Neurodivergent Power, Not Superpowers w/ Robert Chapman
Mar 5, 2024
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Discussion with Robert Chapman on neurodivergence, capitalism, and disability. Exploring societal norms, rising ADHD and autism rates, and executive dysfunction. Critiquing neurodiversity and capitalism, redefining disorders, and challenging research on autism. Examining brain scans, poverty's impact on ADHD, and medication dependency. Advocating for systemic change through collective neurodivergent action.
Shifting focus from superpowers to collective neurodivergent power challenges capitalist exploitation.
Neurodivergent Marxism combines neurodiversity theories with Marxism for societal liberation and change.
Viewing neurodiversity as a serial collective emphasizes shared relationships and mutual support for empowerment.
Deep dives
Shifting Focus from Individual to Collective Neurodivergent Power
The concept of superpowers is discussed in neurodiversity narratives focusing on individual abilities that can be utilized for capitalist exploitation. The importance of shifting from individual superpowers to a collective neurodivergent power is emphasized. It is highlighted that group-level neurological diversity is essential for group functioning, effectiveness, and robustness. Recognizing and harnessing this collective power is proposed as a means to not only fit into exploitative systems but to change them.
Historical Materialist Analysis and Neurodivergent Marxism
Neurodivergent Marxism is presented as a synthesis of neurodiversity theory with Marxism to address neuronormativity, neurodivergent oppression, liberation, and change within societal contexts. Historical materialism, with a focus on material conditions, social relations, and contradictions within capitalism, is explained as guiding the analysis. Neurodiversity activism's contrast between a liberal rights framework and a more radical politics is explored to encourage a transformative and liberatory political approach.
Serial Collective: A Concept in Neurodiversity Theory
The concept of a serial collective is introduced as a framework to understand neurodivergent classifications as external relationships shared by groups with similar needs and interests rather than internal essence. This anti-essentialist perspective views neurodiversity as formed by contextual dynamics and changing environmental conditions. The idea emphasizes collective power and a neurodiverse cognitive mutual aid approach to support each other for empowerment and societal change.
Post-Fordism and Executive Functioning Challenges
The impact of post-Fordism, characterized by collapsing traditional distinctions and expanding capital's domain, on executive functioning challenges is discussed. Executive functioning skills are linked to occupational demands in a shifting economic landscape. The concept of executive function as ideology is explored in the context of capitalist logics influencing perceptions of individual abilities and work demands.
Marxist Disability Studies and Collective Empowerment
The influence of Marxist disability studies in understanding disability through a collective empowerment lens is highlighted. Recommendations for in-depth reading into the political aspects of disability, race, and gender within capitalist structures are offered. The potential for organized collective power and turning illness into a weapon for societal change is emphasized.
Interview with Robert Chapman on Neurodiversity and Collective Power
An engaging conversation with Robert Chapman on neurodiversity, Marxist disability studies, historical materialism, and the importance of collective neurodivergent empowerment. The discussion explores shifting narratives from individual superpowers to group-level diversity, neurodivergent Marxism, the concept of serial collective, challenges in post-Fordist landscapes, and the influence of Marxist disability and critical theory in redefining illness as a tool for social change.
I got to talk to neurodivergent philosopher Robert Chapman about their new book Empire of Normality, which explains how norms of brain functioning got baked into our economic system. We talk about how a focus on individual rights and superpowers can only get neurodivergent people so far, why the line between neurodivergent and neurotypical is more squishy than you think, and how anti-psychiatry was actually good for capitalists, pretty bad for disabled people!
We also discuss a materialist view of the rising ADHD and autism diagnosis rates everyone seems to be panicking about, how we might view these categories as real without reducing them to brain scans and synapses, and why executive dysfunction might just be the disability of our age.
* SPK stands for Socialist Patients’ Collective, they were a radical group of psychiatric patients in 1970’s West Germany who wrote a manifesto called Turn Illness Into a Weapon
