#neurobigotry

[hyperlexichypatia]

Neuroscience is real and important (while still beset by the same implicit and explicit bias problems as all human science and medicine), but pop culture understanding of neuroscience has absolutely made society worse, and I hate it. Every popular invocation of "dopamine," "serotonin" "trauma," "the prefrontal cortex," and "epigenetics" is used to justify some logically and/or ethically terrible conclusion. Recently I saw someone say that she lift weights to boost dopamine "Because my body doesn't make its own." My sibling in neurochemistry, that is your body making its own! A chemical your body produces when you exercise is still being produced by your body! Furthermore, why are we repeatedly told that exercise is good because it boosts dopamine, but video games and social media are bad, because they boost dopamine? Are dopamine-boosting recreational activities good or bad? The obvious answer, of course, is that it's just moralistic judgment -- exercise is Virtuous, games are not -- dressed up in neurochemical justifications. People even talk about being "addicted to dopamine" as if being "addicted" to a substance produced by one's own body can even be a meaningful or coherent concept. I'm not saying there aren't evidence-based things people can do to protect their neurological health (one that I strongly recommend is wearing a helmet). I'm saying that pop neuroscience is not a sound basis for logic, philosophy, ethics, morality, law, or public policy. If you're going to make an ethical or public policy argument using "the brain" or "brain chemistry" as a justification, consider, instead, not doing that. Instead, consider that other people know what's best for their own brains without your expounding on "dopamine" and "trauma."

[hyperlexichypatia]

Specifically also poor and disabled people need to live somewhere where they can come and go as they please, have their own keys, and have medical/sexual/religious autonomy.

Disabled people have to live somewhere poor people have to live somewhere you cant just exclude us from everywhere

[hyperlexichypatia]

At some point I have to unpack and describe the specific intersection of factors that led to my specific experiences with food shaming (and all related topics like sizeism, ableism, neurobigotry, healthism, ageism, etc).

As a a fat, autistic, ARFID-ite who's consistently been treated as younger than I am, and with scandalously non-abusive parents (how dare they vaguely accept me as I am without beating me into submission!), a lot of the food shaming I've experienced in my life was based on treating me more as a "spoiled child" than as a "fat woman," even after I was clearly the latter.

Food with my extended family or parents' friends or anyone older than myself was always a site of shaming how spoiled I was, how overly permissive my parents were, how rude I was for not eating what I was served (specifically for that -- I wasn't actually doing any "rude things" like commenting negatively on the food, demanding alternate food, or anything like that! But simply not eating what I was served, as a Young Person, was "rude".)

I was also heavily desexualized and somewhat degendered, so it wasn't "You're an unsexy woman because you're fat and ugly, not thin and sexy like a woman should be," it was "You're a spoiled brat picky eater who needs a spanking." Up through age. Like. 24.

And I realize, please believe me, I am very well aware of what an incredibly privileged problem this is. I was stigmatized because my parents weren't abusive? What kind of problem is that? Everyone else was dealing with actual problems, like actual abusive parents!

So my point isn't to complain about my problems, it's to say that food-shaming takes many forms. I was reminded of that when I saw an otherwise good, innocuous post about getting along with family at Thanksgiving, that included something about "Don't ask teens if they have a boyfriend/girlfriend, ask them about their hobbies, or what they're most looking forward to on their plate!" and I was suddenly filled with anxiety, because, no, don't do that. If you had asked Teenage Me what I was most looking forward to on my plate, I would have assumed that you were admonishing me for only having two foods on it, lecture me about how I can't have dessert if I don't eat my vegetables, nagging me to "Just try it," and possibly throwing in some remark about "Back in my day, if we didn't eat what we were told, we got a whipping!" Questions about my nonexistent love life would have been comparatively less fraught.

Don't comment on people's food choices. Don't comment on kids' food choices. Don't comment on teens' food choices. Don't comment on adults' food choices. Don't comment on people's food choices.

Don't ask teens if they have a boyfriend/girlfriend either, although, if that tradition must continue, I'd at least like to add age balance to it. If you ask a 15 year old if she has a boyfriend, she should legally be allowed to ask you how your divorce is coming.

