Neuro-What?

Neurodiversity
This is a biological concept developed and popularized by Hans Asperger, Judy Singer, Harvey Blume, Steve Silberman and Kevin Rebecchi, among others. But "Neurodiversity" is also a social movement. This recently emerged concept has evolved in many ways. The notion of neurodiversity has been represented in different ways, and depending on the context, misunderstandings have occurred. In the end, the history of neurodiversity can be divided into three main moments: the birth of the concept in the 1990s, then its chaotic development in the 2010s, and finally, its mature version today.

   The origins of neurodiversity

In 1938, during a conference on atypical children, and faced with Nazis monitoring his service, Hans Asperger dared to say:

"Let me address this subject today, not from the point of view of the national community [...] but from the point of view of the abnormal children. [...] What can we do for them? That must be the question. If we help them with all our fervor, we are also doing the best service to our people [...] Not everything that is 'out of the ordinary', not everything that is 'abnormal' is necessarily 'inferior'."

In these words resound the premises of neurodiversity. Fifty years later, inspired by Hans Asperger's courage and seeing the homosexual movement obtain the removal of homosexuality from the DSM ("Quand l’homosexualité était une maladie", Slate.fr website), autists (Jim Sinclair, Judy Singer and others) spread the notion of "neurodiversity". A concept that allows, among other things, to stop confusing autism with diseases (Rett syndrome, Angelman syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, etc.), disorders (autism spectrum disorder, anxiety disorder, language disorder, etc.), other disability (schizophrenia, dystonia, intellectual disablement, inability to look into the eyes, etc.) or a negative aspect (a problem, a suffering, an inability, a misfortune, a risk, etc.). They offer autists the opportunity to defend themselves against stigmatization, the pathologization of autism, and against eugenics. And this concept is based on scientific notions:

"It was neuroscience that legitimized us, and it was the language of neuroscience and computer science that was the source of empowering metaphors for our movement." (Singer, 2016. NeuroDiversity: The Birth of an Idea)

"The term Neurodiversity in its political form caught on because it captures the authority of both environmental science and neuroscience to replace the purely negative and unbalanced characterization of neurological minorities by the 20th century Psycho-Medical Complex." (Judy Singer blog)

But Neurodiversity also has a political purpose:

"For me, the key significance of the 'Autistic Spectrum' lies in its call for and anticipation of a politics of Neurological Diversity, or 'Neurodiversity'." (Singer, 1998. Disability Discourse)

"[...] my aim was to make #Neurodiversity a 'political' synonym for #Humanity, as a banner for the emerging 20th C rights movement by #Neurominorities." (Judy Singer, Twitter August 24, 2022)

Neurominorities include communities of people who are deemed atypical, creative, or different in their neurological structure and are in the minority in society. Autists correspond to a neurominority, and neurominorities are often inferiorized, prejudiced or confused with pathologies. Thus, neurodiversity is a concept that represents all human diversity through its neurological diversity; but, Neurodiversity is also a movement that defends neurominorities. So, in 1993, when Jim Sinclair founded the Autism Rights Movement, he incorporated the terminology of neurodiversity. The concept of neurodiversity is thus found in individual and collective actions to defend autists. Some autists take advantage of this to invent the "neurotypical disorder" in reference to non-autists belonging to the group nicknamed "neurotypicals". Neurotypical disorder is established through reasoning by the absurd, through humor, which appeals to the empathy of non-autists. But there is no such thing as neurotypical disorder, it is only an exaggeration for apagogical purposes. "Neurotypicals" are part of neurodiversity. But Neurodiversity mostly defends neurominorities. For example, people with a learning disability (dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysorthographia, ADHD, etc.), who have a different neurological structure that does not constitute a "disease", and who are stigmatized in a backward learning system. Thus, during the 2000s, Neurodiversity began to represent other neurominorities than autism. And in 2004, the Double-Tongued Dictionary defined the word "neurodiversity" as:

"The set of neurological, mental, or psychological structures or behaviors of human beings, considered not necessarily problematic, but as acceptable alternative forms of human biology."

