Autism Advocacy & Traditional Catholic Philosophy

[Greatshield17]

I reply that:

Categorizations such as Autistic or Neurotypical are of human origin, but for the sake of discussion we will acknowledge the objective validity of these as they are a description of reality. The Blessed Virgin Mary was neurotypical, being the human "without spot or blemish."
I would go further: Mary, in a very real sense, was the only neurotypical to have existed on earth since the fall of Adam.

We risk error if we see it all as "autistics vs. neurotypicals." There are many forms of neurodivergence, and many of those who are neurotypical (in the sense of non-ASD) are only so temporarily, falling to other mental conditions eventually. The state of neurotypicality is essentially a state of health and all health among people is temporary at best.

Mary had emotions: hers were regulated perfectly.
Mary had feelings: they were completely aligned to God's will (the end & purpose of humans) when she chose freely to align her will with His.
Mary had human desires, but could choose higher desires. It would be ridiculous, for example, to say that Mary had a sexual orientation. Before the Fall of Man, our passions and desires were under the complete mastery of the will--known as integration. In the average human the "flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." For Mary, body & soul were entirely united & directed to a proper end.

Mary is not so much "neurotypical" as she is the pattern, the model, "Our tainted nature's solitary boast."(Wordsworth.)

The rest of us poor bastards are a variety of things: all of us are a bit disordered. We have disordered inclinations: some to jealousy, some to pride, some to lust, all the capital sins are but the result of looking for the good in the wrong place. We retain the imago Dei but we are not in real great shape.
We are the scratched-up record of Tetrazzini singing an aria, but God intended us to be more of the lived experience of sitting in Carnegie Hall, box seat, during a live performance. Both are operatic, but only one is the true image & likeness of the opera.

Autism is intrinsically disordered. So are lots of other things.
Neurotypicals are also sometimes intrinsically disorderly.

I like the old ways. Old traditionalist thought was the pioneering use of person-first language. The idea of inherently disordered persons didn't occur--it was only impairments of the will, the mind, etc., so I motion that we need to look beyond any internalized fears and consider ourselves first & foremost as human beings.

Well, sorry that's long & rambly, but that's kind of how I think of it.

I guess, but I think the issue is what we mean by the term “neurotypical,” I’m emphasizing the “typical” aspect of neurotypical, the typical, fallen disordered state of most human beings. As I mentioned in my objections and responses to this arguments, the Saints often appeared as crazy to most neurotypicals, so it seems quite apparent that the psychological state of the two is different; I think the case could be made that Our Lady and even to a much lesser degree the Saints, had were/are in a state, not of Neurotypicalism, but Neuro-purity, that is, sanity.

 

[Gerontius]

I guess, but I think the issue is what we mean by the term “neurotypical,” I’m emphasizing the “typical” aspect of neurotypical, the typical, fallen disordered state of most human beings. As I mentioned in my objections and responses to this arguments, the Saints often appeared as crazy to most neurotypicals, so it seems quite apparent that the psychological state of the two is different; I think the case could be made that Our Lady and even to a much lesser degree the Saints, had were/are in a state, not of Neurotypicalism, but Neuro-purity, that is, sanity.

Nope.

Saint only describes what we recognize as canonized, and we canonize the ones that stand out. Mental problems make people stick out of the norm.

When I see "typical" I think not of "average" but of "standard." Typology is corresponding to a standard (came from the Greek word for molding a coin.) Type, therefore, is hardly what we'd call "typical" or disappointingly commonplace. Type is unchanging--a Haflinger horse in foal will have a little one that looks like the mare. They breed true to type. An Underwood 5 desktop will print the same letters in 2021 that it did in 1916. That's long-lasting type.

We're too used to throwing up our hands and yelling "Typical!" when something goes wrong. Common, cathartic, but hardly accurate.

Mary is the type, the model, the real example. Of course she's sane. No need to paint the entire human race as "typical" when people are individuals.

 

[Greatshield17]

I reply that:

Categorizations such as Autistic or Neurotypical are of human origin, but for the sake of discussion we will acknowledge the objective validity of these as they are a description of reality. The Blessed Virgin Mary was neurotypical, being the human "without spot or blemish."
I would go further: Mary, in a very real sense, was the only neurotypical to have existed on earth since the fall of Adam.

We risk error if we see it all as "autistics vs. neurotypicals." There are many forms of neurodivergence, and many of those who are neurotypical (in the sense of non-ASD) are only so temporarily, falling to other mental conditions eventually. The state of neurotypicality is essentially a state of health and all health among people is temporary at best.

Mary had emotions: hers were regulated perfectly.
Mary had feelings: they were completely aligned to God's will (the end & purpose of humans) when she chose freely to align her will with His.
Mary had human desires, but could choose higher desires. It would be ridiculous, for example, to say that Mary had a sexual orientation. Before the Fall of Man, our passions and desires were under the complete mastery of the will--known as integration. In the average human the "flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." For Mary, body & soul were entirely united & directed to a proper end.

Mary is not so much "neurotypical" as she is the pattern, the model, "Our tainted nature's solitary boast."(Wordsworth.)

