
Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna - Thevet
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n06/michele-pridmore-brown/unfeeling-malice
======
jarmitage
Rather than read this review, you're better off reading responses from other
experts to this book such as Simon Baron-Cohen and Steve Silberman:

[http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2018/04/on-hans-
asperger-...](http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2018/04/on-hans-asperger-
nazis-and-autism.html)

[https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...](https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0209-5)

~~~
Spooky23
Thank you.

This is one area of the Nazi horror that I wasn't very well acquainted with.
Makes me sick to think about.

------
harmful_stereo
Honestly? This is one of the most reactive discussions of an article i have
seen on this site. I assume that suggests something about the concept of
asperger's as it exists in the here and now. I haven't read the whole article,
and obviously it has a slant, but i don't think it is underhanded writing. If
anything of postmodernism or death of the author or critical theory has any
merit at all, I don't think it's necessarily a propaganda hit piece to examine
the context the diagnosis came from. Psychiatric sorts of labels are still
fundamentally pretty nebulous post hoc categories to dump people in and not
tests for the presence of a pathogen etc.

I have my own slant, so sure, i am agreeing with points that articulate my own
feelings better than I have. But even if you disagree there has to be some
mechanism for elevating a dialogue, and i think that's one.

In my own personal experience, people who had or fit the diagnostic model were
socially isolated, basically unfulfilled and uncomfortable in some way, and i
could see that by the way they engaged verbally and i was happy to engage back
wherever i could. Sure; i don't actually want to talk about star wars novels
or what snack foods someone ate 20 years ago at summer camp for two hours. But
sometimes if you are socially isolated too, it can feel good just to know you
gave someone else the chance to open up and be animated. That requires an
investment though, and i can understand how tired a "normal" person would get
of doing that essentially as charity.

But you guys sure could have been more charitable in the discussion here, and
not so deeply polarized. My experience with mental health issues is that they
polarize people kind of abusively. You guys are generally the smartest and
most mature place i can go to lurk a discussion. I'm sad to see that personal
stake being used against that comity and intellectual atmosphere.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I try to let lonely people speak about their passions with me for sort of the
same reason.

Multiple times I have gotten shocked reactions when they discover after
several conversations that I have never played World of Warcraft, or watched
Doctor Who, because we have been talking about it for so long. This is usually
because the more isolated someone is the less questions they ask and they more
1-way the conversation is, but it can result in hurt feelings if they feel
mislead. So now I am sure to position myself early as interested but not
experienced for whatever made up reason.

This not only helps them connect with someone, but has given me the most
fascinating insights into the thought process, inner lives, and domain
expertise of people very different from me. But I also wonder if this intense
listening, but not participating psychological voyeurism is part of my own
personality disorder... and preventing me from fully engaging with the world.

I took this strange passion so far that I attempted to make a startup where
semi-famous people read Audio Books from OTHER authors, and then paused in
between chapters to give you their reflections on what they had just read.

------
8bitsrule
Some of the remains of those children were not buried until 2002.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/world/vienna-buries-
child...](https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/world/vienna-buries-child-
victims-of-the-nazis.html)

When I was six years old, I found in an old 'news annual' book a terrible
photo from one of the concentration camps. I was upset for days. To this day,
I struggle to understand how such intense psychopaths come into power.

~~~
candiodari
Here you can see a video of how they're treated now in Western Europe: locked
up, zero choices for the kid, constantly locked up, isolation cells, ... the
Netherlands is even worse.

Yes, it's probably better than Nazi Poland. It's still a moral disaster.

Note that while it _is_ true that some kids have committed a crime, there's 2
big remarks to be made there:

1) only <10% have been accused of a crime at all, 90% is there "for their own
protection". Doesn't save them from the isolation cells.

2) even for those 10%, they have only been accused. Youth laws do not require
any kind of proof. Nor is there defense.

