Neurodiversity and social change
your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful
The thing about not-being-a-person is: They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all. They will have no idea who they are talking to. You yourself will start to forget, too. They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them. You will do math, constantly. How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this project to succeed? How much honesty can I afford? How much dishonesty will kill me? What is the cost of coming out? Is there a way to delay, soften, transmute? How long can I survive as half a person? Ever since the world ended ... I don't go out as much. People that I once befriended, just don't bother to stay in touch. Things that used to seem so splendid, don't really matter today. It's just as well the world ended -- it wasn't working anyway. Your dreams will be reduced down to breathing. [Read More]
Julia Bascom on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More
Those of us who have raised children know what often happens after pointing out muddy footprints on the floor, dishes left on the table from an afternoon snack, or some other dereliction of duty. Wi...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 02/2/11 | 5 Comments | Read More
Once upon a time—in the far distant past, or perhaps in a future yet to come—a herd of mountain goats dwelt atop a high plain. Steep jagged cliffs fell away from this isolated mesa on all sides...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 01/26/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
In response to my post last week about setting the stage for positive changes to happen, Stephanie accurately pointed out that it’s not just a matter of rearranging the environment and waiting to fe...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 01/19/11 | 1 Comment | Read More
I had a dream recently in which I wanted to open a locker but couldn’t remember the combination. When I mentioned this dream to Mark Stairwalt, he suggested that the locker might be a subconscious...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 01/12/11 | 6 Comments | Read More
Over the holidays, I spent some time reading a popular book that I got as a Christmas gift: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s about the author’s experiences of spiritual growth and self...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 01/5/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
I got an email from President Obama on Saturday; it was one of the periodic updates he sends out to his mailing list of campaign supporters. In announcing the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell pol...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 12/22/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
Fargo, North Dakota, August 2163 Like many people these days, Callie Forsyth was a telecommuter. She went to work by means of a virtual reality interface, its precise connections to her brain mak...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 12/15/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
Although we tend to think of ourselves as separate individuals, all that we encounter while going through our lives becomes part of who we are, a process vividly set forth in Rachel Turiel's article ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 12/8/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
As I've often noted, humans are a storytelling species. We grow and evolve as a society by developing new cultural narratives to explain our surroundings and the events of our lives. As we gain mo...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 12/1/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
My mother-in-law, who grew up in the rural American South in the wake of the Great Depression, has a lot of interesting expressions that she uses in conversation. For instance, if someone tells her ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 11/24/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
It's not uncommon for autistics to talk out loud about things that come to mind. There are different situations in which this might happen. Sometimes it's just a matter of echoing written input, s...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 11/17/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
Although blogs have become very popular in the past few years, most blogs currently online are no longer active. Sometimes that's because a person starts a blog and then gets too busy to keep it goi...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 11/10/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
How did people go about raising children in prehistoric times? Researchers considering this question have extrapolated from their studies of currently existing aboriginal cultures, identifying com...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 11/3/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
My original plan for this post was to spend Monday evening reflecting on how today's social and physical environment can be stressful for our kids and writing a thoughtful article on that subject. H...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 10/27/10 | 6 Comments | Read More
In her article Grieving the Dream and Living What Is, Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg described her feelings about realizing that there are some things she cannot do because of auditory processing issues and...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 10/20/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
Identity Politics and Neurodiversity
We've had some discussion here on Shift Journal recently about the extent to which characters and behaviors should be described as autistic. Mark Stairwalt speculates that when people feel uncomfort...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 10/13/10 | 10 Comments | Read More
The Paradox of Changing the World with Words
Words and how we use them to relate to the world can be, as Andrew Lehman discussed in a post last year, somewhat paradoxical. Although we use words to describe and frame our relationship to our sur...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 10/6/10 | 5 Comments | Read More
