Throughout history, humanity has proven to be a neurodiverse species, where brains work in different ways. This is not an accident, but can be a survival advantage. In difficult situations, people become more flexible when different ways of thinking and perspectives meet each other. Evolutionarily speaking, the diversity in how people's cognitive apparatus works has been an asset. The collective strength lies in the fact that no human brain can cover all aspects. But together, different brains form an ecosystem of functions in cooperation. Many who have created new solutions or are artists or writers have often had a brain that we would today give some form of diagnosis.
Psychic uniqueness can solve unexpected problems
The dawn of everything (2022) by David Graeber and David Wengrow highlights how many different cultures allow the psychically unique to live in their own way undisturbed when society functions as it should. But when a paradigm stops working and an unexpected crisis occurs, the psychically unique is consulted for new ways to explain and solve the world's challenges.
In crises and challenges, this diversity becomes even more significant. People with different neurodivergences can offer unique solutions and perspectives that can be critical to overcoming difficulties. Society, especially in times of crisis, can benefit from fostering an environment where different ways of thinking and acting are not only tolerated but encouraged. By embracing and leveraging neurodiversity, humanity can increase its ability to solve complex problems and create a sustainable future.
Philosopher Jonna Bornemark underlines the importance of recognizing neurodiversity and creating a society that includes different ways of thinking and experiencing. She points out that ADHD and autism are not diseases but a natural variation within the human species. Bornemark believes that the neurodiverse nature of humanity has been an evolutionary advantage.
Society should adapt to the individual
Bornemark emphasizes that it is problematic that society is primarily designed for neurotypicals and that people who do not fit in must seek support to adapt. She also criticizes how neuropsychiatric diagnoses are often seen as medical problems even though they are not diseases.
In the example of autism, Bornemark emphasizes that the problems do not lie with the autistic person, but with society's lack of adaptation. She points to the risks of placing variations in a medical context and how it can lead to autistics experiencing themselves as problems that need to be "fixed".
Bornemark also discusses the consequences of the forced self-awareness of people with neuropsychiatric diagnoses. She highlights difficulties at school and points out that many mothers of children with autism take sick leave due to exhaustion, mainly due to the struggle with society's institutions.
In conclusion, Bornemark calls for broadening society to include and cultivate special species instead of suppressing them. She emphasizes the importance of taking advantage of the wealth of the entire human species, especially in a time of uncertainty and crisis.
Further reading:
The neurotic clean-living society
Normal to not always have maximum happiness
Small changes in more equal societies good for longer, good lives
What is natural can be argued about. I'm well prepared to call so-called adhd a natural variation that doesn't have to be a problem in a non-industrialized society, but in some cases can be an advantage, there. But I probably set the limit at autism, which can be extremely troublesome both for the person suffering from it and for those around them.
Having worked at a disability organization, I have some experience. Autism is certainly an umbrella term for a lot of different symptoms, from what used to be called asperger's (which doesn't have to be a problem at all) to very serious disabilities that are due to underdeveloped nerve functions in the brain. But the common thing is the difficulty in communicating.
And since humans as a species build their strength on their ability to communicate, it inevitably becomes a problem if you are bad at just that.
But it is probably quite right that differences are a strength if you understand how to use them. As Peter Drucker, the guru of management theory, argued, it is differences that make an organization work better than individuals. By combining the various strong points, the weak ones can be rendered irrelevant. What one is bad at, the other can do. See his classic The effective executive, from the 60s. But that presupposes that you are good at at least something.
If it is neurotypical to be mainstream and positive, then very strong neurotypical traits can be to be totally mindless and without judgement. Then it also becomes a kind of functional impairment. Serious functional variations often become functional impairments, while lighter deviations in the case of a high general or in any case functioning talent can be a functional variation that adds something to society. Creativity lies in the borderland of psychosis. The neurotypicals can be so blind that they don't see what is right in front of their noses. ADHD gifted people may be better entrepreneurs, soldiers or sailors today. Autistics can be good at things that require precision. Help people in case of suffering, but if the suffering has ceased or suffering never existed, leave room for minor deviations. These can enrich.
Jan, I think it is a simplification to write that the "common thing is the difficulty to communicate", it is based on the neurotypicals' way of communicating. Autistic people can be so clear, it's just that a lot of death talk is gone. Can you say that Greta is bad at communicating? (even if she has some kind of adjacent diagnosis). You have different logics, but given the space, you can't generalize that autistics are bad at communication. Read, for example, Clara Törnvall's book Autists-women on the spectrum.
It seems a bit contradictory to say that someone is good at communicating but that others have difficulty understanding it. I have learned that it is always the sender's job to ensure that the message is received. And if the recipient does not perceive it, the sender is unclear. That is, bad at communicating.
I totally agree about adhd and aspergers. I set the limit at autism as it was defined in the past, before all communication difficulties began to be called the "autism spectrum". Autism is difficult to have, and it is difficult for those around you. If you have difficulty communicating, there is not much you can do because almost everything requires communication.
There are other disabilities that are also not so practical to have, e.g. blindness (which I know quite a bit about). There is still a lot you can do, but you never get rid of the impracticality.
PS. *Even so-called ADHD, i.e. people who do whatever they like, can cause problems for those around them (and of course for the person who has it). As well as its opposite, those who never get shot.