3) The same goes for the 90%, all there is to say the home situation is not
safe is the word of one youth worker. This youth worker has never seen the
child before the trial, they have only received a single document from another
youth worker who is supposed to have seen the child (but often hasn't, in fact
that they fail to see those children is often a reason for passing the case to
the justice system in the first place: "lack of cooperation")

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFaNx1Y-fY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzFaNx1Y-fY)

(if you set the captions on and to English you should be able to understand)

~~~
8bitsrule
Ow. Putting teens who haven't committed crimes into an institution is bad
enough ... but isolation without cause is much more wrong-headed, especially
at that age. Thanks for opening my eyes to this.

------
unknownkadath
I can see why Psychology has moved away from using the name "Asperger's."
Everything this article describes (and it is a high quality article) is messed
up on so many levels.

~~~
hopler
Psychology didn't move on because they didn't like Hans. They changed because
they identifir a spectrum from mild to severe. The problem is that by
collapsing the vocabulary, it obfuscates communication where one person thinks
you're talking about Asperger's and the other is thinking of someone who can't
speak or hold down a job and communicates by screaming and kicking.

------
nnq
Some ideas from this should be rewritten into a more readable/ADHD-friendly
piece to warn highly-functioning-Aspergers people and those with somewhat
similar "less sociable" personalities _against growing fond of any ultra-
right-wing /(techno)fascist and neo-natzy ideologies that may seem seem
appealing!_ Some of them, and even some who are normally sociable but more
ultra-individualistic, or more order-loving, can be attracted to order and
clear patterns, and right-wing-ish groups tend to disguise themselves as being
"ordered and rational" despite their hate-spreading and homicidal agendas...

 _Any heavy-right-wing and /or ultra-nationalistic or xenophobic ideology is
at its core anti-individualistic anti-"people who develop their minds along
their own tracks separate from society"._

There is a _huge_ difference between people who are less-integrated / less-
affective / less-social / Gemüt-poor, and people with hateful, resentful and
genocidal-friendly attitudes. "Gemüt-rich people" simply have a higher inertia
by being anchored to their societies so they may seem "better" because it's
harder to make them do horrible things when they are in a healthy society.
_But as in physics, inertia works both ways, "Gemüt-rich" or more conformist
people will keep doing horrible things (and competing + cooperating to be more
horrible) once they start doing them!_

"Badly socially integrated", asocial, highly-functional-autism or "Gemüt-poor"
individuals can also function as a society's immune system that helps it fight
back and recover from malignant ideologies like nazism and extremist-
communism!

~~~
DoreenMichele
People are products of their social environments. Outcomes are hardly
determined solely by a single personality trait, like how "sociable" or "not
sociable" (or whatever you want to call this) they are.

~~~
nnq
> People are products of their social environments

This is both a useless platitude and deeply offensive to state... we may be
the product of an environment, but we also produce/reshape the environment on
our turn, that's _the important part of the loop, and the part we can act
upon!_

Focusing on the other is both counter-productive and depression-inducing.
We're humans because we create / build / forge / destroy / reshape our
environment, otherwise we could just as well imagine we're vegetables growing
in a "social garden" fed by "societal night soil fertilizer" \- such an
attitude can only promote apathy and justify not taking responsibility for
things!

All people have innate characteristics/talents/deficiencies etc., we're not
blank slates programmed by "the social environment", it's about understanding
how to work with what we get from the gene + "random chaos of the natural
environment" lottery...

~~~
DoreenMichele
I think there is a failure to communicate somewhere. I'm certainly not
suggesting that people are born as blank slates. I'm just suggesting that
there is a lot that happens in the years between birth and adulthood that
influence outcomes. Whatever stuff we are born with is not some kind of
predetermined fate that "we will do/behave X."

I've raised two special needs sons. They are late twenties/early thirties.
This is a problem space I've thought a lot about. My thoughts on the subject
seem to generally not plug into the current public narrative.

I'm still trying to figure out how to write effectively about it so it's clear
to other people.

