Autism Is Not A Mental Illness
I've spent most of the day wrestling with an article about lying. Specifically, the kinds of lies that are mistaken for virtue nowadays.
Obesity is healthy, men are women, everybody is beautiful, all group disparities are proof of white supremacy. People use lies as markers of group affiliation or signifiers of moral virtue. As justification for their failings or just a way to get attention.
In my article, Damn Kanye, I Did Nazi That Coming, I suggested that we stop providing that attention to people who are obviously arguing in bad faith. Especially when those people are also clearly dealing with mental health issues.
Rivka thought I was being unkind.
Rivka:
Wish all the people who keep referencing his mental health problems and supposed autism would find better ways to support these communities.
Steve QJ:
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you not allowed to mention that somebody is mentally ill when they're mentally ill? Is acknowledging the existence of mental illness a lack of support for people affected by it?
Rivka:
1. Autism is not a mental illness.
2. Mental illness is never an excuse for violence. Particularly when the mentally ill individual has complete access to treatment but clearly is not availing himself. Claiming otherwise is an affront to mentally ill people, most of whom somehow manage to not be Nazis.
Steve QJ:
1. I don’t mention autism at any point anywhere in the article. Any connection being made between the two is all you.
2. Yes, mental illness can obviously be an excuse for violence (though equally obviously not always). This fact is literally written into diminished responsibility and insanity defence laws.
3. Expressing stupid opinions is not “violence.” And saying that “mentally ill people don’t …” when mental illness is such an incredibly broad and varied topic is an affront to mentally ill people. All you’re doing is defining mental illness in a way that’s palatable to you.
4. Sadly, mentally ill people not availing themselves of the facilities available to them is a very common problem. The mentally ill, pretty much by definition, don’t always make rational decisions.
The stigma of mental illness runs so deep that many people lean into that stigma even as they believe they’re being “champions” for the mentally ill.
But even this brief conversation shows how silly that is.
Mental illness is a spectrum of difficult and complex conditions. Many of us are or will be affected to varying degrees. They suck in almost all cases. And while it can be uncomfortable to talk about this honestly, our failure to do so only harms those affected. Because the people most affected by mental illness don’t have the luxury of pretending it’s not real.
If you’re unable to control your eating to such an extent that it puts your life at risk, that’s a mental illness. If you’re at risk of committing suicide because of a mismatch between your mind and body, that’s a mental illness. Acknowledging this isn't “hateful.” It’s not “unsupportive.” It's the first step in getting people the help they need.
It’s easy to lie when the topic gets uncomfortable or unpopular or taboo. It’s easy to lie when your peers say it’s virtuous to do so. It’s easy to lie when the fallout from that lie won’t affect you.
But more often than not, the right thing to do is tell the truth.
You shouldn't waste your time trying to explain basics to someone who hasn't taken the trouble to learn anything. "Mental illness" incles maladies that lead people to erupt into violence for no reason. I was nearly murdered by a roommate who deteriorated before my eyes into a helpless schizophrenic. When you see a knife miss you by inches and go into the wall up to the hilt, you don't quibble about sparing the mentally ill any judgment.
I'm sure you know about the MMPI. It needs to constantly be renormalized as we keep on getting crazier.
We accept far too much, and I don't just mean attention-starved people claiming "trans." Change a few words of what religious people believe without substantively changing their beliefs and you could commit them to mental institutions. But we accept this.
And I am not saying we need to expect everyone to think logically; logic is learned, not inborn. But that's another topic.
We, as a world, are getting crazier. Look at the House of Representatives. Jewish space lasers, white supremacy. Look at "woke." Look at the collapsing ecosystem.
Kanye is not just anyone. He is a very public figure with a huge platform and the ear of former Presidents. He is therefore fair game, whatever his mental condition is.
Yes, kind lies are still lies. Civilized society would likely be impossible without some measure of lying. You don't really want to tell your dinner host that your dinner made you want to puke.
But there are limits. You don't want your doctor to refrain from telling you that you are on the verge of liver failure to avoid upsetting you. You want to be told to cut out the booze. Nor do you want to tell children that they all are "champions" because you then cheapen the will to succeed. If truth telling is equated to "violence," we will, as a culture, become delusional and therefore much weaker. Yet that is precisely what is happening now in Anglophone cultures.
As you also point out, lying about reality is also a way of signaling "belonging" to a tribe or ideology. Humans are profoundly mimetic, and ostracism for failure to adhere to the fictions of an ideology is a central method of achieving group cohesion through scapegoating.
In other words, it takes quite a bit of courage--and perhaps an independent income--to speak the truth. But I personally feel that a minority of people are just wired that way and damn the consequences. There are a few of these people who become leaders. But many will just suffer because the majority could care less about the truth--they just want approval. And the majority will punish. Maybe "the truth shall set you free," but not always in a good way.