Breaking the Society-Disability Cycle
Is Autism a disability?
I have had it explained to me a few times that if you struggle to complete a task in a conventional way, then there are other ways of securing its attainment. This is not the news that well-meaning, advice-offering others think it is. Finding the normal routes to certain goals difficult or blocked, autistic people learn early to devise their own means and methods and proceed in their own special way. Telling us that there are ‘alternate ways’ of doing things, well-meaning advisers conjure up myriad helpful others who are unstinting in the assistance they offer to those who are struggling. So it’s not a disability, since there are different ways of doing things.
Fine. There is a discussion to be had on where the balance lies betweendisability and diffability (different ability). I can see the argument made for ‘alternative abilities,’ identifying the positive attributes associated with autism: ability to focus deeply and at length, powers of concentration, attention to detail, creativity, innovative approach to problem-solving, critical thinking, integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness, expertise and in-depth knowledge, powerful memory and recall, observational skills, determination, self-motivation, resilience, tenacity etc etc…
In another place, when making another point, I would emphasis these autistic abilities strongly. But in this place I am making a different point, one that refers not to the strengths and powers of the autistic person but to the relations of that person to others in society. It is in these relations that difficulties, as in disabilities, arise. Working and living in a social environment obliges you to work with others; it also involves those others understanding the way you think and act. It is here that the advice of well-meaning others concerning the alternate ways of doing things breaks down. The helpful others upon whom this advice is premised are not always available. In fact, they are very rarely available. It is in this social and relational context that your peculiar ways of doing things comes to be experienced as a disability.
To exercise and realize your powers ‘differently’ and ‘alternately’ in society will often require the cooperation of others. When those others are not available, you are blocked, thwarted, and frustrated, forced into trying to make it by your unique powers alone.
In the absence of the mutual aid society of available friendly co-operators, the autistic person is left reliant on surrogates in order to merely survive, having long abandoned dreams of thriving. This means having to seek institutional rescue in the absence of social assistance.
I’ll stand correction on this, but in my experience this situation really is a hopeless and endless cycle.
I would prefer not to present people with vicious cycles without suggesting a way of breaking them, giving people hope for the future. The problem with a cycle is that it has no beginning and no end. The trick to breaking a cycle is to locate an origin and identify an end-game.
I would resolve this cycle this way:
It’s not that ‘society’ disables people but that, in being social beings, human beings need others in order to be themselves. Autism is characterised by impairments in social interaction and communication, leaving the autistic person struggling socially. The problem is thus not so much
‘society’ as a social impairment (call it a social disability if you like). The problem is one of discovering how to overcome that social impairment in such a way as to marry the strengths and powers of autistic individuals with the requirements of social functioning. This is where things get difficult. A huge part of the problem is that ‘society’ itself might be deficient in its social functions, having alienated its communal qualities and outsourced its responsibilities to abstract, centralised authorities.
‘Society’ in short refers to the institutional order which stands at a remove from those subject to it. The disempowerment of society results in the emergence of ‘society,’ an atomized, mechanical, inorganic body devoid of communal cooperative significance. This itself indicates the existence of a seriously deficient society, a society that is incapable of offering the help and assistance its members may need. This is particularly the case with respect to autistic people, given the social impairments associated with the condition. A disempowered society is a disabled society, with the result that the help that autistic people require is not naturally and spontaneously available – the proximal social relations embedding people within the familiar do not exist.
That leads us to the next stage in which ‘disabled people try to access support to be less disabled.’ That support being unavailable in a disempowered ‘society,’ autistic people are compelled to have recourse to authorities and agencies working at a social remove. The people working at this institutional level know that resources are scarce and so have to ration what little they have to offer. They hierarchize and prioritize the cases of those seeking help. It’s an exercise in futility. There is little that can be done at this distance; institutional management is no substitute for social transformation. Those in desperate need will be supported, with whatever resources are available. The rest of us will be given advice on employment and training and offered ‘mindfulness,’ breathing techniques for anxiety, and CGT. There’s no money, no social connection, no change.
‘Society makes the support almost impossible to get.’
I would say this is true but would qualify it. The problem is the absence of social support structures in the first place, the absence of a genuine society based on connection, community, cooperation, and mutual aid. It is the absence of embeddedness in proximal relations that leads autistic people to seek institutional redress. These problems can be ameliorated institutionally but not resolved that way. It’s the wrong approach and there are insufficient resources in any case.
I’ve spent more than enough time caught in this cycle to know its intrinsic hopelessness. The people who are members of the agencies and authorities may be doing their best, offering help and advice where they can. But I twigged pretty much immediately the limitations of the approach. Advice on CVs, interviews, and employment, mindfulness and breathing techniques, suggestions as to how to pass time – visit libraries, cycle clubs – and best of all crisis helplines if you are at the end of your tether, all screamed hopelessness and futility to me. At a time when less than 15% of autistic people are in full time employment this is a scandal and an outrage. The level of need and ‘disability’ varies between individuals. The tragedy is that for want of what are the tiniest of changes and adaptations, the talents and abilities of so many are being wasted, their hopes and dreams trashed, and their lives buried. This has to change.
