Reflections on the Neurodiversity Paradigm

Abstract

The highly-rated Sage Journals:Autism has published an "Open Letter" authored by a group of 6 Northern Hemisphere authors, Chapman, Walker et al. Their letter seeks to downgrade my contribution to the Neurodiversity discourse. Their "correction" is riddled with false allegations.

This post is intended to correct their erroneous so-called "corrections", and a copy will be sent to the publishers.

Introduction

CLICK TO ENLARGE

A group of six individuals identifying themselves as "an international group of autistic scholars of autism and neurodiversity"’ have achieved the publication of a defamatory ‘open letter’ that undermines my pioneering role in the development of the Neurodiversity paradigm . This letter
appeared in the esteemed academic journal Sage Publications.

The 6 authors claim that they are offering a "correction" of my reputation, ostensibly "in the public interest".

I intend to show their so-called "correction" is in fact Misinformation at best (assuming their motives are unimpeachable). At worst, I would hope, not deliberate Disinformation

It is outrageous and disappointing that such highly respected academics and scholars would stoop so low. It has taken months of my time and energy to refute their claims, and there has been

a huge impost on my emotional and physical wellbeing.

It is understandable given the reputation of these scholars that Sage Journals' has accepted their immaculately laid out and referenced piece. But now that I have presented Sage with my extensive rebuttal of the authors' mendacious claims, and asked them to redact the article, the editor of Sage Journals Autism has dug her heels in and refused, thus:

STOP PRESS!

The Sage Publications legal team responded thus to my complaint about the many false allegations by my prime contenders in the Neurodiversity paradigm, Dr Robert J. Chapman, Nick Walker and a few of their devotees. Sage claims that:

"The publication was in accordance with our standard practices

and all legal requirements - reviewed by both the editor and numerous people with expertise in the matter concerned."

It does not say much for Sage editor Kerry Barner, or her team of “expert fact checkers”, that they did not approach me when they might reasonably have assumed that I would obviously possess original documents. Which I do.

Note that I cannot afford a "legal team" to go against the mighty multinational Sage Corporation.

Thanks to my scurrilous detractors, I have not had any paid work since July 2023. I subsist on the scant Australian Age Pension.

I can only assume that Sage's expert fact checkers have not realised that there is actually a Southern Hemisphere and that "here be scholars".

Discussion

The prestigious academic journal Sage Publications has posted an "open letter" aimed at diminishing my role in the development of the Neurodiversity discourse. The letter was submitted by a group of 6 northern hemisphere individuals who describe themselves as an "international group of autistic scholars of autism and neurodiversity"

The authors are Monique Botha, Robert Chapman, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, Steven Kapp, Abbs Stannard Ashley and Nick Walker.

I will show that the authors' letter is riddled with errors and misrepresentations which belie the research skills and ethics such highly-qualified scholars are expected to possess.

I am amazed by the group's foolhardiness: did the possibility not occur to them that I might have original documents? Indeed I do, and can thus offer a genuine correction of their so-called "correction".

I will not attempt to guess (at least in print) this group's motivation in submitting such an easily refuted mish-mash of wishful misinformation, and will leave it to readers to draw your own conclusions..

Click to view full refutation
on Dropbox
Refutation

You can view the detailed paragraph by paragraph refutation on Dropbox. Yes, you will find it ia complicated because lies are simple but truth is complex.

NB: If you have been influenced by the Sage letter and

intend referencing it, please exercise due diligence and

read this first.

Misrepresentations

The first misrepresentation - albeit minor compared to what follows - is that the 6 authors appropriate for themselves the rubric of an "international" group. They constitute a Northern Hemisphere Anglosphere cartel, as they gained their qualifications in the USA and UK, thus benefitting from the North's intellectual hegemony.

