Neurodiversity #4: Social Values Dictate Who is Disordered |

I’m putting together a series of neurodiversity videos to promote my new book The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Neurodivergent Brain (Completely Revised and Updated Second Edition). In this video, I explore a major theme in the book that our society constructs mental health diagnoses largely to uphold sacrosanct social values. I look at how in times past, we had labels like ”moron” ”idiot” and ‘drapetomania” (”obsession with fleeing,” a condition said to characterize runaway slaves). How homosexuality was considered a mental disorder until 1973 in the U.S. I examine particular social values violated by individuals with specific diagnostic labels (e.g. ADHD violates the value of delayed gratification and the Protestant Work Ethic, dyslexics violate the value that everyone should be literate, schizophrenia violates the demand that our citizens all be rational, and so forth). This perspective ought to teach us to be careful of how we use diagnostic labels, and to be able to view them in their proper historical context. In fifty years time, how will we view our current labels?