon the world, the larger culture receives a twist it wouldn’t have otherwise, and the situation of the entire cohort is altered even without most having directly participated.”
And I guess that’s my point. Traditionally with a counter-culture, that’s how it works. The counter culture works within its own confines, and then that contents is released into the mainstream (usually at the expense of some people within the counter-culture accusing those who succedd in the eyes of the mainstream as having “sold out”). Whereas, I don’t expect the autism cohort, either the un-self-aware portion or the “intensely self-aware subculture” to wait. I think, between the differences of lacking self-awareness and needing acceptance and the technological/communication changes of contemporary times, the influence we exert on the mainstream culture is going to happen “in real time.”
I agree that it is a paradox, but I still think it’s less about counter-culture and more about the un-self-aware and the self-aware converging at some future point while both impact the mainstream in real time. And, hey, maybe this is the new wave of counter-culture. I don’t know. My sociology/anthropology is quite limited.