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A review by graveyardpansy
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
1.0
I wanted to like this book but I find myself deeply disappointed by it. I just don't think a book like this should've been written by an allistic (non-Autistic) person and I could go on forever about how many little bits rubbed me the wrong way. Here are a few things I noticed.
History books can be very politically powerful, and I think the best history books include strong analysis and discussion of the topics at hand alongside their historical context. This book has little to none of that and it's bizarre and unfortunate. Silberman provides a lot of historical information but doesn't DO anything with it. Nearly every chapter and section felt like it deserved elaboration on how it related to wider trends in autism knowledge at its time, discussion of how language and terminology have changed since its time, questions about ethics, conversation about how autistic people today are still impacted by historical trends, etc etc etc. Compared to the things i know I and my autistic circles could say about the history presented in this book, the author’s lack of practically any analysis made the history feel flat, hollow, and disconnected.
Silberman entirely dismisses Hans Asperger’s connections to Naziism, despite the fact that his actions directly caused the deaths of thousands of disabled people in the T4 program. This exclusion felt incredibly misguided especially as the contemporary opinion of many autistic people (INCLUDING MANY OF THOSE WHO HE REFERENCES NEAR THE END OF THE BOOK!) is that using Asperger’s name has deservedly fallen out of fashion.
There’s a substantial amount of history regarding ABA, but there is no acknowledgement that many A/autistic people who have been through ABA found it traumatizing and abusive. Although Silberman writes about various practices that, imo, SHOULD be viewed as abusive, i.e. electroshock, food and water deprivation, spanking and hitting, etc; he takes no stance on the morality of any of these practices. The most he does is call ABA controversial. So much for listening to Autistic people, many of whom condemn ABA as the abusive practice that it is.
I keep noticing two diverging categories of autism acceptance / inclusion. People seem to either argue that autistic people deserve support/recognition/love/etc because every single person does, or they heavily imply that autistic people deserve these things because “autism makes us better as a society” or “leads to innovation” or “some autistic people are, in fact, really smart!” I feel like the latter argument is majorly flawed. You should want to accept and love autistic people regardless of our intellect or contributions to the world — I do not believe that a marginalized group’s liberation should be contingent on how “useful” said group can be. Unsurprisingly, this book often makes arguments that fall into this latter category, and I found it really exhausting.
I did learn a few things about the history of autism, sure. But overall, so much of this book felt flat and devoid of any nuanced analysis that I KNOW an Autistic researcher would’ve been able to bring to it.
I don’t think many a/Autistic people would get much out of reading this. I certainly didn’t. Mostly, I’m frustrated that so many allistic people love this book, but it makes sense why they do — because it doesn’t actually make you think about the implications of the history at all! you can read it guilt-free!
History books can be very politically powerful, and I think the best history books include strong analysis and discussion of the topics at hand alongside their historical context. This book has little to none of that and it's bizarre and unfortunate. Silberman provides a lot of historical information but doesn't DO anything with it. Nearly every chapter and section felt like it deserved elaboration on how it related to wider trends in autism knowledge at its time, discussion of how language and terminology have changed since its time, questions about ethics, conversation about how autistic people today are still impacted by historical trends, etc etc etc. Compared to the things i know I and my autistic circles could say about the history presented in this book, the author’s lack of practically any analysis made the history feel flat, hollow, and disconnected.
Silberman entirely dismisses Hans Asperger’s connections to Naziism, despite the fact that his actions directly caused the deaths of thousands of disabled people in the T4 program. This exclusion felt incredibly misguided especially as the contemporary opinion of many autistic people (INCLUDING MANY OF THOSE WHO HE REFERENCES NEAR THE END OF THE BOOK!) is that using Asperger’s name has deservedly fallen out of fashion.
There’s a substantial amount of history regarding ABA, but there is no acknowledgement that many A/autistic people who have been through ABA found it traumatizing and abusive. Although Silberman writes about various practices that, imo, SHOULD be viewed as abusive, i.e. electroshock, food and water deprivation, spanking and hitting, etc; he takes no stance on the morality of any of these practices. The most he does is call ABA controversial. So much for listening to Autistic people, many of whom condemn ABA as the abusive practice that it is.
I keep noticing two diverging categories of autism acceptance / inclusion. People seem to either argue that autistic people deserve support/recognition/love/etc because every single person does, or they heavily imply that autistic people deserve these things because “autism makes us better as a society” or “leads to innovation” or “some autistic people are, in fact, really smart!” I feel like the latter argument is majorly flawed. You should want to accept and love autistic people regardless of our intellect or contributions to the world — I do not believe that a marginalized group’s liberation should be contingent on how “useful” said group can be. Unsurprisingly, this book often makes arguments that fall into this latter category, and I found it really exhausting.
I did learn a few things about the history of autism, sure. But overall, so much of this book felt flat and devoid of any nuanced analysis that I KNOW an Autistic researcher would’ve been able to bring to it.
I don’t think many a/Autistic people would get much out of reading this. I certainly didn’t. Mostly, I’m frustrated that so many allistic people love this book, but it makes sense why they do — because it doesn’t actually make you think about the implications of the history at all! you can read it guilt-free!