The Social Mechanics of our Disablement (November, ’23)

Neurodivergence is often mistakenly perceived to be the result of being different from most other people, when it is actually a consequence of unintentionally challenging social power.

For example, contrary to accepted wisdom, two thirds of us all prefer to make meaning visually, rather than verbally (Cooper,2009) . Despite this, we are often punished (or humiliated) for thinking visually when our thinking fails to follow, or observe, accepted wisdom, lines of logic, grammar style, sequence and boundaries. This happens because visual thinking recognises and values social, structural and philosophical connections, meaning and patterns, rather than the limiting boundaries and hierarchies imposed by words.

I am arguing that this is the real reason that thinking in words is considered essential and inevitable by schools intent on imposing social control (and why our schools look like prisons), and why what is taught is not generally open to debate. Those of us who can think in words are therefore channelled into doing so. Those of us who find it difficult, or impossible to do so, are considered unpredictable, lazy, stupid, deviant, challenging, crazy or dangerous.

The real issue is that visual thinking enables us to see the connections across and between the boundaries in thinking (and social structures) that those in power intend to hide. As Basil Bernstein argued, power is never more eloquent than in the boundaries between categories (1973). It is therefore holistic thinking which is at the heart of the issue, rather than visual or verbal thinking themselves...

Imposing this as a problem for us, and providing a disabled label, is an essential part of maintaining social control. We are merely collateral damage. This also explains the frustration felt by those who cannot see why education appears so difficult to change, when the changes required would benefit all learners. But sadly, benefiting learners is not the main social function of schools. To paraphrase a range of theorists from the 1970’s, the social function of schools is to fail the majority of people while persuading them that it is their own fault (e.g. Bowles and Gintis 1976, Bernstein 1975, Young and Whitty 1976, Bourdieu and Passeron 1977)

It is therefore a mistake to think that being neurodivergent necessarily means we are a minority, but it does make us potential revolutionaries and agents of social change.  We are simply better equipped to see that a better world is possible.   Neuro-liberation is therefore not limited to personal identity and validity, but enables the social construction of a better world for all. Attempting to maintain the status quo, and thereby deny a better world for all, leads directly to our disablement.

What follows then is an unacceptable level of institutional violence that leads to disproportionate numbers of neurodivergent prisoners, suicides, unemployed and homeless.

References:

Bernstein B, (1973)Class, Codes and Control: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmission, Vol 3, Routledge and Kegan Paul

Bourdieu, P and Passeron, J. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, Sage Publications, translated by Richard Nice

Bowles, S, and Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America: Education Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books Inc. pp. 131–132, 147

Cooper, R (2009) Dyslexia, in Pollak, David (Ed.) Neurodiversity in HE; positive responses to learning differences, Wiley

Young M, and Whitty G, (1977), Society State and Schooling. The Falmer Press