[hyperlexichypatia]

One time, when I was younger, I had an unpleasant encounter with an (apparently neurotypical) older man who wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

Now, I was fine. But I was scared.

Not so much because I was afraid the man would come after me -- although given the statistics around violence against women who refuse men's advances, that would be an entirely reasonable fear -- but because I was afraid that someone would find out what had happened.

Because, you see, if someone found out that I had been assaulted, I would be a Vulnerable Young Girl.

And the thing about being a Vulnerable Young Girl is that it doesn't matter if you said "yes" or "no."

It's not necessarily that people would have sided with my assailant -- this is a different flavor of rape culture. Most people would have agreed that what my assailant did was wrong. But they would have considered it equally wrong -- maybe more wrong -- if he were my chosen, consensual boyfriend I actively wanted to be with.

Because his crime was not disregarding my "no" and violating my bodily autonomy. His crime was Taking Advantage of a Vulnerable Young Girl. Preying on a Vulnerable Young Girl. Corrupting a Vulnerable Young Girl.

If you're a Vulnerable Young Girl, you don't have the right to say "yes," which means you don't really meaningfully have the right to say "no" either. You need to be Protected, and, of course, you don't have the right to say "no" to that, either.

And, look, once again, I was fine. I'm making the specific assault sound worse than it was. That's not the point. I wouldn't mention it at all, except that The Discourse is such that if you don't disclose a relevant personal experience, you're assumed to Not Care About Real People. But I am not alone in this.

I've heard multiple instances of the specific scenario "I was assaulted in college but I didn't report it because my parents would have made me leave school." Or "I was date raped and didn't report it because then my family would have never let me go out again." Or "I'm a psychiatric survivor and if I reported being assaulted I'd be put back into treatment."

These are real things I've heard or read assault victims say.

Framing assault victims as Vulnerable Young Girls actively discourages victims from reporting assaults.

Yet the people who use this framing seem to think it's somehow necessary to get assaults taken seriously, even though it does the opposite.

Feminists largely understand this when it's in the context of purity culture. When people say, "In purity culture, it doesn't matter if you say 'yes' or 'no,' sexual assault and consensual sex are considered equally bad, and that underlying premise minimizes the actual wrongdoing of sexual assault, discourages assault victims from reporting their assaults, and allows assailants to get away with their crimes," this is understood as a problem.

But the Vulnerable Young Girls framing comes from self-identified feminists. Who think they're helping. In the name of feminism and justice. They don't understand why being framed as a Vulnerable Young Girl would make a woman reluctant to come forward, because the coercive control she would be subjected to "isn't punishment". They're seemingly baffled by why young and/or disabled women don't want to be framed as Vulnerable Young Girls, even if they've been assaulted. Especially if they've been assaulted. Why are you so offended when we say that your wishes for your own body don't matter?

And... why? Why is this framing necessary? What is the purpose? What is the benefit?

If you hear about someone committing sexual assault against a young and/or disabled woman -- without her consent, against her will, disregarding her "no" -- what, exactly, are you trying to accomplish by jumping in and saying "Even if she said yes, that's still predatory! He's still Taking Advantage of a Vulnerable Young Girl!"?

What is the purpose of saying that?

If a young and/or disabled woman chooses a sexual and/or romantic relationship that you think is "bad for her," and you proclaim "Just because she agreed to it doesn't make it okay! It's still wrong!" -- well, I vehemently disagree with you, but at least you're responding to the actual situation that exists.

But if you hear about an assault, against the victim's will, without her consent, and feel the need to denounce the counterfactual scenario in which it was a consensual encounter... what are you even trying to accomplish? Is the sole purpose just to convey to the victims (and any other assault survivors and/or young and/or disabled women in the vicinity) "I need to make it unambiguously clear that my objection to this assault has nothing to do with the violation of your bodily autonomy. I actively do not care about that."?

