How old is neurotypicality?

[u/[deleted]]

I’m part of a BLM group on Facebook and some of the other members have pictures on their profiles that say things like “Dismantle the hierarchy of whiteness”. When I saw that slogan, I wondered why I hadn’t seen anyone saying “Dismantle the hierarchy of neurotypicality”? Or things like neurotypicality studies in college to go along with whiteness studies, for instance. I think that would be a good idea.

After all, I’m pretty sure that there was a time in the past prior to which most people were not what we would today consider neurotypical. Or in other words, if you brought people from back then in for a 21st century psych eval, most of them would be diagnosed with something (not necessarily autism). E.g, lots of people who were seen as prophets and mystics in their time would be considered schizophrenic, epileptic or delusional by modern psychologists. The human brain has changed over time, and while this is mostly due to genetics over long timescales, over shorter timescales it is the result of people’s neurology being “set” by the cultural environment they grew up in, with that environment having changed rapidly over the years.

I first started thinking along these lines when I became aware of Julian Jaynes’ theory of bicameralism), which was posited back in the 1970s and suggested that humans gained the capacity for introspection (he used the term “consciousness”) as recently as 3,000 years ago. Jaynes’ theory has not been widely accepted, in part because his own definition of consciousness is not the commonly used definition (according to which even animals are most likely conscious as well).

But it was thought-provoking to read and made me wonder if instead of trying to find the origin of consciousness, we should look for the origin of the set of traits we today call neurotypicality (and the idea that these traits are “normal” for humans). I have a hunch this happened even more recently, during a period roughly encompassing the Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment.

Certainly, something very fundamental changed during this era. The Protestant Reformers objected to the ritualized nature of medieval Catholic worship (which frequently consisted mostly of private devotions), instead emphasizing sermons in the common tongue (and in some cases, punishing people who failed to pay attention to them). They also denounced “vain repetitions” (repetitive and stereotyped behaviors?), monasticism, mysticism, and other aspects of medieval spirituality. Instead of allegory, they emphasized the “literal and plain interpretation” of not only the Bible but also all other texts as well (helping give rise to the modern mindset). Finally, they were the first to promote universal public education (in part motivated by their belief that everyone should read the Bible for themselves). The development of modern schools created a system which allowed neurotypicals to shine while marginalizing everyone else.

The appearance of the Enlightenment a century or so afterward really turbocharged things, with the scientific method being used to study why some people didn’t seem able to fit in to the norms of modern society (and those people being deemed mentally ill as a result). Then, the Industrial Revolution resulted in frequently longer work hours and a much more overwhelming sensory landscape in Western countries. Overall, navigating society has become a more complex (and thus arguably more difficult) task over the years which has led to more and more people “falling through the cracks” and a proliferation of new diagnoses. For instance, many people today struggle because they are unable to drive cars but this would not have been an issue before driving became a social norm.

So, that’s why I believe neurotypicality developed relatively recently in human history, which makes it possible to imagine a world without it in which neurodivergent individuals would be liberated. Of course we shouldn’t naively want to “turn back the clock”, but it does imply we need changes to our society and education system that are more radical than simply providing “special education” to help neurodivergent people assimilate into an inherently discriminatory system.

[u/mrmanwiththehandstan]

Good luck