The rise of autism
Diagnoses of autism have "exploded" in recent years. Why? There is a lot of doubt that there is a real underlying increase in cases of autism. Most psychologists would account for the rise as an effect of expanded diagnostic criteria. And that in turn is an aspect of what is often called the "medicalization" of deviant behaviour. That is the explanation that I incline towards. I am aware that there are some claims of a role for diet and pollution but I see no clear evidence of that
A friend of mine who is a most experienced practicing psychologist has however offered me a rather novel explanation -- an explanation that is both sociological and draws strongly on history. History is the only laboratory of sociology so it is undoubtedly the place to look for sociological explanations.
The starting point of the explanation is that the very first diagnosis of autism was by Kanner in 1943. Did he invent it? Why was it unknown before his work? Clearly, it must have existed all along but why did it come to attention as a recognized syndrome so recently?
My psychologist friend has come up with an explanation. He says he was recently reading a book about etiquette in the Victorian era and was amazed by the minuteness of the rules that governed social interactions at that time. The whole idea of social etiquette has become rather passe these days but the aim of the rules was to make social interactions easy and pleasant for all parties. It was not some authoritarian invention. It was a set of arrangements that had arisen through trial and error over time that most people were comfortable with. There was such a clear consensus about the rules that you could write books setting out the rules for those who needed to learn them. So the rules did have something of a straitjacket character
And that was GOOD for autistic people, or at least the less disabled element of the autism spectrum. Autistics did not have to feel their way towards socially acceptable behaviour. It was all very clearly laid down for them by society. The rules were made to ease social interactions and they had that effect for anybody who followed them So the social expectations of the day DRAGOONED autistics into adaptive behaviour They did not have work it all out themselves
That explanation will not of course cover the extremely withdrawn forms of autism but for the more articulate parts of the spectrum it makes considerable sense. It is only the breakdown of social mores resulting from two ghastly world wars that deprived social behaviour of much of its guidelines. The old order was destroyed and not replaced. And once Kanner had described juvenile autism, people began to see degrees of it elsewhere. And that is where we are today
This is not of course a glorification of Victorian society. Charles Dickens has convinced us all that Victorian society was thoroughly wrongheaded. It is simply an argument that Victorian rules had some benefit for some people, not all of whom were high and mighty -- people with poor social competence generally
This is not of course a theory about the origins and causes of autism but merely a theory about its visibility. So what are the causes of autism?
I remember when I was doing a seminar in abnormal psychology as part of my Masters degree in psychology in the department of psychology at the university of Sydney in 1968, Kanner was much mentioned, but the discussion centred around whether autism was a psychosis. I have never thought that
The long-running theory of autism traced the condition to "refrigerator mothers". I forget who first proposed that theory but I would shoot him if I could. To blame poor distressed mothers for the dysfunction of their child was extremely cruel and unforgivable to my mind. Fortunately that theory fitted so few actual cases that it was perforce eventually abandoned.
That led to an exploration of physical causes instead. I was a party to those debates and found one explanation persuasive: That autism was caused caused by excessive stimulus sensitivity which was in turn caused by an overdeveloped cerebral cortex. I still subscribe to that theory and believe that it is now the mainstream one. There is no complete consensus in any area of science, however, climate science excepted, of course.
As a small amusing note in confirmation of that theory, I have observed informally that autistic people tend to wear large size hats! And when I met my present girlfriend via a dating site she said that the thing she most liked about my photo was my high forehead. She is very bright, has an intense interest in psychology and believes herself to be a high functioning autistic -- a diagnosis with which I concur.
I have had many papers published in the academic journals on abnormal psychology topics but none on autism. My interest in it was however sparked by a recent realization that I too am a high functioning autistic. And that has benefited my social life. You can see from the early photo with my sister below below what my forehead has been like from the beginning. Plenty of room for a large cerebral cortex.
I have however had 4 marriages and three ladies still call on me regularly even though I am in my 80th year so I think that promotes the view that at least some autistics can have an interesting life
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Biden Admin Admits LGBT Lifestyle Produces Worse Mental Health, Addiction
Americans who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual are far more likely to suffer from major depression and abuse illegal drugs, and are up to six times as likely to attempt suicide, according to a new report from the Biden administration.