~~~
nnq
Sorry, yes, there's probably a communication issue :) You surely have a lot of
valuable things to say.

Just _don 't ever starts with_ "people are products of their social
environments", it can send the totally wrong vibe to many people and make
cause the rest of the message be misunderstood. At least reword it somehow.
Lots of people are "violently allergic" to this kind of social-determinism
style discourse.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's not social determinism. It's more like "nature _and_ nurture."

But I will try to be clearer in the future.

Thanks.

------
bjourne
Speaking as someone with Asperger's, the idea that the disorder would be a
"modern invention" or like a thing invented by Nazis is completely ludicrous.
It's on the same level as claiming homosexuality is a life-style choice. :)

One of the main difficulties for me is determining closeness of relationships.
Like a distance metric; close relatives being closer than friends which are
closer than acquaintances which in turn are closer than unknowns and enemies
are very far away. I have never been able to understand how that distance
metric works and therefore been unable to distinguish between friends and
foes. Autism is not an evolutionary adaptation. It could be a remnant from the
Neanderthal genome, as some scientists suggests, as that species were less
group-oriented than Homo Sapiens.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" One of the main difficulties for me is determining closeness of
relationships. Like a distance metric; close relatives being closer than
friends which are closer than acquaintances which in turn are closer than
unknowns and enemies are very far away. I have never been able to understand
how that distance metric works and therefore been unable to distinguish
between friends and foes. Autism is not an evolutionary"_

If someone intends to hurt you, where would you put that person on the friend
or foe spectrum?

If someone intends to help you, where would you put that person on the friend
or foe spectrum?

If someone likes you and you like them, where would you put that person on the
friend or foe spectrum?

If you don't like someone and they don't like you, where would you put that
person on the friend or foe spectrum?

How about for a person who doesn't like you and you don't like them and they
intend to hurt you?

Those are the kinds of questions the answers to which would help me to
determine whether someone is a friend or foe.

~~~
kstenerud
Except:

How do you know that someone intends to hurt you?

How do you know that someone intends to help you?

How do you know that someone likes you?

How do you know that someone doesn't like you?

Unless you can accurately answer those questions, you'll never know the
closeness of your relationships.

------
glhaynes
Awful title.

~~~
dang
If you can suggest a more accurate and neutral title, preferably using
language drawn from the article, we'll be happy to change it.

~~~
glhaynes
I'd be up for most anything that's not this unfortunate combination of the
article title with the partial title of the book being reviewed; that combo
leads to a headline that sounds like it's intending an unfortunate and
incorrect (and Nazi-originated, which is the point of the article!)
description of kids who have been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

I'd tentatively suggest "Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi
Vienna (LRB review)" but I'm sure others could come up with better
suggestions.

Thanks!

(To be clear: I'm sure there was zero malice behind this title, it's just an
unfortunate display issue.)

~~~
dang
OK, we've replaced the title. I've been thinking recently that for book review
articles maybe we should just use the book title anyhow.