If I may be forgiven a bit of motherly bragging, I'm quite proud of the mature way my daughter handled a recent social situation. As I mentioned in a previous post, she is a college freshman still a...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 09/29/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
The cypress trees of Louisiana's bayous (to continue Shift Journal's venerable landscape metaphor tradition) are very well adapted to their natural habitat. They can get along just fine with most of...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 09/22/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
Although the song "America the Beautiful" praises amber waves of grain, when I was a little girl I wasn't much impressed by that image and would have preferred a field of blooming thistles instead, wi...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 09/15/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
My daughter, the newly minted freshman, came home from college over Labor Day weekend. The first thing she did when she got back here Friday evening was to go out to the high school football game wi...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 09/8/10 | No Comments | Read More
Modern medical science, despite having some areas in which it could stand considerable improvement, is still quite amazing when contrasted with how little our ancestors knew about the workings of the ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 09/1/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
Wealth, Power, and the Future Thereof
Can American democracy survive what seems to be an alarming concentration of wealth and power? That's a question often asked nowadays, as statistics show that income inequality has become much more ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 08/25/10 | 1 Comment | Read More
Reporting from Satire City, USA, August 2110 Advocates of inclusive eating celebrated a success today when the President signed into law the Inclusion of Disordered Eaters Act, which will provide f...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 08/18/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
My daughter, who isn't likely to get the GMC Terrain she's been obsessing about because my husband has decided he wants to buy a Chevy Volt and save the planet, is now a college freshman. She moved ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 08/11/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
I have a potted plant in my dining room that mysteriously started losing its leaves sometime last year. As far as I know, it always had been watered regularly and given the proper amount of fertiliz...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 08/4/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
As we transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, those who find themselves out of work are disproportionately men. The historical male advantage of physical strength has become al...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 07/28/10 | No Comments | Read More
Autistic Imagination: Nothing Is Impossible
Research on creativity has shown that autistic children, when asked to draw a person or thing that could not exist, find it very difficult to do so. Creating more realistic images, however, does not...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 07/21/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
The vertical blinds that cover my kitchen's sliding glass door are closed against the glare to the east. On this clear July morning, the heat already has started to build. The air conditioner thru...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 07/14/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
Alexithymia, Autism, and the Many Pagan Deities in the Details
One trait commonly associated with autism in the research literature is alexithymia, which refers to difficulty expressing feelings in words. Although many people have had occasional experiences of ...[Read More]
Gwen McKay on 07/7/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
Autism has been here all along.
Considered as an evolutionary condition with far-reaching social implications, its full presence and impact remain hidden in plain sight, unrecognized and uncredited.
Part neurological mystery, part social construct, and part secret society unbeknownst even to its own members, autism does not lend itself to explanation by those who hold it apart from society, from themselves, or from consciousness itself. Definitions are revised, overhauled, and abandoned all while efforts to explore and examine this condition on its own terms are only now gaining momentum.
Shift Journal aims to showcase and encourage such efforts. Entertaining the notion of autistic as a legitimate way to be in the world, from the crossroads of theory, society, and personal experience, Shift welcomes relevant contributions from all comers.
Mark Stairwalt
Editor and Publisher
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Shift Journal founder Andrew Lehman's groundbreaking cross-disciplinary work Evolution, Autism, and Social Change draws from evolutionary biology, neuro-psychology and related fields to outline an evolutionary process complementary to natural selection that may explain some forms of autism as well as -- and perhaps more importantly -- long-term shifts in large-scale social structure. Download or purchase Evolution, Autism, and Social Change here.
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In a world which relentlessly demands practical advice for day-to-day, Shift Journal remains focused on promoting reflection and discovery. Readers however who are seeking useful information and how-to guidance assembled by a down-to-earth, conscientious and scientifically literate crew who once sought such information themselves and found it difficult to come by may find The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism to be just what they are looking for:
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New or established writers wishing to contribute original or previously published posts may use the submissions page or contact us directly.
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Autism and Empathy Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism Neurodivergent Sexuality Just Stimming Autistic Passing Project