Darwin’s Children?
Filed Under (Activism, Communication, Critical Disability Studies) by Estee on 06-04-2009
In the seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch ships came ashore to the new land and killed natives because they were perceived as “pests.” In 1828, The British Captain Robert Fitzroy arrived on a survey mission for the Royal Navy. Fitzroy took four natives as captive back to England to transform them into “civilized” people. “After nine months of religious schooling, [the natives] were summoned to appear at the court of King William IV and Queen Adelaide, where Fuegia Basket [a name ascribed to one of the native girls in England] was presented with a lace bonnet, a ring and a small dowry. To fulfill his goal of bringing Christianity to Tierra del Fuego, Fitzroy set sail on December 27th, 1831 on the 240-ton bark HMS Beagle with seventy-four crew members, and Anglican catechist who would establish a mission with his three converts, and a recent graduate of Cambridge, the young naturalist Charles Darwin.” (p. 90 Blessed Unrest).
As Paul Hawken writes, Darwin had only seen natives clad in “civilized” clothing up until the time he reached the New World. He did not expect to see, I imagine, Fuegians clad in seal blubber. He could barely accept that the Fuegians were members of the human race. He said, “I could not believe how wide was the difference between a savage and a civilized man: it is greater than between a domesticated and wild animal, in as much as in man there is a greater power of improvement.” (Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle: Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World, New York: Modern Library, 2001. p.122).
Like most of us, Darwin’s powers of observation failed him. Darwin was, Hawken notes, surprised by the Fuegian’s ability to mimic — they could do so with language, right down to entire sentences, coughs, facial expressions. Yet, “because he could not easily distinguish words in their own native language, [Darwin] concluded that they were merely repeating a few simple phrases and thus had a very small vocabulary.” (p.91). Darwin said, “Their language does not deserve to be called articulate: Capt Cook says it is like a man clearing his throat; to which may be added another very hoarse man trying to shout & a third encouraging a horse with that peculiar noise which is made in one side of the mouth…I believe if the world was searched, no lower grade of man could be found.”
Because Darwin didn’t understand the Fuegian language, because they were not like him, he deemed them barbaric. Little did he know that Fuegian culture was ripe with “animated and nuanced conversation.” Thomas Bridges, an orphan adopted by a missionary family, “spent twenty-one years compiling a dictionary of 32,430 words and inflections [of the Fuegians], a number that was comparable to Japanese vocabulary, before accounting for Chinese and English influences. Because Bridges died in 1898, before the dictionary was completed, we are left to imagine the sum of the Yamana vocabulary. [Yamana is the Fuegian language].
“As you turn the pages of this remarkable document, you realize that there seems to be a precise word to describe every moment in their life. To appreciate the intelligence required to understand and use 32,430 words, consider that Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, contained 42,773 words. Shakespeare is credited with having used 29,066 different text words in his complete works, but in terms of truly distinct words, and disregarding overlapping usages, there are fewer than 20,000 words but will use no more than 1,500 to 2,000 over the course of the week. Half of the conversational vocabulary of an American teenager consists of fewer than forty words.” (Hawken, p.92)
Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest is about the loss of indigenous cultures, abuse of the environment, free-market fundamentalism and social justice. He notes that with the loss of a language comes the extermination of a culture.
Autistic people and the disabled community call themselves a culture, to which there has been vitriolic response from non disabled communities, namely parents and caregivers. I have to question, then, what constitutes a culture and why the self-appropriation of “autistic culture” by autistic self-advocates has become so offensive to some care-giving groups. One automatically assumes that anger is generated by a fear of loss — services, empathy, pity, perhaps. This has been the assumption by disability rights activists, after all. Yet why the contest? I personally see no reason why thousands of people who come together and self-appropriate “culture” is not just as valid for autistic people as it is with Native people, Black people, Asian people, Jewish people and so forth.
I am herein beginning to make a case for autistic culture. I am pointing out that our autistic children, privy to the same, potentially harmful assumptions that they are of lower value because they are not understood by society-at-large, are not Darwin’s children, yet, they are treated no differently in most cases than Darwin treated and referred to the Fuegians.
