It is capitalism . . .

A brilliant book with many good observations around neurodiversity and its interconnectedness to many a societal issue, Autism Is Not a Disease by Jodie Hart, makes clear and posits good arguments and statements for involving, including and empowering (not patronising) neurodiversity at every level in society.

The benefits will have many far reaching effects that will really include all (even the able and neurotypical) and lessen, if not rid, the divisions that seem to perpetuate many throughout society and not just the currently categorised (and pathologised) as neurodiverse.

Firstly, it’s the (ableist) commodification of everything and the need for a rejection of that . . .

The politics of neurodiversity demand that we locate it beyond the realm of the personal, and this requires an exploration of how ableism operates in the broader contexts of racism, capitalism, prisons, and so on. Such an exploration requires us to question the authority of medical systems that have sought to lock up, punish, and kill neurodivergent people, and why these medical systems are still seen as essential in validating our own experience of the world through diagnosis.

If we are to maintain the political dimension of neurodiversity, as was intended by those who first articulated the idea, then there is reason to resist the commodification of these experiences that has become increasingly prominent: the creation of products promising, in one way or another, to optimise your experience – programmes that will turn your ADHD into a ‘superpower’ or suggest that you can be a girl-boss autistic CEO if you follow ‘these five tips’.

An unsurprising phenomenon given capitalism’s ability to commodify anything and everything, this kind of neurodiversity presents each experience as completely individualised and disconnected from a wider community, as well as failing to question the structural issues that people face on a day-today level.

One threat that arises here comes from the amplification of the most ‘sellable’ parts of neurodivergence. Those who are considered most marketable are those who are most often amplified, resulting in a surge of neurodivergent representation that is white, middle-class, English-speaking, and considered non-threatening and palatable by much of the wider population. The elevation of this narrow section of neurodivergent people means that an additional expectation is placed upon neurodivergent people to behave this way. When they fail to do so – as doing so is, of course, impossible – this creates a risk of further marginalisation. ‘I support neurodivergent people but not neurodivergent people who behave in a way that I deem unpalatable’ means that any chance at liberation becomes fragmented, derailed once again by discrimination.

By allowing our vision of neurodiversity to be infiltrated by the insidious nature of capitalism, we risk losing sight of the aim to liberate all neurodivergent people. This form of neurodiversity can and will abandon people. Those neurodivergent people who cannot be exploited under capitalism because of their inability to work will be at risk of being forgotten, their neurodivergence unable to be harnessed for profit.

I have no qualms about the use of self-empowerment practices for a population of people who are so frequently demonised and alienated, but I do think that failing to demand more from our understanding of neurodiversity brings a halt to what we can achieve. By refusing the hyper-individualism that already plagues so much of the Western world, we can turn instead towards more liberatory practices.

Instead of hiring an ADHD coach who teaches you to be maximally productive at work, consider whether the way we currently work is in fact detrimental to us as social beings. Why have we normalised tying how much we work to the kind of life we ‘deserve’? Instead of creating pseudoscientific tips for forcing nonspeaking people into communicating verbally, consider why we have decided to prioritise one form of communication over every other. Why are we not doing more to develop and provide (for free!) alternative forms of communication that work for those who need them.

Neurodiversity can be liberating in its refusal to simply accept things as they are, and its push to question the way our world currently functions. By individualising our experiences of neurodivergence, we might overlook this, and as a result neglect the consequences of phenomena that control our experiences as a whole, such as the impact of ableism.

Ableism (which I will return to in Chapter 3) can contribute to phenomena such as Damian Milton’s ‘double empathy problem’.²⁹ A seminal work in autistic advocacy circles, Milton’s essay deals with autistic people’s supposed ‘deficiency’ in social communication. He observes that, while autistic people are presumed to lack ‘theory of mind’, and are therefore seen as unable to imagine the thoughts and feelings of others or predict their behaviour, non-autistic people fail to make much effort towards understanding autistic ways of thinking and being.

This makes the problem of empathy and understanding one that functions both ways, and not something that stems simply from autistic people’s ‘deficient’ cognition. More recent research suggests that autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective, but that neurotypical peers are less willing to interact with autistic people due to negative judgements they make about them.³⁰ It is in such breakdowns in communication that we can begin to question the impact of ableism.

Among such misunderstandings and struggles in communication, how many are caused by a lack of interest in understanding how somebody different to you understands the world? And how much of that attitude is fuelled by an ableist perception of autistic people being deficient in some way, and therefore not worth the trouble of empathy? Preconceived judgements and stigma towards autistic people restrict societal attempts to interact with and include them, so that autistic people find themselves socially marginalised.

