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Imagine that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that we describe people as blind very often, but that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that blindness is increasing so that, in some districts, three in ten children are diagnosed as blind. But that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that we can name many symptoms of blindness. Disinclination to shake hands. Tendency to fall over. Timidity of posture. Slowness of gait. But that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that there is posited a spectrum of blindness, including those who sometimes trip on the rug and those who must cling to another person before taking a single step. But that it is not known what blindness is.
Imagine that it is said that blindness may hide itself and affects many people who walk about with the appearance of confidence and respond to facial expression with seeming assurance. But that it is not known what blindness is.
Imagine that the numbers of those who retrospectively interpret their own lives and the lives of others as having been shaped by undiagnosed blindness increase and increase, so rampantly that we are all inclined to understand ourselves and others as at least a little blind. But that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that the attribution of blindness so gathers pace that blindness acquires the atmosphere of a natural human condition, a mere difference. But that we do not know what blindness is.
Imagine that strides are made in determining possible causes of blindness – environmental toxins, genetic predisposition, style of upbringing, experience of trauma. But that it is not known what blindness is.
Meanwhile, a small cohort with a blindness diagnosis cleave to the walls of their home, their room, unresponsive to the myriad strategies employed for inclusion of the blind – a small cohort whose tragedy is concealed in the general clamour for blindness; a pitiable few, wrecked and solitary in a darkness wholly overlooked. Because we do not know what blindness is.
The scenario would be implausible were it not real.
We describe people as autistic very often. Autism is increasing; in parts of London, three in ten children are diagnosed with the condition. Almost everyone can name some symptoms of autism: lack of eye contact, tendency to sniff at things, liking for routine, propensity for distress. Autism is understood as a spectrum condition, affecting celebrity achievers and those who cannot speak, dress themselves, or use the toilet. Autism is said to mask, hiding itself beneath the simulation of functionality. Autism is advertised as a natural divergence, so ubiquitous as to explain aspects of the lives of us all. Autism is attributed to a range of causes, from childhood vaccination to the impersonal routines of metropolitan societies.
Yet we do not know what autism is. …
Our sense of self is as shared an achievement as our sense of everything else. It is being with other people that gives me my self.
Joseph is as unable to be selfish as he is unable to be selfless. He cannot act in his own interest any more than he can act in the interest of others.
But my account of Joseph’s condition does have relevance for all children with a diagnosis of autism, even those who are not like Joseph to begin with.
Because once the diagnosis of autism is given, strategies are put in place that will bring to the outside children who, whatever their troubles, are by their nature inside.
Ear defenders, chew toys, fidget breaks, safe spaces, electronic devices, chaperones and exemptions draw children with a diagnosis of autism away from access to other people and the world, initiating them into an outsideness that is not their native condition.
Unless we grasp what autism is at its core, we will continue to miss this separate, closely related phenomenon, this second-order autism of institutional manufacture from which vast and growing numbers of children now suffer. …
Does Archie have a diagnosis of autism? I don’t know. But I guess that he does. And that it is drawing him away from us, dragging him out of life.
This little boy, born for the inside, who had seemed to have an inkling of his fate, who had clung as best he could to random people while he could: unseeing now; unhearing; screened-off; outside.
Not because he has autism. Because he has a diagnosis of autism.
I must apologize for publishing this article here, but I could not fit it in anywhere else that made sense. I also apologize for publishing such a difficult to read article. Have worked with kids a lot and even autistic kids and this is a really sad but, perhaps, true situation. Is is a first hand observation of the child that has withdrawn or never had any connection with the outside world. It is hard to read when you stop to think that WE are somehow generating these problems or somewhat less hard; WE are consenting to generate these problems.