This will not be my complete essay on the topic. I am only suggesting that a culture, by virtue of the following definitions we’ve used to ascribe a people as a culture are:
” – a particular society at a particular time and place; ‘early Mayan civilization’
– the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
– acculturation: all the knowledge and values shared by a society
– (biology) the growing of microorganisms in a nutrient medium (such as gelatin or agar); ‘the culture of cells in a Petri dish’
- the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization; ‘the developing drug culture; “the reason that the agency is doomed to inaction has something to do with the FBI culture’
– grow in a special preparation; ‘the biologist grows microorganisms’
– the raising of plants or animals; ‘the culture of oysters’ “(Source: Wordnet)
It seems to me that autistic people, or people within the autistic culture, share these attributes. The most highly disrespected aspect to autistic culture, and perhaps the least investigated from a point of validity, is autistic language — an “agent” of autistic culture. That is, as long as we view autistic behaviour and actions as irrelevant and deviant, much like Darwin did to the Feugians, we are potentially missing a rich dynamic system and people. In a world where English is used everywhere and we are homogenizing world-wide mostly in the name of business, we will kill off indigenous cultures by the thousands. Hawken’s writes “A language dies when it is not spoken to a new generation of children. At the rate of decline we are now experiencing, half of our living cultural heritage will disappear in a single generation.” Language, many linguists state, is a distinct way of experiencing and sharing dreams, ideals, visions of life itself.
“A Western bias about belonging to a superior culture is valid only if we use selective yardsticks,” writes Hawken. “Rather than assuming people want to surrender to Western values we would be wiser to consider the loss of language as yet another indicator of worldwide collapse of ecosystems…” (Hawken, p.95).
Can we define, narrow down, or record a distinctive autistic “language?” Is autistic language and modes of expression systematized? It seems to me we have absolutely recorded many of the nuances of autistic language and behaviour — the latter which of course is a form of language. Just look at the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual). Like Darwin who put on a set of glasses with a view to calling native culture “inferior,” the DSM uses similar terms of inferiority to define what autistic people and their language are not, rather than what they are. If we can observe and categorize a group of people as “deficient,” then the opposite can be true. Autistic people, like other indigenous peoples, are in and of themselves distinct — a group with their own language, behaviours, modes of expression, art and for the most part, values.
Adam’s language contains thousands of nuances, combinations and permutations — gesture, noises, words, typing, singing, and more, which I have come to understand quite well. I have not yet sat down to describe every single utterance, but as you note on this blog, I sometimes do try to record things for the sake of suggesting that his language is just as valid as mine.
I would strongly encourage everyone to consider that autistic culture is something we should cherish, not perish. Darwin’s view was that there were “higher” and “lower” kinds of people, something that autistic people can attest still exists when others define them. We don’t have to put on rose-coloured glasses to see autistic culture, we just have to consider changing the lens.
ESTÉE KLAR
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
Writer/Curator/Founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. Lecturer on autism & the media, and parenting. Graduate student Critical Disability Studies, York University. I like to write about our journey, musings, attitudes towards autism.
Looks at her children and thinks…. why would I ever want them not to be fully independant adults?? Why should I refuse them that opportunity?? Why should I refuse them the ability to communicate, read, write, attend University.
Why would I like to leave them at the mercy of society forever and the hopes that society will look after them when I’m gone.
Sorry…. we’re aiming for independance, education, and having our own lives and family that isn’t dependant on someone else.
My epic is slowly being written…. I’ve gotten off my fence. My FSW is coming to read what I’ve got done so far tomorrow and my MP knows it coming… I’m fighting for an education for my children. Someone has to combat the “evolution, culture, please don’t educate the children b/c it’s cruel” stance.
I think adults with autism have one huge fear – change. They hate change. They hate the thought that if those children born after them can be educated and off the “dole”, than those powers-that-be that control their $$$ will want to know why they can’t work and become independant. I have noticed that these “autistics” don’t like Dr Temple Grandin and other autistics that think it’s not a culture and that they should join mainstream society.
Which one’s right…. personally, I’m hoping my children turn out like Dr Temple Grandin… educated and independant.
And what if a person is not fully independent? That, in fact is reality.
I actually find your comment very distressing and discriminatory.
To add, you’ve read my blog long enough to know that everyone has the right to have access to education. Why don’t you start your own blog??
