On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 12:49:09PM +0100, David Gerard wrote:

Discussion on the LJ of a psychologist friend. http://sushidog.livejournal.com/541492.html?thread=9649716 Discuss.

When people attempt to explain other people's actions in terms of psychological disorders or oddities, it seems to me that it often reflects a lack of respect or human sympathy for the people thus diagnosed. Even when the explainer does not explicitly say that something is "wrong" with the person under diagnosis, the implication is usually that the explainer and his audience are superior to and more objective than the person being diagnosed.

The "explained" actions are made out to be mechanical rather than sentient: the result of a neurological curiosity rather than of authentic motives or intentions. Any intentional reasons or practical purposes for the actions are ignored in favor of neurological claims about the actor's problems or eccentricities.

Consider the difference between the following two claims:

A: "Joe organizes his tools carefully because he has mild Asperger's syndrome, and people with Asperger's syndrome organize things."

B: "Joe organizes his tools carefully because it helps him to find them quickly, and he prefers the look of an organized toolshed to that of a disorganized one."

Claim B is more likely to be the way that Joe would explain his own actions. It conveys that Joe's actions have meaning and intentionality behind them; they are not _merely_ the result of neurological oddity, but serve specific and describable purposes. An objective, practical purpose (finding tools quickly) and a subjective, aesthetic one (preferring neatness over clutter) can be described this way.

Claim A, on the other hand, fails to ascribe motives or intentions to Joe. It conveys that Joe's actions are the product of an abnormal brain, and that there is no _need_ for further explanation. In the end, it merely ascribes a label to Joe -- files him in a box labeled "mild Asperger's syndrome" -- and attributes his actions to this label rather than to any goals or purposes that Joe himself may experience.

The implication of claim A is that Joe is weird, and that's all you need to know about him: he's weird. By exclusion, we (the explainer and audience) are not weird. We are explaining him; he's not explaining us; so we are more objective and superior.

The implication of claim B is that Joe has goals and ideas; and that while those goals and ideas may be different from other people's, they are not lesser. Not only can we live with Joe as equals, but we can make note of what he's good at (organizing things) and can participate in mutually beneficial relations with him.