An Argument about “Difference” and “Deviance”
Professor Stanley Fish of Florida International University, in Miami and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, opens a post about “norms and deviations” on his New York Times blog by citing a letter published in Time magazine:
A letter published in the May 26 issue of Time magazine protests the inclusion, in Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, of two researchers allied with the organization Cure Autism Now (a name that speaks for itself). The letter writer declares himself to be “outraged” because, in his view, “Autistic spectrum disorders are not diseases, but rather markers of ‘genetic difference’ in the same vein as skin color [and] gender.” He equates the search for a cure with genocide — it’s “part of a campaign to wipe out ASDs” [autism spectrum disorder] — and he wants the world to know that those to whom the cure would be offered neither need it nor desire it: “I speak for many when I say we are happy the way we are.”
A genetic difference is often adaptive and can be regarded as an advance in the evolutionary process; it is well-known that autism sometimes brings with it remarkable powers in the areas of music, art and mathematics. In the 2006 movie “X-Men: The Last Stand,” the augmented powers of those known as “mutants” are even more remarkable and include the ability to walk through walls, to move metal objects as large as California’s Golden Gate Bridge, to auto-generate fire or ice, to be in seven places at the same time, to read minds, to assume any identity, to kill with a touch, to fly like Icarus, to change the weather. These abilities are seen by many “normal” human beings, and a few mutants, as disabilities, as an indication that the person who possesses one of them is a freak.
Fish’s post is entitled Norms and Deviations: Who’s to Say?: Are those mutants in X-Men disabled, or differently abled, or more abled in some respects, and under-abled in others? These questions are relevant to discussions about autism. Whether you see autism as a disability and a difference, or as a disease and a disorder and, indeed, a deficiency, can profoundly influence your view of autism and of autistic individuals.
Fish is not critiquing the notion of “neurodiversity” in particular. The main business of his article is to note a pervasive similarity in how all (as he says) arguments for “difference” are constructed:
In the case of blacks and gays, the answer has already been given in the mantras “black is beautiful” and “we’re queer; we’re here; get used to it.” In the years since these battle cries were first heard, African-Americans and gay Americans have secured rights, gained in influence and earned respect, however grudging and superficial.
And why couldn’t the same thing happen to autism and mutancy or to any other mode of being that refuses the judgment of those who scorn, marginalize and seek to destroy it? For it is a question, [X-Men’s director Brett] Ratner observes, of “the use and misuse of power.” Do those labeled deviant, he asks, acquiesce and “conform” to a “prejudice,” or do they “maintain their uniqueness … and embrace what makes them different?” [my emphasis]
“Difference” is the key concept in these socio-political dramas, and difference is an inherently unstable measure. In order to mark it — in order to say where difference resides — you must first identify a baseline, a center; but any such identification will appear to those exiled to the periphery as arbitrary, a function of prejudice and an illegitimate exercise of power: it’s only because there are more of you that you can consign us to the margins and refuse us respect. Armed with this argument (which flourishes in some versions of multiculturalist and deconstructive thought), there is no form of behavior that cannot make a case for its legitimacy and for its right to be free of external coercion, whether it takes the form of legal sanctions or a forced “cure.”
All right, yes. Fish states that he is looking specifically at the structure of the arguments used to justify “different”—not “normal”—-behaviors and practice. He discusses deaf culture as an example of a “minority community” that has to some extent defined and therefore empowered itself by “celebrating” how and why it is different. But where does “difference” blur into “deviance”? At what point, Fish writes, does allowing for different behaviors lead to potentially harmful acts?
I think this is a relevant question to ask in view of recent examples of excluding autistic children: A restraining order was filed against the parents of 13-year-old Adam Race because of his “dangerous” behaviors in church. 5-year-old Alex Barton was “voted out” of his kindergarten class by his fellow students in the wake of numerous behavior issues (which might have been addressed had Alex been receiving more services—perhaps a 1:1 aide to help him focus). Both Adam and Alex have (Alex more recently) diagnoses that put them on the autism spectrum. And the question was asked more than once: Where is the line to be drawn, between the “rights” of an autistic individual, and other people’s sense of what is “appropriate” and “accepted”? I don’t think the answer is as simple as saying “200 pound non-verbal severely autistic individuals” are potentially “dangerous,” while younger autistic children — still little enough to be carried — are allowed “so long as” they act in nearly normal ways.
