Thanks Lucy — it really worries me how increasingly difficult it is to express any scepticism about the neurodiversity paradigm. In CAMHS and social care it’s become the first explanation reached for, even where contextual and relational dynamics are clear.
It’s also strange that neurodiversity is treated as somehow separate from the wider diagnostic paradigm — particularly as ADHD is directly tied to a medication boom. It makes me genuinely sad to see the refrain online from people starting stimulants: “is this what normal feels like?” — as if emotional blunting and tunnel vision were the authentic human condition rather than its suppression.
I’ve listened to the podcast — really impressive to have created space for dialogue on such a polarised subject.
Thanks John and John for these thought provoking responses, which I probably won’t do justice to in this rushed reply…
I agree a more granular analysis of power enriches what is an admittedly wide-angle argument. I think the PTMF is transformative in making visible the effects of power on lived experience. And agree on value of anarchist thought; Bakunin more clearly engaged with alienation as inseparable from oppressive power.
I enjoyed John H’s piece and agree that neurodiverse diagnoses can function as a technology to pacify those who fare worst. But I do think the neuro discourse is more pervasive than this. And I think this highlights the shift in experience from productive to consumer capitalism.
Power is central to all of this. When human agency and relationships become subservient to our function as consumers, that is disempowerment in the most basic sense. As Bauman points out, the technology of power has shifted — from the panopticon to the synopticon; all watching all. The alienation this produces isn’t only visited on those in most acute material distress.
On the conceptual genealogy both Marx and the psychological discipline share a deep Aristotelian inheritance — ideas about what it means to be human, about the conditions under which distinctly human capacities are realised or foreclosed. This is key, as the contemporary malaise is fundamentally dehumanising.
I suppose the point I’m trying to stress is that the dehumanisation of late capitalism is more insidious than its most acute manifestations — this isn’t only about the production of distress but alienation from the full range of human experience.
“neurodivergence is literally unthinkable without the imaginary construction of the “neurotypical” Other, and unthinkable outside the psychiatric paradigm of fixed inherent brain differences.”
Exactly this – neuro-identitarianism could be understood as an attempt to reshuffle who sits where in psychiatry’s hierarchy of difference, leaving intact the power structure that pathologises human variation.
Hello Lucy, thank you for taking the time to read my article! I certainly read your comprehensive series a few years back and thought it was an excellent, rigorous rebuttal of Chapman’s “neurodivergent Marxism” (which has nothing to do with Marx) and an important warning against the rebranding of pathologising diagnoses as ‘neurotypes.’
My article was a modest attempt to add to the conversation started by you and others on MiA from a slightly different angle — more focused on the specific concept of alienation, within broader critiques of neoliberalism you and others have made, and grounded in a more sociological perspective. I think theorists like Bauman and Beck, less commonly discussed on MiA, have useful insights to offer to the important discussions on this site.
Thanks Lucy — it really worries me how increasingly difficult it is to express any scepticism about the neurodiversity paradigm. In CAMHS and social care it’s become the first explanation reached for, even where contextual and relational dynamics are clear.
It’s also strange that neurodiversity is treated as somehow separate from the wider diagnostic paradigm — particularly as ADHD is directly tied to a medication boom. It makes me genuinely sad to see the refrain online from people starting stimulants: “is this what normal feels like?” — as if emotional blunting and tunnel vision were the authentic human condition rather than its suppression.
I’ve listened to the podcast — really impressive to have created space for dialogue on such a polarised subject.
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Thanks John and John for these thought provoking responses, which I probably won’t do justice to in this rushed reply…
I agree a more granular analysis of power enriches what is an admittedly wide-angle argument. I think the PTMF is transformative in making visible the effects of power on lived experience. And agree on value of anarchist thought; Bakunin more clearly engaged with alienation as inseparable from oppressive power.
I enjoyed John H’s piece and agree that neurodiverse diagnoses can function as a technology to pacify those who fare worst. But I do think the neuro discourse is more pervasive than this. And I think this highlights the shift in experience from productive to consumer capitalism.
Power is central to all of this. When human agency and relationships become subservient to our function as consumers, that is disempowerment in the most basic sense. As Bauman points out, the technology of power has shifted — from the panopticon to the synopticon; all watching all. The alienation this produces isn’t only visited on those in most acute material distress.
On the conceptual genealogy both Marx and the psychological discipline share a deep Aristotelian inheritance — ideas about what it means to be human, about the conditions under which distinctly human capacities are realised or foreclosed. This is key, as the contemporary malaise is fundamentally dehumanising.
I suppose the point I’m trying to stress is that the dehumanisation of late capitalism is more insidious than its most acute manifestations — this isn’t only about the production of distress but alienation from the full range of human experience.
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Thanks for these insightful reflections Freya!
“neurodivergence is literally unthinkable without the imaginary construction of the “neurotypical” Other, and unthinkable outside the psychiatric paradigm of fixed inherent brain differences.”
Exactly this – neuro-identitarianism could be understood as an attempt to reshuffle who sits where in psychiatry’s hierarchy of difference, leaving intact the power structure that pathologises human variation.
Report comment
Hello Lucy, thank you for taking the time to read my article! I certainly read your comprehensive series a few years back and thought it was an excellent, rigorous rebuttal of Chapman’s “neurodivergent Marxism” (which has nothing to do with Marx) and an important warning against the rebranding of pathologising diagnoses as ‘neurotypes.’
My article was a modest attempt to add to the conversation started by you and others on MiA from a slightly different angle — more focused on the specific concept of alienation, within broader critiques of neoliberalism you and others have made, and grounded in a more sociological perspective. I think theorists like Bauman and Beck, less commonly discussed on MiA, have useful insights to offer to the important discussions on this site.
Report comment