For the record, my qualifications are from an Australian University. My work is thus from the Southern Hemisphere. We Oceanians know only too well the colonising tendencies of the geographic "North". Unfortunately I cannot afford to go north to "network" and promote myself. But I will not sit quietly when these Northerners attempt to colonise my work and do their utmost to sideline me and cast shadows over my reputation.

Criticism is not the same as Critique

Social Science scholars welcome critique - that is the very basis of the scientific method. But critique is supposed to be based on verifiable and accredited facts, expressed in respectful dialogue. It is thus disappointing to find that the information provided by the six authors is based on:

unreliable testimonies from non-academic source(s)
a failure to follow accepted academic practice by checking original documents
social media gossip
misinterpretations (or willful disinterpretations?) which would clearly be recognised as self-serving by all but the most innocent reader... or the average scandal-loving troll.

Are the six authors engaging in wilful competitive sledging? Or is it simply wishful thinking by envious rivals trying to clamber over each other up the greasy pole to academic glory? Whichever the case, it is immaterial because scholars and academics are meant to research their claims, and it is glaringly obvious that the six authors have failed to do so.

Relying on Unreliable Memoirs

It is hugely dispiriting to find that these credentialed scholars, including a couple of luminaries of the "Neurodiversity" discourse, continue to rely on the testimonies and "memories" of a non-scholar, Martijn "McDutchie" Dekker. I have comprehensively rebutted Dekker's libellous op-ed several months ago. If you possess an academic background and have the accompanying responsibilities of transparency and accountability, or even if you are not an academic but have a serious interest in this issue, my rebuttal of Dekker's unscholarly opinions and memories is pre-requisite reading.

More so, it is disturbing that the combined research skills of these eminent Doctors of Philosophy did not extend to the most basic tenets of fact-checking, i.e.

going back to original source document
interviewing the subject of their allegations before rushing into print.

There are several possible explanation for such outstanding negligence:

Educational standards have fallen so low that anyone can get a doctorate without basic research skills.
JS: Clearly this is not the case. This cartel have excellent research skills, unless they choose to disregard them
Northern Hemisphere doctoral programs do not include a formal ethics review.
JS: This is hard to believe. Bit if if the G6 were not required to complete an ethics component, can we conclude that they have no innate ability to distinguish right from wrong without supervision?
Wilful disregard and fear of accidentally discovering evidence that does not support their urgent need to supersede me
Could it be humanly possible that their scurrilous letter was born of unbearable resentment and frustration that they "coulda, shoulda, woulda" thought of the "Neurodiversity" buzzword first themselves? But didn't.

I am not hard to find, and indeed Chapman has contacted me by video conference in the past. I need hardly point out that it is so much easier to libel a fellow scholar if you don't have to "look them in the eye" (In the case of autistics who, like myself, can have difficulty with eye-contact, I mean "at least be in the presence of the accused, by whatever means, whether video, audio or otherwise").

The Blume Issue:

I attribute the constant accreditation off the term Neurodiversity to American freelance journalist Harvey Blume to what I like to call "a potent cocktale" (sic) of sexism and north-centricism. Perhaps it is difficult for northerners to believe that southern hemisphere people, and female to boot, are capable of coming up with big ideas all by ourselves!

If the authors had made even the slightest effort to contact me before thundering in to discredit me, or had they shown even a modicum of common sense, they might have learned some basic facts. Including that I have retained my correspondence with Harvey Blume, which shows, unsurprisingly, that he knew nothing about disability politics, and learned the term "neurodiversity" from me. It is galling that Blume often gets equal billing with me in the history of Neurodiversity, when he was simply a freelance journalist specialising in interviewing literary figures, who happened to learn the term from me in online and phone conversations.

Blume wrote on the topic of “autistics in cyberspace” once or twice, a quarter century ago (!), then moved on to chase other rabbits.

Meanwhile, this was my life's work, born out of great hardship and struggle, and written in 1998 because I didn't want others affect by Autism to have to endure the same.