[handoferis]

not my white ass just reading the word "neurobigotry" with my own two eyes

[graydalestairs]

So I know many of us are dealing with one or more real problems like biphobia, racism, religious persecution, homophobia, neurobigotry, ableism, narrow-minded families, crippling anxiety, erasure, meaningless acts of violence, horrifying political leaders 

but y'all i am trying to put my leftovers away and fighting with my tupperware WhY dO ThE LiDS noT MaTCh the cOntAinERs??? This is my real struggle right now against Food Storage Supremacy

[hyperlexichypatia]

Even if I weren't philosophically a psychiatric abolitionist, I think I would still hate the way fiction uses psychiatry and pop psychology and "mental illness," because it's just lazy characterization.

Fiction has the potential for rich and illustrative exploration of character motivations, desires, influences, inner lives, values, decision-making, and you went with... "a brain disease made them do it"? Really?

"Why did this character try to kill his own sister?" "Because he knew that she would recognize their grandmother's coin collection and would figure out that her brother was the one who stole their uncle's inheritance." ^This is interesting! What a conniving, manipulative character! I feel rewarded for investing in this book!

"Because he's a Malignant Narcissist Sociopath." ^This is boring as fuck. I read this whole book and the explanation ends up being "ontologically bad person disorder"?

Occasionally it circles around to So Godawful It's Hilarious, like Batwoman, which centered an entire season arc around "The Bad Guy is Bad because of a magic brain science button that switched his brain to 'evil' and he needs another magic brain science button to switch his brain back to 'good.'" Literally borrowed the plot of Bart Simpson's evil Krusty doll. And I don't care about creator intent -- according to me, this is an absolutely hilarious parody of psychiatric culture. Yeah, that is the logical conclusion of "brain disease made them do it" bullshit, good job!

I started to compare it to the "devil made them do it" trope, but that's unfair -- there are a lot of interesting, nuanced demonic possession stories, and the idea of a "devil" can be used to explore the nature of morality, free will, forces beyond our control. I don't believe in literal "real" (inasmuch as "real" is a meaningful concept) demonic possession, but at least it's an interesting fictional lens. Neurobullshit isn't even interesting.

I've seen criticism lately of stories where "the characters talk as if they've been to therapy", and sure, that annoys me too. But I've also seen this criticism applied when characters just have a modicum of emotional awareness or expression, and... do you think therapy is a prerequisite for having feelings? Even in a real-life context, I've seen people say things like "She must have been through a lot of therapy to get to that point" when a person, like, stands up for themself or expresses their wishes. Do you think no one did these things before therapy was invented? Once I saw a story written in the 1940s praised for its depiction of the main character's grief at his best friend's death, because it was "remarkable for a time before post-traumatic disorders were widely understood." Do you really think no one was writing about grief and loss before modern pathologizing terminology? Do you think people were all emotionless robots until someone invented feelings in 1995?

Psychiatry is an inaccurate way of conceptualizing human emotional experience; it's an oppressive way of conceptualizing human emotional experience; and it's also an incredibly boring way of conceptualizing human emotional experience.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I thought about including "Stockholm syndrome" in my list of materialistic critiques that have been appropriated into pathologization, but it didn't really fit, because it was a pathologizing framework from the beginning.

It's so wild -- and by "wild" I mean neurobigoted, neuromisogynistic, and victim-blaming -- that society collectively accepted that a kidnapping victim objecting to police actions is evidence of "I guess some people like being kidnapped?"

Broke:

Belle has Stockholm syndrome because she falls in love with the Beast, her kidnapper.

Woke:

Stockholm syndrome was coined to slander a woman who had been in a hostage situation but openly criticized the poor police response which recklessly put her in more danger and escalated the violence. She was then belittled and discredited publically by the police for this.

So. Yeah. Maybe Belle does have Stockholm syndrome actually.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Hey, now that we have a deeply neurobigoted alt-psych quack at HHS, can we remember to use the term "alt-psych" (my friend coined!) instead of insulting the anti-psych movement by calling this bullshit "anti-psych"?

The essence of psychiatry isn't prescription drugs; it's coercive control. If you're against prescription drugs, but for coercive control, you're not anti-psychiatry.

If you're for prescription drugs, but against coercive control, you are anti-psychiatry (most anti-psych people I know are broadly fine with prescription drugs used consensually, because, again, the essence of psychiatry isn't drugs, it's coercive control).

