1. Notes on autism: Medical terms can bleed into popular usage. About a decade ago, it was “OCD”. Merely tidying a bedroom would lead to a person to say, “I’m totally OCD.” This a joke, but one that conceals genuine anxiety.
7. There’s a great fear of not fitting in, and the “autist” is the figure who does not fit at all. Hence the democratic society medicalises the idiosyncratic. A person who is out of whack must be “autistic”. The non-pathological term, the eccentric, is not used.
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8. Equally, there is little room for the lonely genius—such as Nietzsche or Schopenhauer—who must be retrospectively diagnosed as “autists”. But having your own view or your own perspective is not the same as being overly literally or having little theory of mind.
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9. The cry “autist” is the cry of a democratic society where people hide anonymously online to be an individual and say what they cannot say among the mob. As their machines make them increasingly “autistic”, they still demand uniformity.
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10. Hence we look to the medical model. People “have issues”, “need to work on coping mechanisms (see: ‘cope’)”, are “autistic”, or are “mentally ill”. Character, individuality, spirit, and soul are eliminated in the dmeocratic society, which is only interested in efficiency.
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