The rest of us poor bastards are a variety of things: all of us are a bit disordered. We have disordered inclinations: some to jealousy, some to pride, some to lust, all the capital sins are but the result of looking for the good in the wrong place. We retain the imago Dei but we are not in real great shape.
We are the scratched-up record of Tetrazzini singing an aria, but God intended us to be more of the lived experience of sitting in Carnegie Hall, box seat, during a live performance. Both are operatic, but only one is the true image & likeness of the opera.

Autism is intrinsically disordered. So are lots of other things.
Neurotypicals are also sometimes intrinsically disorderly.

I like the old ways. Old traditionalist thought was the pioneering use of person-first language. The idea of inherently disordered persons didn't occur--it was only impairments of the will, the mind, etc., so I motion that we need to look beyond any internalized fears and consider ourselves first & foremost as human beings.

Well, sorry that's long & rambly, but that's kind of how I think of it.

Nope.

Saint only describes what we recognize as canonized, and we canonize the ones that stand out. Mental problems make people stick out of the norm.

When I see "typical" I think not of "average" but of "standard." Typology is corresponding to a standard (came from the Greek word for molding a coin.) Type, therefore, is hardly what we'd call "typical" or disappointingly commonplace. Type is unchanging--a Haflinger horse in foal will have a little one that looks like the mare. They breed true to type. An Underwood 5 desktop will print the same letters in 2021 that it did in 1916. That's long-lasting type.

We're too used to throwing up our hands and yelling "Typical!" when something goes wrong. Common, cathartic, but hardly accurate.

Mary is the type, the model, the real example. Of course she's sane. No need to paint the entire human race as "typical" when people are individuals.

I’m still having difficulty with this, I’m actually having the same uneasy feelings about this, as I had about my own argument before; I guess it’s just that Our Lady, and Eternal Life in the World to come, seem so different from what we have now, I guess it’s as you say, I’m categorizing things too much as Autistic or Neurological. Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something in all of this.

 

[Gerontius]

Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something in all of this.

Perhaps it is that language carries different meanings in colloquial use & strict/academic/philosophical use. It trips me up al the time here with college; philosophy is hard not because of difficult concepts but because words that look familiar often mean something different. Take for example the word 'form.' To us that means the shape of something, or is a transitive verb describing shaping something. But in philosophy F-O-R-M is wholly different; it takes on cosmic significance in Platonism and that same linguistic difference affects its use through philosophy from the Greeks to the modern era.

The challenge of doing what you're doing here is going to be defining your terms, presenting defined terms, and not confusing the autistic and neurotypical sections of your audience! I suggest for the sake of clarity and credibility that we rely on the DSM-V for this. If older versions are cited for perspective's sake, we can do that too, as long as we mention it.

Of course later is different than now; even St Paul mentioned that-- And the reason for that is the same as the reason for the profound dissatisfaction of all people who think. We were made for so much more than this which we see before us. All human desires have an end, or purpose to which they are directed. Why should our desire for perfection & consummate goodness be any different? What cruel cosmos plays a dirty trick like that, making us want everything to be good for everyone and then denying it?

 

[Greatshield17]

Say, @Gerontius I hope you don’t mind me asking you this but, what do you know about the Gift of Clarity in the World to Come? I named my group Claritas, because I heard Scott Hahn describe the Gift of Clarity as the ability to communicate oneself perfectly to another, in a way infinitely better than the most skilled NT. However I have yet what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and other Theologians have said about this; do you have any knowledge on this?

 

[Alexej]

Say, @Gerontius what do you know about the Gift of Clarity in the World to Come?

Hi there I would be interested to know more about this one? Its a new concept to to me, and Ive had a quick look on google and nothing sensible comes up

 

[tree]

@Greatshield17

"I heard Scott Hahn describe the Gift of Clarity as the ability to communicate oneself perfectly to another, in a way infinitely better than the most skilled NT."

Not sure what you're trying to say there.
Who's doing this fabulous communicating?
And what's neurology got to do with it?

Are you suggesting that at some time, neurodiverse people
would have vast and supreme powers of communication?

Or what?

Scott Hahn - Wikipedia

The Gift of Clarity - Author Joanne Reed

 

[Gerontius]

Say, @Gerontius I hope you don’t mind me asking you this but, what do you know about the Gift of Clarity in the World to Come? I named my group Claritas, because I heard Scott Hahn describe the Gift of Clarity as the ability to communicate oneself perfectly to another, in a way infinitely better than the most skilled NT. However I have yet what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and other Theologians have said about this; do you have any knowledge on this?

I'm in the middle of a move right now so my copy of Aquinas' Summa is about ten miles away. But no I seriously doubt that our being autistic or not has anything whatsoever to do with it. This is more of a universal matter, not some silly particular. "NT's" don't have some odd clairvoyance either.

From Fr Dylan Schrader in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review: April 14th, 2016
A Reflection on the Gifts of the Glorified Body - Homiletic & Pastoral Review (hprweb.com)
Clarity
The Resurrection entails also the gift of clarity, of a bodily participation in glory, a visible overflowing of the soul’s radiance. “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt 13:43). Peter, James, and John caught a glimpse of this on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus then admonishes them not to mention this until he rises from the dead, leaving the same Apostles bewildered as to what “rising from the dead” could mean (Mk 9:10).

