The Limits of "Neurodiversity"

Neurodiversity is a new idea rooted in political correctness that says we should view conditions like Autism as simply different (diversity) rather than judging whether they are good or bad.

This concerns me greatly. Although there is some value is recognizing that some people are a little different but not disordered, this new movement goes too far. I say this as someone who has suffered from Depression for decades - psychological disorders are not "neutral", or just "different', or "diversity". They are harmful, and need treatment. I fear that this new neurodiversity movement will cause some people not to see treatment for this issues, and that neurodiversity groups will encourage each other to negative and self-harming behaviors.

Psychologists are smart enough to realize that not all differences are disorders, and that not all differences require treatment. To account for this, questionnaires used to diagnose disorders look at inherently harmful behaviors. For example, questionnaires for autism ask if the person regularly upsets other people with their comments and can't figure out why, whether they struggle to socialize, whether they fail to pick up on things in conversations, whether they have trouble forming relationships, and whether they have trouble going to certain places because they are hyper-sensitive to sounds/touch. Some even engage in self-harm out of frustration.

Those are not neutral traits. Those are all disadvantages. Even worse, some of those traits can actually cause harm to other people. An Autistic friend of mine (who was diagnosed years ago) totally agreed with this. He recognizes that his insensitive comments sometimes hurt other people, and that he needs to learn how to better understand what will offend people. This isn't offense in the political correctness sense, this is just simple social competence and knowing how to phrase things somewhat carefully. For example, he might say "drug use is ok", when what he meant would be better phrased as "we shouldn't judge those addicted to drugs because you don't know why they have turned to drugs". Neurodiversity would have discouraged him from getting treatment, which has helped him, and simply left this situation at "you understand social situations in a unique way! And that's ok!".

This is not neutral.

It isn't ok when it hurts other people and causes the autistic person to have a worse quality of life. We shouldn't have any disdain for people with mental disorders or autism, but let's not pretend there is nothing good or bad about the condition.