I knew one of them once. He was sharp and analytical, but, as I said, did what struck him. Once he accidentally killed a person and went to prison for the crime. But he also had difficulty keeping a job because he had whims that had nothing to do with what he was supposed to do. In the end he crashed, I never learned why, but I don't doubt for a moment that he had another whim.
It is difficult to organize such things in a functioning context.
And then a closing note: It is of course true that it is a wealth that people have different qualities. As the management guru Peter Drucker put it in his classic The effective executive in the 60s: not everyone can be good at everything. If you are extremely good at one thing, it is likely that you are quite bad at something else. And then the best thing is if you can keep doing what you are good at, then the overall result will be the best. The rest can be fixed with division of labor, collaboration and administration.
The place where I worked organized a study day about this once; apparently some of the staff had a problem with others not being themselves. We called in an HR consultant who had to describe the reasoning above, and everyone had to reason from a schema for human differences to what type they were and what they were therefore likely to be good at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator. In this way, you also gained an insight into your own peculiarities, which can be useful.
Of course, the most extreme variants of different functional variations are not particularly functional but are certainly often maladapted. But there are many with less ADHD who became adventurers who discovered that the earth was round, entrepreneurs, inventors. People with mild autism may have a sense of logic and correctness that normal people cannot. In the tea Dawn of everything of i.a. David Graeber, this researcher tells how in some countries in North Africa the mentally ill are allowed to walk around just as they are until society's paradigm stops working. Then you ask the mentally ill for a new paradigm. I myself probably have mild ADHD, high-functioning autism and had a mental stress reaction once. At the same time, when I was healthy, I have been able to see connections that others have not been able to see and which mostly turn out to be true. A lot of what I experienced when I felt bad also turned out to be true. Neurotypicals are often pleasant and team players, but they have no sense of when the demands become too high. In the past, the highly sensitive should have been there to calm us down when the tone became too loud or the demands too high. Within the normal range, high performers and team players can often find it difficult to see the forest for all the trees. What many advocates who want to reduce funkophobia is that those with higher functioning functional variations should be able to get adaptation without their variation being called a disease or impairment. Of course many men have ADHD and fight more, but good girls study so they get burnt out and get self-harming behaviors in their teens. What is most functional? As Peter Drucker put it, everyone is good at different things. The right man in the right place and a little more tolerance and room for those who are high-functioning low performers, naysayers or with different high-functioning function variations. Long into the late 1900th century, when severely disabled children were only put in institutions, whether the parents wanted this or not, the children often died soon after they arrived at the institution. A little more tolerance and solidarity with all our differences and a little more desire to get the right person in the right place under the right conditions. And that the demands also decrease on neurotypicals.
Totally agree. And so is Drucker: https://dtleadership.my/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Drucker-2006-The-Effective-Executive-The-Definitive-Guide-to-Getting-the-Right-Things-Done.pdf
Those who only hire people without special shortcomings are based on weakness, says Drucker. What they get is mediocrity. If you want to get the best, you have to hire people with tangible strengths - which often also means weaknesses. But the weaknesses must be made irrelevant with the help of organization, i.e. supplementing with other people who have their strengths elsewhere.
Just. But there must also be good jobs for reasonably functioning low-achievers or those with varied functions without special strengths. Everyone with. We not only produce the goods and services we produce, but we also create a social morality and a society with the values we work with. Only strong or normal employees can create working methods such as intolerance, murderous competition, get it right or get out, exclusion, intrigue, bullying.
Letting in low performers can emphasize the needs for recovery, humor, job satisfaction, tolerance, solidarity, empathy, criticism of power...
The latter is also true. When companies, authorities and institutions kicked out everyone who was not 110 percent efficient in the 90s, we got a gigantic burden on the health insurance system instead.
So full employment is needed. Max 2% unemployment, like in the 50s-60s-70s-80s. Then even chronic alcoholics could find work. And companies, authorities and institutions were forced to organize the processes so that what they could contribute was enough. There is always something everyone can do well enough.
And the power of the workers increases and can counteract the murderous competition.
Yes, and Sweden was even richer and more industrially leading then. As Sven Grassman predicted in "Det plundrade folkhemmet", the austerity policy with the increasingly pressured working life would dismantle Sweden on all fronts. The only purpose was to save the growth of the return on the passive financial capital of the rich. This had stagnated or partially regressed during the long social democratic golden age 1930-1970.
So we got globalization during which the majority of all environmental emissions were made and where the gaps between rich and poor countries could now lead to the third world war.
Instead, I believe that free independent countries that cooperated freely and equally under a strong UN for the good of all with the help of green MMT economies could save us all.
I got a funny confirmation of the need to ignore individual weaknesses and focus on strengths from the Norwegian employers' association magazine in 1994 or 1995, when I lived in Norway. They had a themed number about discrimination, and felt that companies were suffering because their managers preferred to hire people who looked exactly like themselves, or even better who they looked like ten or twenty years ago or more (it's about appearing as a parental figure). In this way, the employees become like clones of each other and all have the same strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, companies are not interested in results, but only in avoiding challenges.
Another confirmation of this was an article series in SvD sometime in, I think, the 90s. One of the articles was about how Ericsson had bullied the gang that had created AX because they didn't conform to Ericsson's normal costume fashion, preferring to wear regular clothes. When AX was inaugurated, they weren't even invited. Incidentally, the series of articles resulted in the editor-in-chief being fired, you were not allowed to speak ill of large companies. So the rule probably also applies to SvD, or did it then.
It is precisely the state that must pressure companies to take advantage of their own interests to create social benefits.