[hyperlexichypatia]

While I’m saying things: I got into disability liberation through neurodiversity. I identify with the neurodiversity paradigm. I identify as neurodivergent. I believe that the core concept of the neurodiversity paradigm -- that all brains are different, and all brains should be accepted -- is integral to our liberation. But I’m really getting the sense that “neurodiversity” is becoming to “mad liberation” as “body positivity” is to “fat liberation.” “Neurodiversity” is being used by behaviorists, therapists, and teachers who are still practicing behaviorism and hierarchy. It’s being differentiated from “mental illness” that needs “treatment.” It’s being applied to plucky, cheerful people who can still contribute to capitalism in their own way, but not to people with extreme emotional states, people who experience voices and visions unknown to others, or people who score very poorly on IQ tests. It’s not being used to critically interrogate, let alone dismantle, oppressive concepts like “normalcy,” “sanity/insanity,” “competence,” or “general intelligence.” It’s not being used to challenge eugenics, or question whether “mental health” can have a useful meaning outside the pathology paradigm. It’s not being used to imagine what concepts like “happiness” or “good parenting” or “a fair distribution of resources” would even mean in the absence of pathologization, oppression, and hierarchy. We have to start using “neurodiversity” better if we want it to still have meaning.

[hyperlexichypatia]

This survey of why parents are estranged from their adult children is such an interesting illustration of how neurobigotry functions in society and interpersonal relationships. People accuse their estranged family members of being Mad/neurodivergent, because Madness is synonymous with being at fault in a relationship. It's considered inherently Reasonable and Justified to cut ties with a Mad/neurodivergent person -- especially an untreated-by-choice Mad/neurodivergent person -- because to be Mad/neurodivergent is to be inherently wrong, inherently unreasonable, inherently burdensome, inherently the one who is not abiding by the social compact.

Or as one of my friends put it, "Mental illness exists as a sociopolitical concept of ontological wrongness."

One of the pervasively enduring aspects of neurobigotry is that people who have been abused by neurobigotry will, instead of rejecting neurobigotry, simply accept it and turn it around on their abusers. People think they're really onto something with "No, it is my abusive parents who are mentally ill and need therapy" or "No, it is the people in power who are mentally defective" or "Racism/capitalism/bigotry are the real mental illness!"

But you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. Pathologizing your parents doesn't correct the power imbalance of being pathologized by them, and using pathologization as a way to convey wrongness is still reifying pathologization and neurobigotry.

The context of family estrangement reminds me of this thought process I started about the construction of "cults." When the anti-cult movement began, it was centered on family members of people who'd joined new religious movements. The premise that people who joined religious groups their families didn't approve of were victims of "cult brainwashing" who needed to be "rescued" and "deprogrammed" (against their will, of course) was a tool of controlling families trying to deny their (usually) adult children's right to freedom of religion and general life choices. The idea that "cults" caused family estrangement was an integral aspect of the moral panic around them.

But over the decades, the stigma on "cults" has shifted. The contemporary anti-cult movement is fueled by people who grew up in abusive religious communities and chose to leave. It's applied as often to older, larger, established religious groups as it is to newer, smaller ones. While the original anti-cult movement largely centered on parents trying to control their adult children, the newer anti-cult movement largely centers on adults who've broken away from their parents' control.

Except. Except. It still uses the pathologization framework established in the 1970s. It's still a reversal -- No, it is you, the parents, the church, the authority, who are the Mentally Ill, the cult, the deviant, the ones in need of being fixed -- rather than a rejection or reframing: Actually, young people should be free to choose their own path in life.

It's not only applied in relationships between parents and children -- it's even more commonly invoked in breakups between former friends or partners. People feel the need to establish which party was Mentally Ill and Needed Therapy as a proxy for which party was At Fault in the breakup. In reality, breaking up doesn't necessarily mean either party was At Fault, but it's more socially acceptable to say "We had to break up because he's Mentally Ill and Refused To Get Help" rather than "We just didn't get along." Discussions of bad and badly-ended relationships are just constant rounds of uno reverse allegations of Madness/neurodivergence.

