OF SCIENTISTS AND YAK-YAKS
This one seems cut-and-dried, but isn't. The problem lies in pitting two things against one another that are not mutually exclusive. Further, the one - science and art - isn't necessarily superior to the other - social yakking. A rounded, functioning society requires both and rounded, flourishing individuals can do both.
The problems come when we mix our logics. To be doing art and science when you should be yakking with others never ends well; likewise, to reduce the topics of art and science to a mere means of social yakking, and show no interest in taking them further, is just shallow.
Life is both shallows and depths. Adapting Gregory the Great's words on scripture, we can say that life “is like a river . . . broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.” (Gregory the Great Moralia on Job, section 4).
There is a need for social yakking, it is how people socialise, drawing disparate people together around common concerns and interests. But a healthy society involves more than surfaces and shallows. A people without vision is imperilled. The blind lead the blind straight into the ditch, talking innanely as they go.
Temple Grandin's quote is frequently taken out of context and interpreted to mean that autistic people are superior to neurotypical people in penetrating surfaces, being factual and logical, cutting to the truth, and ignoring ephemeral words. Her words came in an interview with MSNBC's Joan Raymond, where she was asked about repeated suggestions about eliminating autism from the gene pool - suggestions which are based upon the idea that autism is a debilitating affliction that is fit for elimination.
"I believe there's a point where mild autistictraits are just normal human variation. Mild autism can give you a genius like Einstein. If you have severe autism, you could remain nonverbal. You don't want people to be on the severe end of the spectrum. But if you got rid of all the autism genetics, you wouldn't have science or art. All you would have is a bunch of social ‘yak yaks.'"
Elsewhere in the interview Grandin argues that those autistic people who can should learn to live in the social world, however much it is geared to neurotypical ways of thinking, doing, and being. It can be like living as an exile or an alien, but it can be done.
The interesting part for me is the way that certain autistic people turn the quote into a meme in order to distinguish themselves, as the superior artists and scientists, from the social yak-yaks. I'm sure that that wasn't Grandin's intention, but her blunt phrasing can invite that interpretation: "all you would have is a bunch of social 'yak yaks.'" That's 'all,' as in not much to get excited about. I know the feeling that lies behind the statement. I don't care for small talk and, when confronted with inanities and banalities, have to repress the urge to question in search of content and clarity. The social yak-yaks don't like it and will take umbrage at your questioning, deeming you 'argumentative.' It's not for no reason that Socrates was somewhat unpopular and put to death. Philosophy was once a somewhat treacherous profession, leading to exile or death. Philosophers can indeed feel like they are walking in an alien land with alien beings. That is how they can be seen.
But it's not an either/or. If art and science (and philosophy, let's call it intelligence) are necessary to any healthy and vital society, so too is the socialising that connects people together. Not only is there room for both, you can do both. And there is a need for both, bringing intelligence into the realm of practical reason, whilst raising the sights of practical eyes beyond immediacy. The problems, as ever, come with division and disconnection, setting the one against the other. If the scientists need to understand the need for socialising and social dissemination, the yak-yaks themselves need to understand that the subject-matter of their yakking has depths and heights as well as surfaces and shallows.
I would say that the situation is far harder for the artists and scientists than it is for the yakkers, for the reason that the critical thresholds for art and science are far higher than for yakking. Not only are the yakkers smart enough to know that their limitations exclude them from art and science, the intellectual barriers are such as to exclude them anyway (I speak of yakkers only, here, you understand). Artists and scientists might struggle with small talk, but are not barred from the field of yakking. The danger is that they enter the terrain as artists and scientists, thinking that the people there might be interested in knowing a little - or a lot - more of the subjects they are talking about. They can tend to credit some people with having more intelligence and depth than they actually have; they soon learn the error of their judgement when they are met with hostility and abuse.
Basically:
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Proverbs 9:8
Don't correct fools, they will hate you for it, and double-down on their foolishness; don't inform the yakkers, they will understand it as 'lecturing.'
The key point is that autistic people can struggle to identify and respect boundaries here. Lacking internal editors and filters they see the world as whole, interconnected, and immediately present. They see a subject or a topic they know about and are interested in and so will feel the urge to make a contribution. Their informed intervention will be perceived as hostile and rebuked and rejected, causing intense pain and upset, the kind of social trauma that makes autistic people wary of social engagement, causing them to withdraw and isolate. There is no aggressive intent behind an autistic person's intervention; to the contrary, it represents an attempt on their part to reach out and socialise, the only way they know how - by sharing their interests and information, by giving people the benefit of their special knowledge. To have it dismissed as 'lecturing' - which is how it has been put to me - is unconscionable. Not quite seeing boundaries, autistic people can make the mistake of thinking people genuinely interested in the subjects they discuss, and so make the attempt at small talk, whilst still being in some way artists and scientists. And yakkers don't appreciate the intervention and can become very nasty in shooing autistic people with their impertinent knowledge away. And the abusers, so attuned to the normality of neurotypical yakking, don't even know that they are abusing. Autistic people defend themselves in forthright terms - which is my advice, because it is the only way to dislodge a lumpen, leaden prejudice - and the abusers consider them abused, play the victim, gather support to their cause. They don't see how they have marginalised and isolated autistic people, causing immense pain and trauma. They then go back to their rainbow flags and 'be kind' slogans and their vacuous unthinking John Lennon imaginings of all nice things for everyone. I ask questions, I want reasons, I want details. I want truth and honesty, I want the reality.
