“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
Re: the last reply, I wonder if this could account for people discovering they’re on the spectrum as adults. When I was a kid we had two channels on the tv and no one even imagined the internet would be a household thing someday. Life didn’t bombard me with one tenth of the artificial stimuli it does now.
wasn’t there this one kirby anime episode where these monsters were being jerks to her and kirby so fumu got meta knight to teach her hand to hand combat and then just went and fucking decked them, one by one
to summarize:
•Anish Kapoor gets exclusive rights to use Vantablack, the world’s “blackest black” pigment, which understandably upsets a lot of artists
•Stuart Semple responds by creating Pink, the world’s “pinkest pink” pigment, which he makes legally available to everyone except for Anish Kapoor
•Kapoor somehow gets ahold of Pink and posts an Instagram photo of his middle finger dunked in the pigment that Semple had banned him from using
•Semple gets ahold of Vantablack and posts an Instagram video of his hand making the peace sign with his fingers coated in Vantablack
•During this time, Semple also releases Diamond Dust, the “most glittery glitter,” again available to everyone EXCEPT Anish Kapoor
The best thing about Diamond Dust is that it’s made from actual shards of glass so Anish can’t just stick his middle finger in it again
This petty art feud is actually starting to look like it could be one of the most important pieces of performance art of the 21st century
just found out about this picture depicting chaos, the formless abyss from which the greek universe was built and i gotta say i wasnt expecting fuckhands mcmike to be the origin of all things
i like how it says magnum chaos going clockwise from the top left like that just really does it for me
terrifying monstrosity: who could possibly love me when I am a terrifying monstrosity me, stretched out on the table in front of them with a rose between my teeth: well
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
