Thersites Writes

You will no doubt have heard about the discovery of Homo floresiensis, aka 'The Hobbit'. This is a 1 metre tall primitive human, that lived on an island in Indonesia. All very exciting, especially since the remains found are less than 20,000 years old. There could still be some running about nearby or on another island...

But it does pose a problem. Already, scientists like Desmond Morris and Tim White have claimed that the 'Hobbit' undermines what makes us humans so special. (This does, of course, let some scientists and pundits wallow in their latent misanthropy. It will no doubt give the animal rights loonies more ammo too.) After all, if there's another walking, talking primate out there, that means we're just animals too, right?

Wrong. Humans are the only animals that can make moral choices, think beyond their immediate time and place and actually REASON. This is not undermined just because a more primitive race of man has been found. We still think, talk and reason better than anything else does on Earth. Granted, gorillas have been taught to use sign language and parrots to use keyboards to 'speak'. But the fact they had to be TRAINED (in a passive way) to do this, like how one teaches a dog to stop at a kerb, does not support the fact that thought - sentience - and the ability to LEARN (in a proactive way) is that common in the world. When's the last time you had a meaningful chat with a dolphin?

But you could find you can with Homo floresiensis - since he was/is human too. The 'Hobbit' might not be a member of our species. He will not be as smart as us either. But I think it's safe to say he will be able to talk, think, make choices and ponder the difference between right and wrong. (To his credit, Morris does at least agree with this.) If local folklore is anything to go by, he was/is able to make tools, talk and act in a man-like way. The locals also seem to suggest that these creatures were people in their own right, able to think and reason. So he might not be able to operate a nuclear reactor, but few of us can either. But he is a species of mankind, and that is what we have to bear in mind. And it's because Homo floresiensis is a man, that - far from making us feel we're animals - he'll remind us that humans - like him and us - are special after all. That does, of course, give us responsibilities as well as rights. But we can choose to protect our new-found hobbit cousin. And he then can choose to like us, or not. Humans can do that, you see.

If you do not know already, famed Radio 1 DJ John Peel died yesterday in Peru. My condolences to both his family and his colleagues.

It's hard to believe he is gone after all these years. He was and shall be simply irreplaceable. Thank you, John, for bringing some of the best music in the world into my life. RIP.

One surprising article in this week's Spectator is a piece by Charlotte Moore, about her two Autistic sons. (Surprising in that The Spectator doesn't tend to dwell on disability as a rule, that is.) Far from the usual my-Tarquin-has-something-wrong-with-him diatribe that tends to creep into the features in broadsheets and political mags, it is in fact a well-thought out and intriguing is quite right to celebrate her autistic sons and the benefits, as well as problems, their condition brings. Indeed, this seems to part of a healthy shift in society's views of autistics and those with autistic spectrum disorders (like Asperger's Syndrome). They are no longer just 'vegetables' (as I've heard some call them) with weird ways, but people whose difference gives them a unique perspective on life and even advantages over the rest of us. (This isn't the first time she's wrote about her sons and what they have to face either, as this article shows.)

But there's another side to this trend. As autism enters the mainstream, so it becomes increasingly fashionable to use it as a 'one-size-fits-all' label for those society does not quite feel comfortable with. It is increasingly common these days to describe anyone who is a bit eccentric, a loner, stubborn, or self-absorbed as 'autistic' or with 'asperger's syndrome'. Indeed, it's become as
lazy and convenient a term for the Other as 'spastic', 'coloured' and 'retarded' used to be.

Not only does this muddy the water in regards to who really is autistic and who is not, but it is also part of a greater tendency in society to not try and live with difference, but categorise, stigmatise and patronise it all at the same time.

On the one hand, it lets us treat those who are 'different' not as full people with their own thoughts and opinions, but as 'poor dears' whose every thought and action can be rounded down to a symptom of their 'problem'. This is of course a convenient way of dismissing these people and shutting them up - if they and most of everything they do and say is 'autistic' or the result of them being that way, then why bother paying attention to them?

(It doesn't help that these days every fool with access to the Internet, or who watches bland health TV programmes or who half-listen to their doctor think they're experts on subjects they don't really know much about...)

And on the other hand, it's a great way of dodging the real issues. Is the somewhat bookish or lonely kid at school getting his head kicked in by the local bullies? It must be his 'autism' that makes him stand out... That's a much easier fudge than actually dealing with the endemic culture of bullying and poor discipline in our schools.

Ultimately, it all comes down to two problems that plague our society. One, that for all our talk of 'inclusiveness' and 'diversity', we still cling to the notion that 'normal' automatically means 'healthy' or 'right', and we can't quite accept those who don't act like the rest of us. And two, we are increasingly getting too used to pathologising everything as a way of explaining how we behave and why we choose to. It has a lot to do, of course, with how Psychiatry has become less about helping people and more about controlling them and shaping them into something the rest of us 'normal' people would find acceptable. Psychiatrists can, at times, be too busy 'hammering in the nails that stick out' to notice that maybe people aren't nails to begin with.

So, let's celebrate how autism is now widely understood and even accepted. And let's be glad that a lot of children with autism are, in increasing numbers, being diagnosed and given the treatment and understanding they need. But let's not forget too that shoehorning people into convenient categories and slapping a convenient label on them is every bit as harmful as not helping those with real disabilities.

"The man with principles is invariably an arsehole. Whereas, the man with no principles is invariably a scumbag."

(Attb. to yours truly, today.)