Fish, however, goes from discussing diversity in terms of race, sexual orientation, and disability, to considering “polygamy, drug use, pedophilia or murder” and makes too vast a generalization about the politics of difference and self-empowerment. By mentioning all of the following in one sentence as various types of “difference”—”autism, deafness, blackness, gayness, polygamy, drug use, pedophilia or murder”—Fish’s argument becomes no more than an observation about a kind of rhetorical strategy that says little about the real, lived experience of real people. I was frankly troubled to see “autism” in a sentence with “pedophilia,” especially in regard to stories like this and this, and to the very real fears and worries that parents have to take to protect disabled children. There are huge differences here.
If Fish cannot see the difference about autism and disability— speaking up for the rights of autistic persons and the need for more societal understanding about disability, then his argument is only an academic one without a basis in understanding that difference is something very real and lived for an autistic individual.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, deaf, disabilities blog, drugs, ethnicity, gay, Gender, murder, mutants, Parenting, pdd-nos, pedophilia, polygamy, race, stanley fish, x-menRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Crime, Disability Rights, Philosophy, Psychology, Race & Ethnicity, Rhetoric, Sexuality, Stereotypes
22 opinions for An Argument about “Difference” and “Deviance”
Synesthesia
Jun 3, 2008 at 3:03 pm
First of all, there is no such thing as normal. That concept positively doesn’t exist.
It’s too narrow a definition and few know HOW to define it and….
He lost me when he started mentioning NAMBLA and serial killers.
Also, how is WHITENESS normal? Does the so-called dominate group get to define that? He has some points, but again, what does NAMBLA and murder have to do with being black, a gypsy, autistic or a person with unique mental perspections like me?
There’s difference, trying to understand people who are “different” and then there are people who hurt people and try to justify it.
Those things really aren’t the same….
*very confused*
Jeremy Pierce
Jun 3, 2008 at 3:07 pm
This is totally unsurprising from the Dean of Postmodernism. This is exactly what his metanarrative (not that he’d admit that it is one) requires him to say.
If Fish is right, we shouldn’t worry about marginalizing the people on the periphery. After all, it’s arbitrary to single out the people who want to do that as the bad ones and the people who don’t as the good ones. It’s only because it’s now popular to see marginalization as bad that we can get away with calling it bad and acting accordingly. Similar things can be said about progress in defeating racism or meeting the goals of the gay rights movement.
If Fish is right (not that his internal principles allow anyone to be right), it follows that no moral principle can be used except as a power play, and thus there’s no question about whether certain things are simply good, right, just, moral, ethical, or whatever other normative status you might ask about. There’s nothing wrong with defining autistic people as possessed by Satan and ousting them from all society to live on their own in the desert. There’s nothing wrong with calling anyone you like deviant if Fish is right, because there is no right and wrong, just power plays, and power plays are just there. There’s no place for evaluating them by a moral standard.
Regan
Jun 3, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I will read the full Fish blog post, but right away using the fictional X-Men as some kind of relevant example rubbed me the wrong way. The characters and the reaction to those characters are a streamlined function of a screenwriter’s personal imagination used for dramatic purposes, and those conflicts, personal trials, and triumph, for that matter, only lasts until the screen goes to black and the credits roll. (If life was only as cut-and-dried or easily scripted as a 113 minute movie.) Surely such a smart fellow could have found something a little more real as an example.
Off to read the whole thing.
mayfly
Jun 3, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Let’s not forget that autism is a spectrum. There are autistics with significant others, a posse of friends, and outstanding skills. The main problem these people face is societal prejudice.
There are also those on the other side of the spectrum. They are not held back by societal prejudice but by their disabilities.
My daughter’s teacher called on us last Sunday to go over her IEP. She wanted to be sure the things they were to be working on were also what we were doing. These things include sorting and folding laundry, washing herself and the dishes, cleaning up after herself, choosing her own clothes to wear, etc.
It’s fantastic that my daughter’s teacher cared enough to give up a couple of hours of her Sunday afternoon to talk with us and to develop a program which doesn’t stop when she, our daughter leaves school. Many of these things we tried before with little success.