“A few moments from Alex’s 2005 Bluefield High School graduation ceremony including his receiving his diploma and awards.”(video)
“Why don’t you start your own blog??”
Wrong question…..
“Blog has been removed
Sorry, the blog at farmwifetwo.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.”
(“Why did you delete your blog?” would be more appropriate)
Jypsy, you are right. I do recall now. That is a good question as to why the blog has been removed.
I think Farmwife is mad at me because I couldn’t meet her last time she was in Toronto. I apologized, but I think since then she got a little angry with me.
Farmwife, you constant emails and comments which make VAST assumptions about me and my life are just silly. You know very little. To cast a wide brush (after all these years as I know you’ve been reading my blog for a long time), and suggest that I just expect Adam to evolve with no education or life experience or assistance is again, just silly.
You accuse me of not being activist enough. I am on Inclusion Committees and work behind the scenes. I can give you my current resume if you wish, but most of it is already on the TAAProject website (although it’s not recently updated).
Rather than assuming, let’s just stick with the important ideas. Education, independence, dependence, interdependence, intelligence, autism, disability, are not exclusive.
The point is very basic. Autistic people are not accepted as valued members of society, if so valued more so, would receive better access and education and be better able to contribute to the world overall.
If your child doesn’t turn out to be Temple Grandin (and let’s face it, the average child won’t turn into Dr. Temple Grandin), then where does that leave you? Perhaps we all have to manage our expectations and keep moving along the road of grace, acceptance, social justice and human decency.
When I said “You know very little…” I meant “you know very little about me or my life.”
I am autistic. I speak and walk and generally behave in autistic ways. I attend a university, too! Am I independent? Not really. Without the support of my partner and a few close friends and a boss who understands my accommodation needs, I’d be in quite a bit of trouble! I do have my “own life” just as much as anyone who has a husband or wife or other supportive family member. I have challenges, but I am not miserable.
I don’t really like change, but I’m not afraid of other peoples’ progress either. I just don’t agree that there’s only one right way to do things. It’s a sad thought to me that we should all need to be the same.
Some people need public assistance. I may need it some day. If I do have to go “on the dole” or if anyone’s child should happen to grow up to be a person who needs public assistance, well, I certainly hope that person can be respected as a fully human individual nevertheless.
In the context of ethnic minorities seeking to preserve their cultures, it’s quite common for bigots to claim that civil rights activists are all on welfare, too lazy and/or stupid to work or get an education, and so forth.
Same garbage, different target.
Hey there I want to turn out better than Dr Temple Grandin.
That is to say educated but not ignorant (of autism as it exists beyond her personal construct of it)
Temple G should stick to her own field or animal science, autism is not her speciality and she is certainly not an expert.
At least my doctorate will essentially be in Autism.
Mind you education in any “endeavour” is better than non.
Even anthropology, though they have a lot to answer for.
Heres hoping that farmwifetwo’s children live to be as educated as, and as old as Claude Levi Strauss who will be 101 this year.
Whether he is still living independently or not I do not know.
I find the accusation that autie’s fear change to be ironic… Who says the concepts of education, independence and mainstream society can’t change? Tomorrow’s mainstream might not look anything like today’s. Who’s afraid of change?
Sometimes I think that language IS the problem…we have all of these names and tiltes and definitions..we catagorize and label..all the while forgetting the one thing we all have in common-we are human. I know that sounds naive..Is it the defining that impedes acceptance? I was reading through the comments-and I too have to say that “farmwifes” scared me. Yes, I want all of my children to have every opportunity-education, services, a joyful life. What if, even with access to those things-they can’t live independantely? Does that make them somehow less? less important? Less deserving? That is a bit too “Orwellian” for me.
@farmwifetwo: Your trolling is obvious and of low quality; no better than Doherty’s. I don’t believe Estee has ever said she doesn’t want her child to be fully independent.
You’re creating straw-men and putting words in people’s mouths.
Joseph,
That’s absolutely true. In fact, I relish that he becomes more so by the day. But that does not mean that I would not accept him or think he was of lesser “value” if he wasn’t. It does not mean that if he does not become Dr. Temple Grandin, I would be disappointed. I’ve learned to appreciate everything in Adam. Perhaps because I’m an older mother, I don’t know. Adam sure has taught me so much grace.
