Contemporary American society seems obsessed with inclusion.
Homosexuality has gone from a crime to being openly celebrated. Adultery is no longer an offense punishable by death and would-be adulterers now can legally find partners on the Internet with scant worry about the consequences. Poking fun at transexuals or cross dressers can be prosecuted as a hate crime, and human weaknesses such as obesity and drug use are openly tolerated. Gambling and prostitution are no longer stigmatized. Ridiculing an ugly person makes one guilty of “lookism.”
The normalization of the once marginalized is ongoing, and the very idea of “normal” itself is under attack. Mechanisms that sustained social cohesion—ostracizing, stigma, shunning, marginalization and exclusion—are now evils.
Where will it end? Let me suggest that mental illness is the next candidate for inclusion so, the former “crazy person” will no longer be scorned and avoided as potentially threatening. The term for this new inclusion is neurodiversity, and members of the neurodiversity community will be “the same as everybody else though different,” a characterization lacking any moral opprobrium. As we now accept people with myriad gender identities, society will have to accommodate the neurodiverse.
This new inclusion is on the march. A Neurodiversity celebration week is scheduled for next March, and a book targeting young girls is entitled, Rebel Girls Celebrate Neurodiversity: 25 Tales of Creative Thinkers A report by the prestigious consulting firm, McKinsey & Co,, asserts, “,,,neurodiversity can be a competitive advantage for organizations that embrace neurodiversity.” . According to one estimate, some 20% of the population qualifies as neurodiverse.
The inclusionary zeal begins at elite universities and thus gains instant respectability. Last April the University of Michigan ran a conference on the topic. A recent article from the Harvard Medical School defined “neurodiversity” as bringing mental illness into to realm of normal versus a condition suggesting a deficiency to be remediated: “Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one “right” way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits.” The label “mentally ill” is about to be history. Instead, there are “neurological minorities,” and this transformation joins the social justice movement that liberated homosexuals, the obese and similarly oppressed minorities.
What defines “mental illness” since absent a definition, it is unclear who, exactly, will be included in neurodiversity. The good news is that The American Psychiatric Association publishes a door stopper, The Diagnostic Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (typically called DSM-5), that catalogues mental illnesses, their symptoms and data on their incidence (DSM is often called the psychiatrist’s Bible). Familiar illnesses include Autism Spectrum Disorder, Eating Discarders, Major Depressive Disorder, Schizophrenia, and Sleep-Wake Disorders, among many, many more. So, if a person claims to be neurodiverse, i.e.,, suffers from mental illness, just look up the symptoms in DSM-5, and decide on then appropriate label.
Unfortunately, admission to the “neurodiverse community” is not so simple. For one, as knowledge increases, the definition of a “mental illness” evolves (DSM was initially published in 1952), and each new edition re-defines the pathology landscape. For example, DSM once defined homosexuality as a treatable disorder but due to political pressure, in 1973 that classification was dropped. Today, however, DSM includes “Gender Dysphoria,” a condition that has exploded into public prominence and can justify surgery transforming young girls into young boys and vice versa.
Nevertheless, despite efforts at precision, many definitions remain fuzzy, and criteria can allow identically classified people to exhibit different symptoms. Nor can DSM be applied like a birdwatcher’s handbook since accurate diagnoses require extensive professional medical training. What, for example, separates occasionally feeling “blue” from suffering from a Major Depressive Disorder? Some disorders such as autism are spectrum disorders where those afflicted are nearly identical to normal people, so categorization is difficult. Experts might also reasonably disagree over what separates a bad habit from a serious disorder (Internet Gaming Disorder is now included in DSM-5)
Multiple other complexities make the neurological diversity categories different from demographic classification. Applying the “mentally ill” designation requires professional training unlike sorting people according clear-cut ancestry or overt behavior such as homosexuality. Similarly, while self-reporting may suffice for commonplace personal identities, very few people can technically definite a specific mental illness.
What if activists push government to add neurological conditions into anti-discrimination laws? Now, those suffering from mental illness are similarly protected as those with certain sexual and racial identities. Such a transformation is hardly hyperbole—think of how Title IX, a law designed to protect women athletes, was re-interpreted to permit trans men to participate in women’s sports. Perhaps an Executive Order or a single judicial decision could make neurodiversity a condition deserving legal protection.
The impact would far exceed adding such categories as transgendered to the protected list. The inherent murkiness of “mental illness” and the myriad disputes among professionals, would make neurodiversity” a bonanza for lawyers. Anybody now could assert some invisible mental disorder and thereby claim discrimination. A terminated employee can argue that the job itself brought about DSM-5 defined Social Communication Disorder, Dishonest, violent employ might as for “special accommodations” due to their alleged, difficult to ascertain, “illness.” For a fee quack experts will testify that one’s mental disorder is genuine. Facing the prospect of expensive litigation, businesses may even be stymied from firing an employee with a dangerous psychopathic personality disorder.
Misrepresentation will be rampant. Compared to claiming a false ethnic identity, asserting that one suffers from one of numerous DSM-defined personality disorders is a snap. Recall when young men gamed the system with bogus illnesses to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.
Today’s victimhood status can also be an asset, not a liability, so why should the mentally ill seek a cure? For them, neurodiversity, like protected racial and gender identities, bestows benefits. After all, the mentally ill promote diversity. Ironically, rewarding mental illness status may only increase it. For example, according to the CDC, between 2016 and 2022, the number of children claiming to be afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder increased by one million. Undoubtedly, this increase reflects such benefits as receiving extra time to take exams.
The push to make neurodiversity yet one more trait needing legal protection is an awaiting disaster. Unfortunately, the formula for including it in the already long list of legal protections is easy to copy. First, identify a marginalized and stigmatized group, then publicize the inflicted damaged from this exclusion, add a few prestige experts who will assert that their inclusion will benefit society (“diversity is our strength”), politically mobilize the group, including their families, and, finally, convince a few bureaucrats or judges that mainstreaming this once ostracized community is “social justice,” and it’s a done deal. One more group of victims now requires legal protection from “hate” and those who disagree will be castigated as being mentalillnessphobic.
It would be insane not to stop this inclusion before it gains traction.
Image: Intervex, via Wikimedia Commons // CC0 1.0 public domain
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