The hardest thing about raising a low-functioning autistic child for me is not the extra work to provide the care, nor the extra expense, but trying to teach her to be more self-sufficient when doing for her is magnitudes easier than teaching her.
The teacher did tell us that our daughter had started to bolt the classroom and that if she continued to do so she could not remain.
It’s such a good program, I did not need to hear that.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 3, 2008 at 5:17 pm
@Synethesia, I thought the NAMBLA reference was going own a slippery slope.
@Jeremy Pierce,
I’d like to respond a bit more but for now will say that I was not surprised by how this piece of Fish’s turned out—some covert (or not so covert) attacks on difference. But when one is writing about disability, I think it’s necessary to remember that one is never making an argument in the abstract, but that there are real people involved. It’s not like reading poetry (much as I am fond of poetry).
@Regan,
Always glad to know what you think!
@mayfly,
But aren’t they addressing her bolting/eloping from the classroom? Have they done a Functional Behavioral Assessment?
Jeremy Pierce
Jun 3, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I actually think it’s a bad program if they don’t know how to handle someone who bolts the classroom. If a school ever told me that they couldn’t take my son because he likes to run, I think I’d have grounds to take them to court for anti-disability discrimination. Someone who bolts needs a full-time one-to-one, and the school system ought to provide that. Maybe they do some things well, but that would be a deciding factor for me to pull my son out immediately. Anyone with that attitude isn’t going to provide a safe environment for an autistic kid with no sense of safety.
Jeremy Pierce
Jun 3, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Kristina, how do you think my criticism of Fish ignores the fact that there are real people involved? I re-read my comment, I don’t see anything that depends on autistic people being fictional the way mutants are.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 3, 2008 at 7:15 pm
@Jeremy Pierce,
You wrote this–” There’s nothing wrong with defining autistic people as possessed by Satan and ousting them from all society to live on their own in the desert”—-I am troubled by this. I understand you may have met it in a hypothetical sense, but there are people who see autistic individuals as “possessed” and this sort of sentence brings back an outdated stereotype.
Jeremy Pierce
Jun 3, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Yes, autistic people presumably don’t like that to be said of them, and yet Fish has no way to avoid it. I don’t see how we disagree on this yet. It’s pretty awful to say such things, and yet Fish can’t provide any resources to say why. It shows how awful his view really is if he can’t explain what’s wrong with such statements.
These are even statements people have made, so we’re not talking about a hypothetical. Fish doesn’t have the resources to respond to that actual view that people have taken, and those of us who do want to be able to respond to that view have to reject his views.
If you’re suggesting that we refrain from mentioning false and evil views just because people might be offended by them, then I strongly disagree. We need to confront such ideas and explain why dangerous views that allow ideas like them are so bad. There’s nothing wrong with mentioning the view that black people are intellectually inferior to white people. What would be wrong is endorsing that view. I don’t see how this is any different.
mayfly
Jun 3, 2008 at 8:47 pm
They are trying to figure out why she has started to do this. She has not exhibited this behavior at home. I asked if she was upset. In the past she used to run and scream. But the teacher said she is not upset when she runs
They have not found the antecedent.
My daughter ha made huge strides in the program. I’m not ready to go after the teacher with a phalanx of lawyers.
The class is a special needs class at an NT school. Most of the time she has a one-on-one aide. Other times she share’s the aide with another student.
I remember a song where a person pleaded for “two steps mister, two steps toward the door”
My daughter used to bolt quite a bit on walks. So we always walked where the behavior would not endanger her. Anyone who has been associated with a “runner” knows how quickly and without warning these episodes can come on. A half-step toward the door is plenty. There is no anti-disability behavior here.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 3, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Charlie had a period of doing the same—-it became a bit of a game of chase, you could say; he seemed to get a lot out of the attention and everyone flying after him. But it was not the reason to ever remove him from a classroom.
He was not upset when he ran either—often, he’d be just his usual self and then off to the door. Does the teacher have an ABA background?