We are talking about simple prejudice here, dare I say. As I said in the post, autistic language and culture, disabled culture is prevalent… 80 million and counting. It carries with it a dialogue, an aesthetic, a common purpose and in autism, a language and a whole lot more. We should list the websites and the blogs again in one post (but that is done on many autism sites by autistic people like neurodiversity.com and autism.org, among others. I wish I could design like Asperger Square 8 right now — I have this vision in my head that puts all that into one piece of art — the illustration of all that is culturally autistic.
I hesitated to make this post too long. But what I didn’t mention were some of the Fuegian words and the Yamana language “a language of sublety” as Hawken wrote. Let me quote directly from him: “It has sixty-one words for kin, compared to twenty-five in English. Guratuku means to marry someone selfishly with impure intent; taisasia is to be covered up on the ground like eggs in a nest; porapola was a freshwater seaweed but also referred to striped bears; mamihlapinatapai indicates that two people are looking for each other, hoping the other will do something they want but that neither wants to do…”
Hello? Are we getting the point about language and how I see and experience Adam’s language? When Adam writes “red jar” it doesn’t just mean a literal red jar. I can tell because I am with him in the moment. I can feel his mood, dare I say, intention, (even if I have to still assume my assumptions and appropriations to his meaning on my meaning). Red can mean full of love and good feelings on a good day associated with something in particular in the moment; or in a state of anger, something agitated and different. If combined with “jar” it could mean “contained,” which could be a good or bad thing depending on a variety of words, gestures and circumstances around it.
Language, and I am by no means an expert, is the most interesting complex topic! We CRAVE and live to communicate to one another… and we can fail miserably at it in the best of times. The idea “to be seen” is the same as “to be heard” or “understood.” It takes a great deal of (here’s that word again) reciprocity, give and take…lots of patience and trying over and over again. (Gosh, if we did this, we might not have skyrocketing divorce rates, but I digress….).
All the autistic people I’ve met, even the “severest” can communicate. Birds do it, bees do, even non verbal people do it….
The question of an “autistic culture” is an interesting one. As far as I can understand it, “culture” has always been a problematic term; it doesn’t really mean anything in particular (if culture is to mean all kinds of activity that is characteristic to a group, then what activity isn’t culture? And then that itself is a problem). Thus, I can see the critique coming from a not-so-fearful space, because “autistic action” doesn’t logically necessitate a “culture” as its own deal, and you could easily say that it’s just not there (though not that it couldn’t develop).
But I’ll take my own crack at the question here, regardless. “Culture”, as I have best understood it, is defined as intellectual activity and production that exists autonomously (if not independently) of the sphere of the state and the economy, both of which are defined broadly (so the state includes things like marriage and the “daily political”, economy refers to all distributive processes). Given that, one can almost ascertain that an “autistic community” or even the ability to correctly use “autistics” as active agents would grant some kind of culture. That’s hardly something to be fearful of, really. Though I suppose that gets back to the problem of autistics as autonomous agents, really, which seem to be the root of all kinds of these debates.
Now, as to the sphere and kind of that culture and its effects? I’m not really sure. Have autistics, as a group, collectively acted enough outside the political and economic sphere to make a profoundly significant one? I don’t know about that, really. And one has to untangle what defines autism from all of this (thus, one shouldn’t say “values introspection” too uncritically as “autistic culture”, as that’s a personality characteristic that is present by the means of definition). But I will leave that question open-ended, really; that’s something that really deserves its own investigation.
Cliff,
Excellent comment. I did not do the work and put in the effort in this particular post (yet) to outline/investigate the items I might use to pool evidence in support the existence of “autistic culture.” I could here in the comments section cite blogs, websites, artwork, documentaries, interview many autistic individuals (or one could read blogs) and come up with a cohesive structure to support my thesis, I believe.
You said: “Though I suppose that gets back to the problem of autistics as autonomous agents, really, which seem to be the root of all kinds of these debates.”
I believe we are all active agents, even if the individual is in need or greater assistance than another. I do not believe that the absence of “activity” as we come to understand it, precludes the existence of being one’s own agent, necessarily.
You’ve challenged me to put this together. But you are right the root of all the debate is “agency.”