Autism as Related to Art, Culture, and Philosophy:

The Virtue of Flaws
“It is the privilege of the real genius, especially one who opens up a new path, to make great mistakes with impunity.” ~Voltaire

Flaws, in hindsight, are irresistibly fascinating. And in great works of art they provide rare glimpses into a process that would not otherwise be visible in light. Goethe delighted in finding inconsistencies in Shakespeare (and even engaged in the practice himself); Joyce called his mistakes portals into his genius.

I have always been struck by the trial and error mark-making Munch purposefully left documented in many of his paintings. Mahler (in my estimation) never wrote a perfect symphony, but despite his tendency to ramble, he eventually leads you back into transcendence—I can only see one following from the other as somehow necessary. A similar reaction is to be had in Kubrick’s last movie, Eyes Wide Shut. The emotional impact of the film is so powerful I replay scenes in my mind with Duchamp’s axiom, “Nothing in Art is Accidental,” underscoring the improbable dialog.

In Omar’s letter for Chapter Four, I address this concept of artistic imperfection in terms of metaphysics, although the metaphors presented work equally well in explaining autism.

The Mismeasure of the Human Mind
Autistic gifts are not only unorthodox in their generation, but they frequently come with mechanical difficulties. As alluded to in Omar’s letter, Shakespeare’s writing genius came with problems in spelling and grammar; similarly, Einstein’s genius for higher mathematics and abstract thinking came with problems in simple arithmetic.

Given this paradox, conventional “higher education” is an unreliable yardstick in measuring the most extraordinary gifts of intelligence and genius. This can also be extended to the conceit of IQ tests, which are incapable of evaluating anything more than measurable deductive reasoning and the performance speed for arriving at such deductions.

There are other curious observations on the limitations of institutional learning. Both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche derided the intellectual anemia and lack of creative thinking that generally plagues academia. And as far as those who succeed in this arena, Schopenhauer scholar, Bryan Magee, Nietzsche scholar, Walter Kaufman, and others, have pointed out the same strange phenomenon: The university graduates who go on to have the most distinguished lives and careers are almost never the most academically accomplished. Whereas A students score highest on their tests and win all the accolades academia has to offer, B students, who are often more creative and exhibit genius in one field of study to the exclusion of other fields of study, are the ones who go on to shape scholarship and culture (think Einstein). This can even be seen in the results of aforementioned IQ tests. One way of diagnosing people with Asperger’s or HFA is by noting the discrepancy between the verbal score and the performance score in such tests: one is often as high as the other is only average or below average. Those who belong to Menas may be smart, but a glance of the honor roll of those it looks up to turns up individuals who, if subjected to an IQ test, probably would not have qualified for membership.

Additionally, I dare to venture, many of the most impactful contributors to our culture have been people who either dropped out of college or high school, or never attended one or both. This distinguished group includes dyslexics who, being more socially adept than autistics, swell the ranks of actors, musicians, and entrepreneurs.

A note on Shakespeare: To the myriad conspiracy theories about how Shakespeare was intellectually incapable of writing his own plays, I would like to add a more plausible explanation for his gifts, (and arising from my own difficulties with grammar and spelling): What can explain a man who lived physically and emotionally apart from his wife and children yet was completely devoted to a small band of friends with whom he shared an all-consuming narrow interest? What can explain someone who, prior to becoming the world’s greatest writer, not only displayed so little promise towards that end as a young man with a sub-standard education but also had so little concept of his accomplishments after-the-fact he left his legacy for others to preserve? And what disorder can endow someone with an inspired and imaginative gift for mimicry? Asperger's Syndrome...

Go Along to Get Along
neurotypical: (noun, adjective), a term (usually pejorative) used by autistics, differently-abled thinkers, and other sympathetic parties to describe individuals whose brains are wired normally. A term (usually pejorative) used to characterize a way of thinking practiced by said individuals with normally wired brains.