Neurodiversity redefines humanity by challenging its binary presentation between "normal" and "abnormal" people who would need to be rectified. The perception of normality, considered perfect, is criticized.

   Neurodiversity, victim of wokes 
First, a cliché: perfection does not exist (and that makes life exciting). The perfect society does not exist. Our civilizations are imperfect, and this creates injustices. But some injustices can be fought if society acts in that direction. Modern civilizations have ways to correct and improve themselves. But sometimes this is not enough. Citizens who no longer believe in judicial and political institutions to deliver justice will then band together to create a so-called "social justice". Social justice movements have been around for a long time, for example, to end racial segregation in the United States, for women's suffrage, and to get homosexuality out of the medical field. And new social justice movements are emerging, such as the struggle to allow women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, for the right to education for girls in Afghanistan, or like the Neurodiversity movement:

"[...] according to me, as i coined it [Neurodiversity] to name a social justice movement." (Judy Singer Twitter August 24, 2022)
"[Neurodiversity] It's the name of a social justice movement, not a diagnosis." (Judy Singer Blog)

But not all "social justice" movements have the same activists or interests. In the 2010s, a certain social movement emerged that would disrupt all other movements. The activists of this disturbing movement call themselves the "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW).
The SJWs are now called "Wokes". Wokes come from the United States. Because unlike France — which practices republican universalism*, its own secularism*, with an inquisitorial judicial, system that minimizes the influence of lobbies*, and with universal health insurance — the United States is conducive to less controlled injustices. It is therefore normal to see many social movements appearing in the United States. Unfortunately, woke is different from other movements. The cult of Wokes is like a religion. Founded by anti-psychiatry activists, anarchists, and communists, wokes intrudes on all social justice movements with a toxic ideology: "perfect" justice! Wokes show up wherever they can to strengthen their influence. Wokes will then instrumentalize the notion of intersectionality. As for the ideology itself perfect justice, it's toxic, because it does not exist. In other words, there will always be a "warrior" for perfect justice who will always go further... or even too far, in the actions of social struggle (creating a "drift" from progressivism). Wokes who interfere with other social movements will then sometimes even achieve the opposite of what the movements exist for. "Anti-racism" wokes have reinvented segregation and anti-Semitism. "Critical Race Theory" wokes have deviated from this theory. "Feminism" wokes have defended misandry. "LGBT" wokes have deflected transactivism. In France, "Inclusive writing" wokes lead to the stigmatization of dyslexics/dysorthograph individuals. "Ecology" wokes are anti-nuclear. "Sociology" wokes make people think it is an "exact" science and intensify victimization. "Disability" wokes oversell inclusion. In France, "Far left political class" wokes fight secularism. "Shameful Autism" wokes make people believe that autism is a disorder. And finally, "neurodiversity" wokes make people believe that neurodivergents (Neurodiversity activists) are better than "normal" people, inviting hatred of neurotypicals. In all this woke confusion, Neurodiversity has been hijacked into an anti-normality ideology. But Neurodiversity is also instrumentalized by the medical-social body.

"[...] I see my role still as resisting the attempted reabsorption by the psycho-medical and business sector, who want to turn 'Neurodiversity' into latest buzzword for Neurological Disability. imagine if Biodiversity=Disability. Absurd!" (Judy Singer Twitter September 3, 2021)
"Diversity is a measure of the extent of variation within a given population. It is not a diagnosis! The human population of Earth is infinitely diverse - no 2 humans are exactly alike. The #NeurodiversityMovement is the umbrella term" (Judy Singer Twitter December 19, 2020)
"[...] Neurodiversity is not a synonym for #Disability."(Judy Singer Twitter August 19, 2019)

Ultimately, wokes have tainted neurodiversity with a presentation of abnormality as perfect or vengeful. And medicine tries to minimize the concept of Neurodiversity. Many confusions have been made about neurodiversity (anti-normal supremacy, synonym of handicap or diagnosis, separation between "normal people" and "neurodivergent"), even to the point of denying its scientific character. However, the scientific representation of neurodiversity will become stronger from the 2020s onwards.

