(no subject)

[skygiants]

Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports From My Life With Autism is much more interesting than a book that is essentially the autobiography of the world's foremost livestock-equipment designer has any right to be. (This is another nonfiction book that was passed along to me by genarti.) Temple Grandin writes very clearly and honestly about her interactions with the world as a non-neurotypical person, and how this has affected her life and her career, and things that she thinks might be helpful to other people on the autism spectrum; it's not a book I would have picked up on my own but it is, I think, valuable to read.

That being said, I really, really wish it did not have the introduction it did; it bothered me all the way through the rest of the book. Because while Temple Grandin herself is all about neurodiversity, Oliver Sacks in the introduction spends a lot of time exclaiming about how amazing it is that Temple Grandin can almost interact with the world like a normal person! and on first meeting her you would hardly know she was autistic at all! An autistic person can have a sense of humor, they can have "moral and spiritual depths," WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT. It's all very weirdly othering. I am not really qualified to talk much in-depth about the autism spectrum except from the perspective of a friend, and I realize that people on the autism spectrum often approach emotion a very different way, but it would not really occur to me to be shocked, shocked that a person with Asperger's is NOT IN FACT A ROBOT? I think that is probably kind of offensive! Especially coming from someone who has in fact made his career out of working with non-neurotypical people!

I know Oliver Sacks is quite famous and his books are supposed to be very witty and clever, but if this is the way he generally talks about his patients I don't think I'll be reading them.

Comments

[furikku.livejournal.com]

IIRC I think Sacks was diagnosed as Asperger's, so. :/

[skygiants]

Really? Then . . . I find that intro even stranger!

[furikku.livejournal.com]

I can only assume that he's writing for the really ignorant NTs out there that have only got pop culture images of folks with autism to go by. vOv

Either way, it's still p. skeezy. :/

[skygiants]

Could be. :/ I don't know, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

But I could also be biased by the fact that I've also heard Sacks described as "the man who mistook his patients for a literary career."

[furikku.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't have enough details on the background, beyond "Sacks published some books about interesting neurological cases and also has prosopagnosia," although I think he'd have to at least get permission from patients to publish anything about them like that for ethics reasons, so. vOv

(I mean, that wouldn't necessarily mean that he done good or anything, but.)

[skygiants]

Yeah, I don't know very much either other than that his books are famous and a lot of people enjoy them. Which is fine! And that my mom (who is a neurologist) is sort of professionally dubious about him, as I recall, but not, like, ranty; as far as I'm aware he hasn't done anything unethical or anything like that.

[furikku.livejournal.com]

I would probably trust your mom's judgment over mine. XD

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

In that case, maybe he's protesting too much?

[furikku.livejournal.com]

Like I said at Becca, I would guess he's trying to write for ignorant NTs and ending up swallowing his foot.

But I don't know either way, so it could just be plain boneheadedness.

[ceitfianna]

I read his essay, "The Man Who Mistook his wife for a Hat" in one of my classes and wasn't terribly impressed.

He was making good observations but he just didn't come across as someone I'd want to know or read more of.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that's about the size of it. I mean, this introduction is a very brief sample of his writing! But it in no way made me want to read more.

. . . that being said, Temple Grandin is a pretty interesting writer!

[ceitfianna]

Her name's familiar since there was a made for tv movie about her that apparently had good reviews. I'll look into it since more non-fiction is always nice.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

it would not really occur to me to be shocked, shocked that a person with Asperger's is NOT IN FACT A ROBOT?

There's been some pretty nasty shootings with possible hate-crime motivations in the town where I work, and when a suspect was caught and turned out to maybe have Asperger's, the evening press angled it as "THIS EXPLAINS ALL since people with Asperger's have NO EMPATHY", to which the Asperger associations went "WTF YOU DICKS" and now there's a huge media controversy about whether it's unethical to describe Asperger's as the "reason" behind serial killing. So, yeah, othering, but perhaps needed.

As for Oliver Sacks in general, he does sometimes fall into the "THIS IS SO WEIRD, ISN'T IT AWESOME HOW WEIRD THIS IS," but he does the same thing in the book that describes his own experiences as a patient, so maybe that's a mitigating factor, I don't know.

[skygiants]

I think, having gone and reread the bits that bothered me, that what makes me take it so poorly is not that it's played as "hey guys, people on the autism spectrum ARE NOT ROBOTS after all," it's played as "Temple Grandin is so exceptional! She's autistic BUT NONETHELESS she has moral and spiritual depth!" Which: I would not wish to take away from any discussions of Temple Grandin being awesome, but discussing her as an exception to perceived rules is not really doing a lot to change perceptions as a whole, you know?

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That does sound rather terrible.

[furikku.livejournal.com]

the evening press angled it as "THIS EXPLAINS ALL since people with Asperger's have NO EMPATHY"

n- no, guys, that's spelt "antisocial personality disorder," not "Asperger's syndrome." I know they both start with A, but they are very different words!

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm all, "...you do know there's a difference between caring if you hurt people but not noticing, and noticing if you hurt people but not caring, right?"

[agonistes]

I am bitter at Oliver Sacks due to patient gossip. I wanted science of what music does in your brain, and instead I got society pages with added condescension. >:(

Temple Grandin, on the other hand, I have been meaning to check out! She's a professor up at CSU AND she wore Rockmount to the Emmys! BADASS

[skygiants]

Music does interesting things in your brain, from the little I know! (Poking at bits of people's brains during surgery can actually make them hear certain bits of music playing sometimes in their head! Which: FASCINATING.) It is disappointing that Oliver Sacks does not convey this well. :(

But Temple Grandin is indeed well worth checking out!