Understanding these situations through the lens of pathology suggests that autistic people should be taught that their most natural or innate form of communication is faulty, and that it is their responsibility to learn how to change their behaviour to fit in. Under the neurodiversity paradigm, we might ask: Why have we created a hierarchy that normalises some social interaction and communication styles and alienates others? Who is served by the dominant or ‘normal’ form, and who is left behind?

Jodie Hart Autism Is Not a Disease

. . . which essentially is framed by the broader societal problem, capitalism . . .

One of capitalism’s most successful achievements in the Western world is its move towards individualism. We have been told that we should see each other only as competitors for the jobs we want; we are taught that it is a worthwhile practice to measure ourselves against one another in the race to own as much as possible. Whether it is houses, cars, or clothes – the more you have, and the more expensive what you have is, the more successful you are deemed to be under capitalism. As a young autistic person trying to fit in by mimicking the behaviours of classmates, I understood the perceived social currency of the most desired items at each moment, whether it was a Blackberry phone or the latest handbag.

But this individualistic mindset has offered us little in return. We are destroying our planet, suffering from ever-increasing inequality, and burning out mentally and physically from a ‘hustle’ culture that benefits only those privileged by their socioeconomic status. This mindset is completely antithetical to the care we must take to create a world where all are valued. We must therefore reject the penchant for self-interest and the desire for profits above everything else.

This individualism has brought up important questions in neurodiversity around the possibility of being in ‘community’ with people simply because you share an identity characteristic (such as being autistic). Arguments have been made that, as capitalism sinks its teeth into neurodiversity, it is creating a space in which a neurodivergent identity is coming to constitute a form of social capital. This may be through the work of social media ‘influencers’, or those who have weaponised neurodivergence in order to argue that they might not enjoy other forms of socioeconomic privilege. This process of making neurodivergence ‘marketable’ can lead to a form of hyper-individualism that rejects the true tenets of neurodiversity and fails to advocate for those who have the least proximity to power, or whose politics reject the imperatives of capital.

Neurodiversity should disavow the quest for endless economic growth at the expense of the many, as well as the betrayal of those most at risk in the pursuit of capital gain. Neurodiversity demands that we forbid the social exclusion of those unable to participate in work, and that we rethink our politics – moving from a politics of self-interest to one of care and solidarity.

Neurodivergent people must not be viewed as puppets for profit. Our entry into the workplace must not be examined for its potential to increase gains for shareholders. We should be included as part of the workplace as ourselves, no more or less valuable than any other worker.

Avoiding this fetishistic approach to neurodivergent people might rescue us from what Robert Chapman calls ‘Neoliberal Neurodiversity’, used to ‘advance the outcomes of neurodivergent (usually autistic) people without fundamentally challenging neoliberalism or capitalism more broadly’.¹⁶ This is particularly prominent in corporate environments. This kind of approach works only to put people into jobs to achieve company profits. A single-pronged approach to neurodiversity, it simply ignores the other oppressive systems that limit neurodivergent people’s daily lives.

Furthermore, there will always remain a number of neurodivergent people who are unable to work. Under our current system, life is made very difficult for these people, not just economically but also socially. As Horgan explains, ‘under capitalism, work becomes the only avenue for self-development, respect, and fulfilment’.¹⁷ This is because we have made it natural to tie work to our identities, shaping our lives around our work and what we accomplish in it.

This is why so many people who do not work face social exclusion or discrimination, being branded as ‘benefit scroungers’ or accused of not ‘working hard enough’. The Daily Telegraph has gone so far as to produce a calculator that can ‘reveal how much of your salary bankrolls the welfare state’ – arguably inciting hatred and resentment towards disabled people unable to work because of how much they ‘cost’.¹⁸

Frances Ryan explores the extent of this demonisation in the case of disabled people, explaining that this scapegoating ‘did not come about by accident’, but was a direct result of the Conservative Party’s austerity project. Creating a narrative that ‘work-shy’ benefit claimants were to blame for the staggering cuts to public services, this attack on a marginalised group not only enforced a status quo that harmed some of society’s most vulnerable but was also factually incorrect. As Ryan reports, ‘The Centre for Welfare Reform calculated in 2013 that disabled people would endure nine times the burden of cuts compared to the average citizen, with people with the most severe disabilities being hit a staggering nineteen times harder.’¹⁹

Neurodiversity urges us to rethink this position of contempt, to stop alienating the unemployed or deeming their lives to be any less valuable. Humans are not born to be profit-producers; once we understand this, we can begin reorganising society in a way that prioritises joy, respect, care, and acceptance. We cannot begin to reach any kind of equality until we cease to view work and material conditions as indices of human worth or the right to social participation.

Jodie Hart Autism Is Not a Disease