Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

What happened to autism? What used to be out-of-the-ordinary behavior has been turned into a mental illness. At the extreme edge, the barely functioning autistic has always evoked reactions of surprise, pity & yes, fear, in other people, but that is the far end of the spectrum. There's a large cohort of non-autistic people that used to get the special designation, “Asperger's,” to signify that they're fully functional but exhibit, what some might consider, eccentric behavior. In the past they certainly weren't considered mentally ill but now they carry the “autism” label. Why? How has oddness become a badge of victimhood? I've known many Asperger's people, and for some it takes a civilized, patient demeanor to be around them. In fact, sometimes I'd rather not be but I do because that's the Deal: they pretend nothing's wrong with them & I pretend I don't care. What's happened, I think, is that the crowd trying to turn everyone into victims for political purposes wanted to absorb the Asperger's folks because they're, for the most part, rational & competent people, and the Post-Modernists want some of that aura because they don't have any of their own.