Jeremy Pierce
Jun 3, 2008 at 10:05 pm
The anti-disability behavior is saying she can’t go to the school if she does that instead of adjusting to it and dealing with it or figuring out how to prevent it if possible.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 3, 2008 at 10:33 pm
@Jeremy Pierce,
So you know, a lot of autistic adults read this weblog and I don’t speak for them, but I suspect the mention of possession by Satan might not be well received.
I am not in agreement with you about whether or not it is wrong to mention the sorts of statements you’ve noted about intellectual ability etc.. Certainly they can be made—certainly they have been made—-they need some deconstruction.
mayfly
Jun 3, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Her running may indeed be an attention getting behavior.
My daughter has had teacher’s who didn’t want her in the classroom. Those teachers do not talk about the great strides your child has made nor how much the aides enjoy working with her. They tell you flat out that your child doesn’t belong in the class, and that no aide wants to work with her. I’ve seen the ugly side.
I’m not sure what is meant by adjusting to the behavior. The school is on a quiet street in the rather sleepy town Danville and there is quite a bit of ground she would need to cover before she could reach the street. Her behavior is not immediately dangerous to her.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be changed. It takes a few seconds for her to make her move.
The last time she ran, she went into another classroom and was attracted by that teacher’s long, curly hair, interrupting the lesson to stroke the teacher’s hair over and over again.
They are indeed looking for ways to prevent the behavior which doesn’t violate the fire code and more preferably to understand the behavior and find a way to change it.
The teacher was looking for anything we could tell her that might help in the quest while impressing on us how important it is to find an answer.
The school year ends a week from Friday and perhaps by next August her wanting to run will have run its course.
C. S. Wyatt
Jun 4, 2008 at 4:17 am
The real challenge is deciding what is pragmatic and ethical based on current knowledge. We might have to decide one autistic person is more of a risk than another. We might also have to decide some are more at risk of being harmed. There is no “one right answer” for autism.
What I do realize is that unlike many diagnosed with autism, I wouldn’t mind a “cure” for some aspects of my mind and body. Taking medications is changing yourself — “curing” some aspect of your mind or body. I don’t like seizures, don’t like migraines, etc. So, I have taken medications. Those change my body, and hence my mind. They “cure” aspects of my autistic traits, too.
The issue began with a challenge to DAN! people being considered influential. Is autism a difference? A disability? A gift?
Sorry, but while I consider my computer skills and pattern recognition great things, I also admit that I have a disability that severely limits aspects of my life. I’m not “deviant” but I’m also not normal.
I would like to be able to use mass transit. I would like to be able to go to the movies. I would like to be able to do a great many things I cannot do…
Normal? Don’t know what it is, but it sounds nice, sometimes.
Norah
Jun 4, 2008 at 4:24 am
“So you know, a lot of autistic adults read this weblog and I don’t speak for them, but I suspect the mention of possession by Satan might not be well received.”
Actually, reading his first comment, I don’t think he actually holds that opinion himself, he was stating what it would be like if people like Fish were right.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 4, 2008 at 8:39 am
Yes, but still I thought it was important to point that out.
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John Mc Mullen
Aug 12, 2008 at 6:13 pm
i dont know but my son is 23 and autisitic, doesnt talk and is highly goddamned annoying.
i never have been so annoyed in all my life as i am just to sit at the dinner table with him. and THEE most disgusting creature. very disgusting. thinks nothing to digg in his ass one minute just to chew on the very same nails the next. makes those constant noises. i tell you, i cant stand him. i mean i love because he is my son. i wish him no ill, i hope that there will be a magic cure all pill to make him normal someday…so i can tell him what an annoying individual he has been. i cant stand him.
John Mc Mullen
Aug 12, 2008 at 6:15 pm
maybe he is possessed by a demon. it would explain the tendencies to gravitate towars filth and gluttony. maybe a mute demon got hold of him.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Aug 12, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@John McMullen,
Thank you for writing here—-I don’t mean to intrude, has it not been possible work on things like eating habits and self-care and hygiene? I don’t mean to make light at all of what sounds like a really really difficult situation. I would be doubtful about a demon and possession—I hope there might be some way to help him in these matters.
Kassiane
Aug 12, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Hey Kristina:
IP logs. CPS. Call them. Seriously. Either you’ve got a troll, or someone who had no business reproducing in the first place.
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