*: Sorry, I couldn't find any honest English resources on these French values. The articles that discuss them are either poorly translated or straight up dishonest. English-speaking people have an unfavorable image of lobbying regulation, republican universalism, and laïcité that they confuse with secularization. It's not surprising that multiculturalism doesn't work in the English-speaking world, where racism is more prevalent. Use Deepl.com to translate texts.

   Science to the rescue of Neurodiversity

Far from the woke anti-science ideology, neuroscience has continued to evolve since the 1990s. In 2022, doctoral student in education and training Kevin Rebecchi published a scientific work entitled "Neurodiversity":

"[The concept of neurodiversity] has absolutely no possible hierarchical classification. It is simply a diverse set where all variations are taken into account.
[...] And neurodiversity is only the corollary (i.e. it is in a way the result) of genetic diversity in reality, so nothing innovative or new or even revolutionary!
[...] Thus, neurodiversity simply highlights the human diversity resulting from evolution, which should be recognized and accepted in order to promote living together and envisage a better future.
[...]
The questions of the rewriting of the social norm, but also of the scientific norm are raised. It appears that despite common languages, common policies, common cultures... different perceptions, visions, consciousnesses, cognitions exist and it is a sort of symbolic revolution to be carried out. Different cognitions and different biological functioning must be considered normal and integrated into the spectrum of normality of genetics, neurobiology and cognitive psychology (just as with languages, they are all part of normality, there is no such thing as "pathological" language even though language forms different ways of thinking for all of us) and not apart from psychopathology and psychiatry, even if some argue for the creation of a separate branch of neurobiology." (Rebecchi, 2022)

In his book, Kevin Rebecchi elaborates on the various scientific research on the topic of neurodiversity, and agrees with Judy Singer's thought:

"Neurodiversity simply names a biological truism, a self-evident fact that adds nothing to what we already know about the world. You don't need a cross-disciplinary PhD in a brace of "~ologies" to figure out that every human brain on the planet is as unique as each fingerprint. It follows that there is a virtually infinite diversity of humans on the planet, with infinitely diverse minds complexified further by experience in equally diverse bodies." (Judy Singer blog)

To avoid further confusion, the term "neurotypical" (non-autistic) has also been retired from the activist vocabulary. For:

"ALL humans are neurodiverse, because each one of us has a unique brain, comprised of our genetic heritage (Nature) and cultural and experiential recordings (Nurture). Thus it can be seen that Neurodiversity is simply a catchy name for "Human Nature". This reminds us that there is an environmental basis for respecting the variability of cognitive differences, both abilities and disabilities." (Judy Singer blog)

In other words, to avoid an absurd separation between neurotypical and neurodivergent people, we avoid the label "neurotypical." Because the vocabulary "neurotypical" is prone to negative connotations or misunderstandings.
Thus, thanks to the efforts of scientists, researchers and neurodiversity activists, the concept of neurodiversity has been able to maintain its foundations, and the social movement of neurodiversity has been strengthened in the face of prejudice and instrumentalization.

   Living together from autists
Neurodiversity as a terminology and also as a social movement was developed by autists to defend neurominorities (autism, learning disabilities, psychopathy, hypersensitivity, etc.) that face prejudice and abuse. Then, Neurodiversity was defended by activists and researchers against lobbyists with dubious interests. Neurodiversity is a scientific concept, but it is also a political movement. Neurodiversity evokes a diversity of brains or cognition. The Neurodiversity movement, on the other hand, defends neurominorities against the cult of conformity. Conformity is not a bad thing, but the fact that it is held in too high esteem and made sacred is a problem. To avoid any misunderstanding, it must also be emphasized that neurodiversity is not a diagnosis. Neurodiversity is not a synonym for disability or lack thereof. Neurodiversity does not defend criminals. Neurodiversity does not attack conformity. There is no human outside or excluded from neurodiversity. And neurodiversity is not a moral principle.
Humanity is composed of variants, including neurological ones. But these variants are not intended to be factors of opposition. The diversity of humanity is the result of a great history of survival. If these neurological differences have been preserved to this day, it is not to fight each other. Let us learn to listen to each other, let us try to understand each other. Let's act together, in our common interest.
Long live neurodiversity!