Amateur sources e.g. Wikipedia

I blame Wikipedia and its amateur editors. But so much more culpable are those lazy academics who use Wikipedia as a research authority.

I would hope the academic authors have not been relying on Wikipedia's nameless and self-appointed northern "editors" and their dubious qualifications - if these people have any. These amateurs have been playing around with my entry for going on 3 decades now. I long ago gave up trying to set the record straight with them.

It seems to be completely beyond Wikipedia's amateur so-called "editors" to imagine that someone who is neither American nor Male can nevertheless be capable of coming up with a "Big Idea" all by ourselves!

Nor do journalistic ethics or the laws of defamation appear to daunt the Wikipedia crew. Hardly surprising, since they well know that defamation cases can only be afforded by corporations and billionaires.

Follow up with Sage

My detailed refutation of the authors’ self-serving claims is currently with the editor of Sage Publications, Kerry Barner. Despite my extensive documention, she has refused my request to withdraw the authors’ scurrilous letter. However she has offered space for me to refute them. Great! I am in my 70s. I am supposed to be cleaning up my affairs aka "Swedish Death Cleaning". Thanks’ to Barner’s intransigence, am I to spend my remaining time on this earth on refuting these despicable calumnies? It appears that while liars can say anything they damn well please, their victims have to be absolutely meticulous, because those who are driven by envy and malice will make a mountain out of a molehill of the tiniest ambiguity. I has taken months out of my life already just to write this blog piece in accessible language.

As I have said previously in this blog, with reference to Dekker's calumnies:

A lie will travel around the world while the truth is putting its boots on

Whether the six authors’s allegations are deliberately made in bad faith, or simply based on wishful thinking cherry-picked from social media gossip is irrelevant.

Ignorance of the laws of defamation is not a legal excuse.

We are meant to have an innate moral and ethical sense!

Luckily for the six authors, I can't afford a lawyer

And so much for Solidarity and Collegiality
in the Neurodivergent Community!

* Libel is a defamatory statement that is written. Slander is a defamatory statement that is oral.

** Excuse the Freudian Slip. It's the truth though. Also, I'm aware that several members of this crew are female. The feminist concept of false consciousness is relevant. It may feel more powerful and useful to side with the dominant group.

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APPENDIX

Note for the academically minded

This is a personal blog article, I have not written this letter in high flown academese, which posits itself as "pure fact without emotional bias". As a sociologist, and in accordance with the views of feminist sociology, I have long critiqued the actual impossibility of "what epistemologists have called the false objectivity of the stance of positivist social research, which they dub “the view from nowhere” (Haraway, 1991, Thesis P21 ). Feminist philosophers like Sandra Harding have instead insisted that researchers must reveal their biases their standpoints, in what can be called “a view from somewhere”. (ibid)

Positioning myself: I am

an adult biological female
the 3rd of at least 4 generations of autistic women
a shy, nerdy child, a born outsider diagnosed after nearly 50 years only when Asperger Syndrome was recognised in the 1990s

I built on that legacy to write the first sociological exploration of the rise of what I called "a new social movement based on neurological diversity", in the course of which I coined the term "Neurodiversity" to suggest a catchy banner term for that movement.

References

Thesis

Singer, J. (1998). Odd People In: The Birth of Community Amongst People on the “Autistic Spectrum”: a personal exploration of a New Social Movement based on Neurological Diversity. A thesis presented to the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts Social Science (Honours), Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, University of Technology, Sydney, 1998.

Book

Singer, J. (2016) NeuroDiversity: The birth of an idea. Kindle version. Retrievable from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/NeuroDiversity-Birth-Idea-Judy-Singer /dp/B01HY0QTEE/

Book Chapters

Singer, J. (1999). Why can't you be normal for once in your life?: From a 'Problem with No Name' to a new category of disability. In Corker, M. and French, S. (Eds.). Disability Discourse Open University Press UK https://www.worldcat.org/title/disability-discourse/oclc/39182312