Open Society

A shift from a global monoculture to ecosystems of human scale groups reduces the spurious complexity needed to support a monoculture, and it retains and even grows adaptive cultural complexity, i.e. the diversity that emerges when the human ecological footprint is aligned with bioregional ecosystem functions.

Punishment is not a form of discipline, and discipline is not achieved through punishment. We’ve been taught that they’re synonymous, and they’re used interchangeably. Despite its similar connotations, they aren’t the same. Punishment simply brings avoidance of more punishment. People will get their act together to avoid the pain and shame that comes with each infliction… until nobody’s watching anymore and they stop caring enough to hold themselves accountable. We do this so many times that the small forfeits that come with each punishment snowball into an overwhelming loss we can never regain. We try to eradicate a piece of ourselves we could have reformed and strengthened instead. Punishment is the great impediment to change.

Punishment is not a form of discipline, and discipline is not achieved through punishment. We’ve been taught that they’re synonymous, and they’re used interchangeably. Despite its similar connotations, they aren’t the same. Punishment simply brings avoidance of more punishment. People will get their act together to avoid the pain and shame that comes with each infliction… until nobody’s watching anymore and they stop caring enough to hold themselves accountable. We do this so many times that the small forfeits that come with each punishment snowball into an overwhelming loss we can never regain. We try to eradicate a piece of ourselves we could have reformed and strengthened instead.

Ethics is a vital part of research.  It is about ensuring we do no harm to those we serve. As researchers, teams are there to serve the autistic communities.  Not to hurt and insult them. Autistic people are not there to serve researchers as a convenient sample or a way to advance their careers. I'm part of these communities.  As a proud parent of a fantastic autistic son.  As an autistic person myself.  As a researcher.  As a consultant and lecturer in this field, including to the NHS in various roles. I am so sad to see some research teams behaving in these frankly callous ways.  I wish the example above was rare.  It is not. Every day, for me, it is such an honour to do what I can to uphold the lovely autistic people I am delighted to share life with.  My family, my friends, my colleagues, the general autistic public on social media.  Their honesty, integrity, determination, courage and friendship are worth more than words can say. We are not "ASD cases".   We are your friends. We are your research colleagues.  We are your neighbours.  We are your fellow NHS workers.  We are artists, and musicians.  We are faith leaders and authors.  We are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters. We are worth every bit as much as every other human on this planet.  Our way of interacting, our emerging cultures and ways of being, are worth their place.   Those that need support have been asking for things that actually matter to us.  There is more research than you could shake a journal at, on this subject. Instead, we get paper after paper describing us like we're some form of disease to be eradicated. I won't despair of research, as I see so many good people emerging.  People who put us front and centre of research into our own lives.  People who treat us as valued colleagues.  As equals, not as laboratory specimens.  People who are our allies.  People who are autistic and working at the top levels of new thinking, new theories, new understandings.  I am honoured to work with several such teams. I would very much like some researchers to stop hiding behind one another, and behind dehumanising words.  To have the courage to re-evaluate their thinking and their beliefs.  To have the curiosity to read those new narratives, to meet autistic teams and really collaborate, really understand. If you cannot gaze upon us and see our worth, our love, our caring, our whole humanity, this is not the field you should be in. This is our future.  Our lives.  Our present.  Our history.  Our community. You are not called to erase us, as researchers. You are called to earn our trust, and share in our future, with love.

My first objection to gratitude as an across-the-board stance, then, is that it’s disproportionate, unearned, and therefore inauthentic. Even if training oneself to be constantly grateful really did boost what psychologists call subjective well-being, I’m not sure that’s a sufficient reason. As the psychological researcher Ed Deci put it, “When people want only happiness, they can actually undermine their own development because the quest for happiness can lead them to suppress other aspects of their experience. . . .The true meaning of being alive is not just to feel happy, but to experience the full range of human emotions.” Making children express gratitude they don’t feel, meanwhile, just like forcing them to apologize when they’re not sorry, mostly teaches them insincerity. Subjecting them to exercises in which they must manufacture gratitude — and, yes, some schools, in the name of “positive psychology,” really do make kids cough up lists of things for which they’re grateful — strikes me as deeply wrongheaded.