One of my least favorite examples is trying to "rebut" the neuromisogynistic trope of "Women are crazy" with "Men cause women to become crazy." Why are you validating "Women are crazy" by trying to "explain" it? Why are you accepting the premise that "crazy" is a bad thing? Why are you reifying the idea that being "crazy" has to be "caused" by something "bad"? If a man says "I broke up with my ex-girlfriend because she's crazy!" why validate the neuromisogyny with "No, you're crazy!" or "You must have made her crazy!" instead of challenging it with "What's wrong with being 'crazy'? What does that have to do with anything?"

If someone says "I stopped speaking to my child because they refused to seek therapy," why validate the neurobigotry with "You're the one who needs therapy!" instead of challenging it with "Why is their choice whether or not to seek therapy any of your business?"

[hyperlexichypatia]

I'm never tired of replies! I touched on it a little bit here, but here are some things I've noticed as red flags of library gentrification:

Similar to other public spaces, hostile architecture to discourage unhoused people hanging out. Eliminating chairs, or replacing comfortable couches with hardback chairs.

Policies that target, disproportionately affect, or are unequally enforced against, unhoused and disabled people, like "no sleeping" or "no bags" or "no adults in the children's area."

Policies like requiring a library card to use the computer or attend programs (and you need ID or an address to get a library card).

Restrictions on bathroom use, like time limits, or making people ask for a key.

Any time you hear a library worker use the phrases "mission creep" or "We're not social workers," there's a very high likelihood that they're about to advocate some library gentrification.**

Anything that frames poor and disabled people's right to use the library as part of a "both sides" issue balanced against classist/ableist people who "aren't comfortable with" poor and disabled people using the library.

**Now, sometimes "We're not social workers" can be a valid point. Library workers are often asked to help with complex tasks that we have neither the time nor the professional credentials to do, and we end up having to say things like "Sorry, I'm not a lawyer/accountant/realtor/doctor/teacher/etc, I can't help you with that." In that context, "We're not social workers" is a valid point. But one of the insidious ways Benevolent Liberal Ableism asserts itself is by Professionalizing disabled people's everyday lives and asserting that only Trained Professionals can (or should be expected to) interact with disabled people. There's a difference between "I'm not a social worker, I can't be expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of every state program" and "I'm not a social worker, I shouldn't be expected to tolerate unhoused disabled people and treat them like any other members of the public."

Gaiman: " If you really can't figure out which political party or which politician to vote for, just ask if they're on the side of libraries. Are they voting to fund their libraries? Are they voting to keep them free? Then vote for those guys. They're probably the good guys. And by the same token, the book burners, the book banners, they're probably the bad guys."

[hyperlexichypatia]

I tried to talk about this before, but I must have done it so badly that people thought I was actually making a factual claim about dopamine, or "pop science," or something.

So let me try again: Neuroscience cannot be used to answer ethical, moral, philosophical, or political questions.

I'm not saying neuroscience shouldn't be used to answer those questions. I'm saying it can't.

The problem isn't "bad science" or "pop science" or "laypeople misunderstanding science." Those things are problems, yes, and there is a lot of neuroscience misinformation going around, but those are not the problems I am talking about. The problem is that these questions are not answerable by this form of human knowledge.

Neuroscience cannot answer the question of whether someone should be punished for violating a law. That is a legal, ethical, political, and philosophical question. (What is law? What is punishment? What is justice? By what authority does government enact laws or punish people who violate them? Divine right? Consent of the governed? Who constitutes "the governed" and how is their consent ensured?)

Neuroscience cannot answer the question of whether someone is "mentally ill" or what condition constitutes a "mental illness." Neuroscience can, in some cases, determine that someone's brain deviates from a statistical average in some way. But the pathologization of that difference -- the classification of difference as "illness" -- is a social, cultural, economic, ethical, philosophical, and political question.

Neurscience cannot tell you how to live your life, how to relate to others, or how best to structure a society. You have to decide that yourself.

[hyperlexichypatia]

“Narcissistic abuse” is not a real thing.

