I really like what you have to say here about Spivak’s work. It’s applicable to so many different forms of cultural and social appropriation and silencing.

Have you ever heard of G. C. Spivak’s concept of the subaltern? I’ve noticed that academic attitudes towards aspergers are often based off the idea that instead of letting aspergers people speak, the academics will speak for them. This has interesting parallels in western academic attitudes to the oriental: the westerner sees the orient, mines the orient for data, then speaks for the orient – while at the same time, rendering any non-western speech meaningless. To be taken seriously, the east has to adopt the west’s modes of thought and language.
In the same manner, the NT psychologists ’speak’ for the non-NT, who are considered in terms of raw material data, and for the non-NT to be treated with respect, they have to hide their ‘disability’.

I think there’s a lot of value in contemporary theorists like Spivak for anybody who finds themselves delineated from the ‘typical’, especially for use in defense against the fairly stone-age views of those who wish to ‘cure’ difference.

Please feel free to share this piece with anyone you’d like!

This is a wonderful piece written from the most unique perspective. You have been given a gift in every sense of the word.

~Jon