A curious aspect of the post-Resurrection encounters illustrates the notion that the Resurrection entails a change in appearance. On several occasions after his rising, Jesus’ disciples did not recognize him, at least not at first (Lk 24:16; Jn 20:14 and 21:4). This is puzzling. After all, the whole point of the Resurrection is that the soul receives the self-same body once again, not a foreign one. Moreover, the brightness once revealed in the Transfiguration apparently did not shine through in such a way as to prevent Jesus’ being mistaken for a stranger or a gardener. So why did the disciples not know him at once?

In one instance, Luke explains that “their eyes were prevented from recognizing him” (Lk 24:16). The same Jesus who revealed himself in a gradual way before his passion, knowing that the disciples could not bear everything all at once, also accommodates himself to them as risen. They see his true appearance, one familiar to them, yet also new. One thing, at least, is clear: The risen Christ is seen as he wishes to be seen. This led medieval theologians to conclude that the risen body will be so subject to the soul that the perception of its radiance by others is dependent on the will. This involves no deception, no putting up a false appearance, but rather the more or less intense revelation of the body’s true appearance.

Such an occurrence is not as far-fetched as we may, at first, believe. Is there any one of us who has not had the experience of mistaking even a good friend, when seen from a certain angle or in a certain light? Have we never wondered over an old photograph only to be informed that the mysterious figure pictured in it is a dear relative of ours? In such moments, perhaps we realize that we have never really seen our beloved clearly enough, that all along we had perceived much less of them than we thought. Have we never looked at our own reflection in the mirror and thought, “This doesn’t look like me”? Our appearance sometimes obscures more of us than it reveals, and our eyes have grown used to the obscurity.

Accustomed as we are to living in a world where physical appearance both helps and hinders real knowledge of another, it is no wonder that, gazing upon a countenance without veil, we may be taken off guard by what we see. At the Resurrection, when the body reflects the soul perfectly, and the glory imparted to the soul overflows into the body with that brightness that the tradition calls “clarity,” perhaps we will feel that, till that moment, we were ghosts who had never seen a real man.

 

[Greatshield17]

@Greatshield17

"I heard Scott Hahn describe the Gift of Clarity as the ability to communicate oneself perfectly to another, in a way infinitely better than the most skilled NT."

Not sure what you're trying to say there.
Who's doing this fabulous communicating?
And what's neurology got to do with it?

Are you suggesting that at some time, neurodiverse people
would have vast and supreme powers of communication?

Or what?

Scott Hahn - Wikipedia

The Gift of Clarity - Author Joanne Reed

I'm in the middle of a move right now so my copy of Aquinas' Summa is about ten miles away. But no I seriously doubt that our being autistic or not has anything whatsoever to do with it. This is more of a universal matter, not some silly particular. "NT's" don't have some odd clairvoyance either.

I’m not saying that, of course both Autistic and Neurotypical people will both receive the gift of Clarity.

This part here, seems to touch on what I’m getting at, I’ll try to find an interview by Scott Hahn where he discusses what I’ve heard about this.

Accustomed as we are to living in a world where physical appearance both helps and hinders real knowledge of another, it is no wonder that, gazing upon a countenance without veil, we may be taken off guard by what we see. At the Resurrection, when the body reflects the soul perfectly, and the glory imparted to the soul overflows into the body with that brightness that the tradition calls “clarity,” perhaps we will feel that, till that moment, we were ghosts who had never seen a real man.

 

[Greatshield17]

Sorry this is going to take a bit longer than I thought.

 

[Greatshield17]

Okay here’s one video where I touches on it a tad bit, it starts roughly around 38:16:

 

[Greatshield17]

Here’s another video, he starts talking about Clarity around 31:35:

 

[Greatshield17]

@Gerontius hope I’m not bothering you but I have one more question for the time being, one obviously cannot be Autistic in Heaven, but is it possible to take one’s “Autistic-ness” to Heaven? It may sound silly and the like, and one have would have to be detached from it in order to do it if one could, paradoxically; but I think their might be someways to do it. Firstly and most obviously, there is the act using one’s Autism to do good and advance in one’s Sanctification; you use your Autism to become a Saint and thus your own “Autistic-ness” becomes Sanctified and something your Sainthood is built on. A Second way is through “offering it up,” we know that when the Martyrs are resurrected, the wounds of their Martyrdom will be permanently visible on them, and some say that minor scars like stretch-marks from pregnancy will be visible on people Heaven as well; with is too, it might be possible, if weoffer-up our Autistic discomforts and difficulties perhaps they’ll be visible on us as scars as well. Thirdly there is the act of making Spiritual Contracts, that’s where you take a certain a habit or quick or the like and ask God that when you do this you renew a certain prayer intention or the like; obviously we can really take advantage of that practice, and employ many of our stims to it. But I wonder if in doing that, we Sanctify it and while we obviously won’t be stimming in Heaven, that Autistic aspect of ourselves will in someway be present or marked on our souls.

Do you understand what I’m asking and suggesting here?