I have repeatedly written on this page that there is no such thing as a neurodivergence, disability, illness, or mental condition that “causes” someone to be abusive, violent, bigoted, or otherwise harmful to others.

First of all, a “personality disorder” cannot, by definition, be a cause of someone’s behavior. The diagnosis of a “personality disorder” is a description of (real or perceived) observed behavior, and an assumption (accurate or inaccurate) about the emotional motivation for that behavior. It is circular and nonsensical to say that someone behaves a certain way “because of'' their “personality disorder” -- it would only be accurate to say that because the person behaves in a certain way, someone has classified them with that diagnosis. (I could point out that this labeling and categorization process occurs in the context of an oppressive, kyriarchical system which interprets marginalized people’s responses to oppression through a pathologizing lens, but that would be too big a topic shift for one post, and wouldn’t be that relevant to debunking the concept of “narcissistic abuse,” which is mostly applied to privileged people, anyway.)

Some people are self-centered. Some people are abusive. Some people behave in an abusive, self-centered way. None of these facts are in dispute. When we say “Narcissistic abuse is not a real thing,” we are not saying “Self-centered, abusive people are not real.” We are saying that being self-centered and abusive is not an intrinsic condition of the brain, a “disorder,” a disability, or “caused by” anything other than one’s own choices.

Why do people cling so fervently to the concept of “narcissistic abuse”? Why are people so insistent that there’s such a thing as a “brain disease” that can “cause” someone to be self-centered and abusive?

One reason might be that pathologization is used to convey intensity or extremity. In the popular conception of psychopathology, pathologized conditions are “extreme” versions of “normal” traits. In this framework, one might insist on pathologizing someone’s abusive, self-centered behavior as a way of conveying that the behavior is really, really, extremely abusive and self-centered, and differentiating it from allegedly “normal” abusiveness or self-centeredness.

Another, perhaps more insidious reason, is that classifying someone’s abusiveness as a “disorder” frames it as an intrinsic aspect of the person, rather than a choice they make. It codifies “just intrinsically a Bad Person” as a (pseudo)-scientific reality. If someone’s abusive or self-centered behavior is “caused” by their “brain disorder,” then they are an inherently unforgivable and irredeemable person. Sometimes, pathologizing people’s behavior is used as a reason to excuse them from blame or responsibility -- “They couldn’t help it, The Disorder made them do it.” But in the case of so-called “personality disorders,” the reasoning seems to be the opposite -- “The Disorder made them do it, so they’re Just Inherently That Way.” The line is drawn neatly between The Narcissist and The Innocent Victim. No one needs to examine the dynamic further when one party is an inherently evil Narcissist.

Additionally, the framing of abuse as caused by a “brain disorder” obscures the real cause of abuse, which is power. As long as people have power over other people, at least some of them will use that power abusively. Blaming abuse on “brain disorders” shifts discourse away from the abuser’s choices, the moral code that allowed them to make those choices, and the structure of society that gave them power to abuse someone else.

“Narcissistic abuse” isn’t a real thing. “Personality disorders” can’t “cause” behavior, abusive or otherwise. And if we really want to stop abuse, we have to dismantle social power structures, including the power structures of ableism, neurobigotry, and pathologization that classify some brain-types as “disordered.”

[hyperlexichypatia]

I'm tired of sanist "neurodiversity advocates" with degrees in neuroscience etc. who use tumblr and Twitter telling me I'm a narcissist for wanting to meet other creative people. What is wrong with wanting to know people I have that in common with? According to them, a healthy person is happy with whoever shows them kindness and never gets hurt or angry about being misunderstood and it's hard for me to not believe them because of their degrees.

I hate the concept of "narcissist," but I've never heard of someone called a "narcissist" for ... wanting to hang out with people with common interests. Damn, neurodivergent people can't have anything, huh? "You're a narcissist for wanting friends with shared interests" certainly has nothing to do with neuroscience.

[hyperlexichypatia]

I am NOT saying "Neurodivergent women are never abusive."

I AM saying "Are you describing a neurodivergent woman's behavior with the word 'abusive,' when you would describe the same behavior by someone other than a neurodivergent woman with words like 'annoying' or 'rude' or 'mildly irritating'?"