------
AzzieElbab
Somehow every time I read anything about psychology, I think of astrology and
alchemy. Such an underdeveloped field, full of self-serving and self-
projecting dangerous charlatans.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

~~~
hnuser123457
Will you please open up my giant black ass cheeks and suck the shit from my
anus?

------
cwbrandsma
Where is the value in this article? It is just gossip.

OK, I have aspergers and I have kids with aspergers, all professionally
diagnosed. And I have read the history of Dr Asperger multiple times already,
it really is not that hard to find. So with that I try to read this
article...and I can't. I reads too much like gossip magazine.

The entire purpose, whether the author wants to admit it or not, is to create
a negative association between Asperger's syndrome and Dr. Asperger. So now,
if you find out someone has Aspergers your thought process will start with
"oh, that is horrible". This creates a new wave of idiots who start
conversations with "Did you know Dr Asperger was a bad man?"...Yes, and he is
dead now, so how is that relevant to anything?

So, if you like reading gossip, I'm sure this is a fun read for you. But there
it contains nothing of value.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_The entire purpose, whether the author wants to admit it or not, is to create
a negative association between Asperger 's syndrome and Dr. Asperger._

No, that's not the point at all. The point is to question the validity of the
concept.

It's apparently the Nazi version of so much race based BS in the US. The US
has a long history of saying people of color are less intelligent, unfit to
lead, are happier as servants and so forth. It justifies condemning them to a
permanent underclass.

If autism is really what the Nazi regime chose to call people it found
inadequately emotionally manipulable for its purposes, then you have to
question the validity of the label at all.

Then you have to wonder if maybe they are just people and maybe people come in
a wide variety of flavors and maybe the flavor we call "autism" isn't some
inherent defect after all.

~~~
cwbrandsma
That would be true if no further research has been done in the field and no
progress has been made, as if we are only using the exact definitions
described 80 years ago. But we haven't. There has been more research done, and
the notions have progressed. If we throw it all out, we will have to recreate
it again. If you rename it, you still don't escape the legacy. All of this is
futile.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Such labels start from an assumption that there is some "normal" or "standard"
human being to compare us all against and if you aren't "normal," then you are
defective. The neurodiversity movement generally seems to posit that being
different isn't fundamentally defective.

I used to spend a lot of time on parenting lists and even was a low level
presenter at a gifted conference when I was briefly Director of Community Life
for The TAG Project. I have two special needs sons who likely qualify for a
label somewhere on the autism spectrum, though neither has a formal diagnosis.

I just gave them a lot of instruction on why people do the things they do and
how social stuff works while respecting the fact that my sons didn't innately
want to interact with others in the "standard" manner. I get along well with
them.

I think it is fundamentally problematic to label people as defective simply
for being different. Their father likely also qualifies for a diagnosis
somewhere on the autism spectrum. As far as I know, he has never sought a
diagnosis.

He joined the army when he was twenty and we had an old fashioned marriage.

In the army, everyone where's a uniform. This fits well with the current
standard recommendation to let ASD people get multiple copies of their
favorite items and dress the same everyday. Wearing a uniform for the job is
something most people complain about. For him, it worked well. Bonus points:
He wasn't "weird" or "defective" for dressing the same everyday. He was just
doing what was required of him by the job.

Military uniforms have the person's last name on the front above the pocket.
The fact that he had trouble recognizing faces was not important. All his
coworkers had labels.

He was very good at his job, but I handled a lot of the traditional duties
typically handled by a full-time wife. This is part of why he excelled at his
job. It was the only thing he really needed to focus on.

Over the years, I've seen some research indicating that men with full-time
wives typically rise through the ranks at work faster. I've discussed such
with other college educated women and so forth.

In the lifetime of my children, the world stopped being predominantly agrarian
and became predominantly urban. Most people now live in cities and this has
been true for less than thirty years.

In short, the world has changed tremendously. Yet, rather than positing that
the world we created is ill-suited to the needs of many humans, we posit that
folks who don't readily fit into this never-before-seen highly technologically
advanced society were simply born broken. We posit that there is suddenly a
shockingly high percentage of defective humans.

I have to question that framing. It doesn't fit with my understanding at all
of life, the universe and everything.

It isn't meant to threaten your coping mechanisms.

~~~
Spooky23
I think you make excellent points worth thinking about here.

Personally, I was struck when I saw how kids in my son's kindergarten were
bucketed on the angel->troublemaker spectrum. It's a very one-dimensional
approach.

At the end of the day, people usually find their role where they click. A top-
tier salesperson or engineer have very different personalities and traits that
make them effective, but aren't inherently better or worse than each other.

------
pjc50
For those that read the comments first - content warning for discussion of
Nazi mass murder of children.