Although the report admits it cannot “explain the reasons” for these differences, it opens by blaming LGBT “invisibility and erasure”—a leap critics say is “just bad science” that obscures the real causes for these Americans’ mental distress.
Adults who have sex with members of the same sex, or both sexes, experience a dramatically lower quality of life across numerous measures, the Biden administration reveals.
Women who have sex with members of both sexes (bisexuals) were six times as likely to have attempted suicide within the last year as women who identify as straight, and three times as likely to abuse opioid drugs. Bisexual men were three times as likely to have had a serious mental illness in the last year, according to the survey from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“A higher prevalence of substance use and mental health issues has been well-documented among people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (also referred to as sexual minorities) than among those who identify as heterosexual or straight,” notes the report, which focuses on American adults’ behaviors during the 2021-2022 year.
Drug Abuse, Suicide, Depression
The Biden administration’s survey documents the high rates at which “sexual minorities” suffer from the intertwined pathologies of drug abuse and negative mental health outcomes.
Drug abuse rates, spanning from methamphetamines to tobacco, were multiple orders higher among gay- or bisexual-identified people than heterosexuals. Those who identify as bisexual, of either sex, had the highest levels of illegal drug use.
Half of all bisexual men and women (49.5% and 49.7%, respectively) had used illicit drugs, as well as 42% of women who identify as lesbians and 41% of men who have sex with men, or MSM—double the rates of heterosexual men and women (27% and 20%, respectively).
Those living the LGBT lifestyle had a strong propensity to abuse the hardest narcotics. Lesbians were twice as likely, and bisexual women more than three times as likely, to use “cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants, and methamphetamine,” or to abuse prescription drugs (19.4% of bisexual women compared to 13.8% of lesbians, and 6.7% of straight women). Lesbians were 253% more likely to use cocaine than straight women.
Bisexual women were 360% more likely to misuse opioids than were straight women over the last year. Gay- or lesbian-identified adults were twice as likely to abuse hallucinogenic drugs than heterosexuals.
The trend continues to legal drugs, as well. “Sexual minority females” were twice as likely to smoke tobacco or “have been heavy drinkers in the past month,” according to the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is titled “Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Behavioral Health: Results from the 2021 and 2022 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health.”
Similar numbers held true for males—although men have higher levels of substance abuse in general.
“Gay males were about twice as likely as bisexual males and about 15 times as likely as straight males to have used inhalants in the past year,” the mental health agency reports. All men abused alcohol at the same rate.
Serious Mental Illness
Mental health also proved radically poorer among those who identify as LGBT. Although women admit to higher levels of mental health challenges than men, LGBT-identified individuals of both sexes suffered significantly elevated levels of serious mental illness, major depressive episodes, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts.
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The 'Girl Scouts have lost their way,' asserts faith-based alternative for young women
The Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA), founded in 1912, has been in the spotlight this week — but not for its popular cookie sales.
An online form circulating on social media this week related to sleepaway camp reportedly asked parents of girls to specify if their kids go by masculine pronouns — and if they'd prefer "gender inclusive" sleeping arrangements for their children while the young ones are at camp.
The form, reportedly sent by a parent to the widely followed Twitter account End Wokeness, asked parents or caregivers to provide "basic camper information" regarding preferred pronouns, including "she/her," "they/them," "he/him" and "other."
A group that considers itself a faith-based alternative to the Girls Scouts spoke out on the topic.
Patti Garibay, founder and national executive director of American Heritage Girls, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday afternoon, "Straying so far from the vision of its foundress, GSUSA has once again entangled itself in the ever-shifting winds of today's culture."
Added Garibay, "As Alexander Hamilton once said, 'Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.'"
Garibay said, "Is today's GSUSA the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts — or something in between?"
She added that "so many alumnae have grieved that Girl Scouts have lost their way as they witness a true loss of a national treasure."
Garibay said she started American Heritage Girls "for this very reason."
The organization ((GSUSA) voted in 1993 to make the word "God" optional in its oath.
Garibay spent over a decade with the Girl Scouts in different parts of the United States. She then left the organization and formed American Heritage Girls in 1995, she said.
She felt she had to leave the Girl Scouts after the organization voted in 1993 to make the word "God" optional in its oath.
