bird - serial killer - autism implicated

I had a feeling that this was coming - the new menace to society for the media to create a moral panic over - the sociopath who lacks empathy blah blah. I friend of mine sent me a clip of a schizophrenia awareness advert - quite funny - it starts like a trailer for a horror movie called 'Schizo' and then just shows a bloke in a middle class family kitchen discussing his diagnosis in relation to the stereotypes. Roughly the same time, I saw a new book linking autism to socio-pathology by Micheal Fitzgerald (an author who had previously wrote about AS genius) - I remember thinking - mmm...perhaps one can make links in the cognitive theory, yet how the media will respond and manipulate it...

Then psychologists like the one mentioned in your post talk in vague terms about 'personal sovereignty' and 'persecution feelings' and it leads into a political conservatism of 'nobody has been persecuted here'; 'personal autonomy is bad for society and pathological' - it all feeds into the Hobbesian myth of man descending into a 'state of nature'. Autism is being unfortunately linked to this view of human nature and then its further manipulated by psychologists + the media to place blame within the individual - does it not occur to them that people are persecuted in this society???

The stats will begin to say (or not) that there is a link between sociopathology and autism - if that is what psychologists want to see and measure, I am sure they will find a way of creating evidence to support the notion. Yet there is a much bigger proportion of dyslexic people within the prison population than in the population as a whole - does this mean that dyslexic's are 'born criminals' - I think not!

Considering the force with which these opinions are presented, I am astounded by their lack of sociological imagination; their lack of critical thinking; their manipulation of evidence; and their lack of awareness of the consequences of describing people in such ways within the current cultural discursive climate etc. etc.

On one TV report - he was described as 'chatty', he had a girlfriend in Thailand he sent money too, she broke up with him by text message. He also had money and tax problems. Maybe he was not autistic at all, just 'anomic', isolated, stressed, jilted and unsupported.

Damian

Hello Claire,

Well - I saw it on a news program once, so I don't know the research behind it, yet it is believable. The study tested the prisoners, so didn't go on previous official diagnosis (many were undiagnosed etc.). The vast majority of the prison population are also lower class. Many of these individuals did not have the opportunities that a Guy Ritchie has to use their creative talents to make films. I imagine that they were labelled 'slow' by teachers, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy (classic labelling theory) - the child internalises the idea they will never get anywhere in a job role and become disenfranchised and anomic (more likely to break rules) and so on. Prisons are full of the socially disenfranchised of all descriptions. Being able to read and write is a passport to opportunity in society, without it and without support, people can easily slide into trouble with authorities. A criminal subculture may be the only place they find support, status and 'meritocracy' even - this can lead to the idea that the criminal fraternity are better than the mainstream one etc etc.

The 'law' and 'crime' are social constructs created by people, defined and enforced by people against other people. People who do not (cannot or will not) match up to the norms and expectations set down by the powerful, are likely to be blamed for it and punished - whether it be through stigma, mild social sanction, or coercion and incarceration. In a sense - just being born into a minority powerless group sets you up for more likelihood of problems.

This is not to say that nothing is going on internally - I see it as a transaction between the individual person(ality) and the external social world - with the latter being far more powerful.

Also - never heard of a 'communications council' before...

Damian

Hello Claire,

It sounds like your husband has come along way! I remember my primary headmistress being very patronising to my mother about me and my brother doing well at school 'considering we came from a single-parent background' etc.

Interactionists (the one's who came up with labelling theory) and some liberals would say that no person ever has the same interactive environment as anyone else. This is not enough for me to explain the difference between people. Marxists and Feminists would highlight power relations and material / cultural deprivation, empoverishment and prejudice - this is not enough either (your husband being a good example).

Conservatives and most psychologists thus look for causes in the individual, forgetting all these other influences and often 'blaming the victim'.

I see it is as an interactive process, where there is something about the person(ality) that makes them resistant or able to find a way through (other than just luck). In line somewhat with a mixture between Marxism, Interpretive paradigms and postmodern theories and 'ecological' psychology such as Ure Brofenbrenner. Although, my theories are hard to place, I would come under the general banner of 'critical theory'.

A case in point of all of this is 'social mobility' - a study back in the 70's found that 45% of professionals came from working-class backgrounds. This sounds good on the face of it - but they also found that a son of a father from a professional father was 36 times more likely to get a professional job, rather than a menial one, compared to a son of a working-class father (not to mention gender, ethnicity, disability etc.).

I would say that my AS actually protects me from the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' - when people mocked me, I just thought they were wrong and unjustifiably nasty. I was left with some feelings of resentment, but I didn't internalise any of it. The same attributes the media (and 'psychologists') are beginning to link with psychopaths are the very attributes that protected me from becoming one - personal sovereignty as a defence against persecution!

Makes me think though of what would happen if an autistic person internalised notions that they were 'disordered' and acted upon that basis...not good. This is one reason why minority groups get 'hung-up' on the use of language.

Damian

Hello Claire,

He has done very well work wise if he is on the spectrum to get as far as he has already. I can understand well about problems with colleagues and bureaucracy at work though!

It is strange the similarities and differences between me and him - both a quite stable, introverted, hard-working and principled types, yet life experience, family etc. sends you on totally different paths. Also, I could never be a policeman, especially arresting old friends. I am not very proactive or assertive and would find it impossible to 'arrest' someone.

I think that people do have a kind of niche in society, yet all too often they are cut off from reaching their potential to fill it. It seems that I have begun to find a new one for myself in my fatherhood and then my research. Figuring out that I was on the spectrum kind of pulled all the loose pieces together. Nowadays I think I am as focused as I have ever been and things are working out, as I am meeting the right kind of people and opening up the right kind of opportunities. I have the tendency to keep 'plodding', no matter how high the 'mountain' ahead of me seems to be.

Damian

There is absolutely no link showing that autism causes any sort of crime whatsoever. Bird had no diagnosis of autism, and many of the other reports of friends and acquaintances say that he was a friendly guy who loved being down the pub. Jetting off to foreign parts for holidays isn't the typical behaviour of autistic people either. If he didn't like talking to a lot of people, it could be that he was just a bit shy.

Autism does not equal being a psychopath and I do wish newspapers wouldn't suggest it was.
If it was someone who is, say, deaf, who went on a mass killing spree, would they suggest that being deaf was the cause of it? And would anyone expect people to avoid all deaf people, just in case?
This kind of negative publicity around nothing more than a reporter's musings does so much damage to autistic people and it makes me sad.