Diagnosing the “mental health” of political opponents is dangerous and a form of intellectual bullying. It is name calling under the guise of “research.” Across the political spectrum and throughout history this has been done to those with whom cultural elites or the party in power have disagreements. Scholars on the left and right, the statists and the individualists, have cautioned against — and yet it continues and is possibly more popular than at any other time in my life.
Book after book claims to explain the neurology or psychology of broad groups of people. Supposedly, this is to “better understand” the group being “studied” (quotes intended for sarcastic, sardonic irony). People buy these books and listen to these scholars, apparently forgetting the warnings against the political use of psychology and genetic fallacies.
Autism does not make someone anything except autistic.
We are abusing psychology in popular culture and within academia. If this trend of popularizing mass diagnoses of political groups doesn’t stop, there were will calls to “cure” opponents of their mental health issues. That might seem like yet another fallacy, but it has happened historically. Mental health clinics were abused by the Soviet Unions, East Germany, China, Cuba… and also by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
It’s simply too convenient and easy to assume someone with whom we disagree must have a deep, serious flaw.
Duke University historian Nancy MacLean is currently a trendy historian who spent 2017 touring and promoting her book Democracy in Chains. The book has some serious scholarship flaws, which have been addressed by Henry Farrell and Steven Teles on Vox, a website considered progressive on most issues.
MacLean has made the stunning and insulting claim that autism and libertarianism are connected. That’s right. She believes that libertarianism, which she has described as heartless, self-centered, and lacking empathy, has a higher occurrence within the autism community. As evidence, she points to several self-disclosed autistics within economics, philosophy, and other fields who have favorably commented on classical liberalism and libertarianism.
Merely because some autistics who happen to be scholars are either less critical of or predisposed to classical liberalism, MacLean commits the fallacious leap to associate autism with a political and philosophical set of ideologies.
Video of her claiming this has been posted to YouTube. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18EvqPgn98Q)
I first shared this story on social media February 13, 2018, but then other horrific events overshadowed this story. It simply wasn’t the right time to be writing about anti-autistic stereotypes and academic bullies disguised as social justice crusaders.
Though only anecdotal evidence, most of the autism self-advocates I know in education at all levels, working within the media, and (definitely) in social services are “progressives” — not even left-of-center. They are overwhelmingly self-proclaimed democratic socialists or socialists and a handful of Marxists who dream of utopia.
Unfortunately, the same ideological demographics describe the most vicious bullies I have encountered, especially in higher education.
For some reason, the colleagues most eager to proclaim their social justice, John Rawls and Peter Singer values are also the most vocal when my own physical and neurological needs have been disclosed.
From being called a “gimp” to a colleague stating “We don’t need no stinking autistics here” during a faculty meeting, my experiences have not been inviting, welcoming, tolerant, or in any other many open-minded and accepting of my differences.
As I stated earlier in this post, I already distrusted MacLean because there are flaws in her book raising questions about her scholarship and genuine dedication to verifiable truth. She selectively edited quotes, created “likely” conversations between people, and made outright erroneous claims. Now, with her claims about autism and libertarians, she has revealed the depth of biases on a topic she claimed to research fairly.
For more on the scholarship problems with the research see Democracy in Chains and Inter-Disciplinary Problems from August 5, 2017, on Almost Classical.