"This wasn't something that I came upon lightly, as in, 'Let's just start an alternative to the Girl Scouts because I'm not liking what's going on there,'" she told Fox News Digital previously.
Garibay founded American Heritage Girls as a Christian alternative to the Girl Scouts.
It "inspires girls to pursue a deeper walk with Christ and focuses on Christian values and family involvement."
Today, AHG is the largest faith-based scouting organization in the world, with over 60,000 members, according to Garibay's organization.
The group says it "inspires girls to pursue a deeper walk with Christ and focuses on Christian values and family involvement."
It also helps young girls and parents deal with social and cultural issues through a platform called "Raising Godly Girls."
The group shares on its website, "When a girl’s identity and her worldview lens are rooted in faith, the gospel message doesn’t stay neatly tucked in her Bible only to be taken off the shelf each Sunday … it impacts every part of her life!"
A biblical worldview, it continues, "shapes the way she understands herself, her purpose in the world, and how she can influence an unholy world for Christ using the God-given gifts bestowed upon her at the moment of her creation."
Garibay is author of the book, "Why Curse the Darkness When You Can Light a Candle?" She and her husband have four married children and nine grandchildren.
American Heritage Girls has troops in all 50 states, as well as independent "Trailblazers" in 15 countries. Troops can be found across a variety of Christian denominations.
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/girl-scouts-lost-way-faith-based-alternative-young-women
************************************************As Corporate America Veers Left, the GOP Can Become the Party of Small Businesses
A recent Wall Street Journal lead story reported that “Republicans and big business broke up.” The amount of corporate donations to Republicans was cut sharply in the last election cycle to a lower amount than in nearly a decade.
The United States Chamber of Commerce has backed many Democrats running for Congress in close and competitive races, which puts the GOP slim majority in jeopardy.
The writing is on the wall: Corporate America is increasingly aligning itself with liberal Democrats, not Republicans.
Some of this shift in corporate allegiances is due to some bad decisions by Republicans. The GOP has shortsightedly pursued a “break up Big Tech” campaign, and the party’s slide toward tariffs and away from free trade, one of the pillars of prosperity, is worrisome to any free marketeer. We should have free trade with countries, unless they are like Communist China, threats to American security.
The real question is whether the GOP should want or even need support from the corporate boardrooms, which are increasingly going “woke.” Maybe it is time for a divorce.
Big business is increasingly siding with big government. Democrats are passing out Biden Bucks, and corporate America lusts for free federal money. Like field mice, they gobble up the morsels the Democrats spill out of their pockets.
Corporate welfare spending at Washington is at an all-time high, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars pipelined into the coffers of the Climate Change Industrial Complex, semiconductor companies, and other Beltway Bandit industries.
Principled free-market Republicans should take a strong stand against runaway government spending and debt, against 19th-century antitrust laws enforced by super-regulators such as Chairwoman Lina Khan of the the Federal Trade Commission, against corporate welfare programs that cultivate big business dependency on the government, and against the self-serving Wall Street doctrine of “too big to fail.”
If corporate America is against that agenda, then don’t let the door hit your fanny on the way out of the party.
An alliance between big business and big government, after all, is simply a form of what used to be called “fascism.”
What is the alternative for the GOP? It’s obvious. Republicans must be the party of the 80 million small-business men and women who employ more than 60 percent of our employees.
The head of the indispensable Job Creators Network, Alfredo Ortiz, notes that “most small businesses don’t have PACs and lobbyists and fancy K Street Washington offices. They just want to be left alone.”
He’s right. My father ran a successful small business for 40 years outside of Chicago. He worked long hours and was gone often when I was growing up. I don’t think he ever visited Washington, D.C. He had disdain for politics and most politicians.
That’s a fairly universal attitude of employers. And who can blame them given the torrent of nosy regulations by Washington lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians who know nothing about running a business or making a profit?
If big business wants to bolt and make peace with the party that hates enterprise, entrepreneurship, and profit, that’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in corporate America, not the GOP.
President Coolidge once said that “90 percent of people who come to Washington want something they shouldn’t have.” Too often these days, our Fortune 500 companies want your and my money, and that’s something they shouldn’t have.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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