Neurotypical culture is chiefly defined by conformity and/or tribal identity, regardless if that tribe is high or low, mainstream or counterculture, marginalized or marginalizing. From the group-trumps-individual ethos of political-correctness and multiculturalism to the best-of-the-most-over-the-most-of-the-best economics of factory culture, it is a host of conspirators without a single, conscious conspiracy. No one intends to be insularly privileged; no one intends to champion mediocrity—it just comes out that way. Whether you want to call the obstruction the “old boy network,” “glass ceiling,” or “death by consensus, committee, or political fiat,” it all comes down to the same thing: The social dimension is hardwired in the majority culture, and it is chiefly through a lens of social utility success is defined, and chiefly through a lens of social connectivity success is dispensed: In other words, it is more about who you know and who or what you represent than about what you do or how well you do it.

This model does not favor neuro-atypical people, since many (and especially those on the autistic spectrum) lack the social skills and institutional priorities necessary to advance their cause; similarly, they lack the ability to cultivate advocates who can champion their cause for them. Many neuro-atypicals view the values of the “go along to get along” world as absurd and beside the point. Though few neurotypicals, if pressed, would disagree with this characterization, few of them would argue against the proposition “go along to get along” is the way the world truly works.

In science and mathematics, contrariness is sometimes not a problem in getting on. Einstein cared little for the sociopolitical demands of the university and wound up as a patent clerk. Yet the practical application of his genius was so compelling he was not long without a university job and prestige.

In the arts, sociopolitical contrariness may be admired, but it is never rewarded. Almost exclusively, the inherent social dimension of human pursuit drives the arts, and flowing from the prevailing dominance of relativistic Modernism this is even truer now than it has been in the past. What constitutes art is a subjective proposition at best, and since skills and universally acknowledged criteria figure little into the evaluation, only social connectivity, exposure, and glad-handing are left to hoist artists up the ladder of recognition. Resultantly, a socially well-connected Salieri will always win out over a socially dysfunctional Mozart: mediocrity will always win out (at least temporarily) over genius. Of course, history has a way of righting things, although the acknowledgement of Mozart’s genius came only with his death.

Another Way of Seeing Things
The Aspergerian experience is a different way of looking at life and the world. Those on the spectrum are often accused of missing “the big picture.” I would say it is a view of reality from the molecular level, where no detail is too trivial in revealing the logic of a place, mood, or turn of mind. It is an approach focused on what is right in front of it and not what abstractly passes for society on the street outside. In writing, this puts the perspective closer to physics than to soap opera. Some might characterize writers inclined to this perspective as self-involved, but self-involvement is a tricky definition in literature.

(Potential Aspie, Marcel Proust, is a poster example of the atomized approach.)

For me, too much of what is regarded as “serious literature” these days lacks a critical and even self-critical gaze. It feels like it has been gleaned from political tracts, headlines, or plagiarized from faddish books of socio-psychology or rehabilitated history. Literature has always had a pedantic streak, but it has not always been so insufferably transparent as it is now. One man’s definition of a “big picture” is another man’s definition of a bludgeon.

The writers I admire most are largely preoccupied with crystalizing and objectifying the individual experience. From Austen and Wilde, with their cool, humorous appreciation of social mechanics, to Poe and Borges, with their imaginative exploration of mystery and metaphysics, this approach is more reflective than reflexive, and more cerebral than emotive. Yet when it is emotive, it is more clinically psychological than gratuitously melodramatic.

Less of interest to me are writers like Hemingway and Steinbeck, who see individuals as agents. The world (or society, or family, or history) here becomes an externalized and oppositional force, and the individual’s relationship to it is either that of victor or, more likely, victim. Through situation or saga, the story often revolves around a protagonist embroiled in a power struggle of some kind, and usually within the terms of a societal matrix he or she covets or despises. That is to say: the protagonist can conquer others, rail against others, or be crushed by others, but it is never the case where others are not the thing by which the protagonist’s defines his or herself.

Accolades of the highest order are reserved for writers who deal in these themes, and since I regard the world to be largely an over-hyped abstraction, and the material values attached to it to be equally over-hyped, I find only intermittent entertainment value in such preoccupations. I do not see this world-centered or society-centered approach as illegitimate, only, like its preoccupations, over-hyped at the expense of writers who, for me, are more subtly insightful through detachment and dispassion. As a result, I read this quote by Yeats with a Nietzschean view: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

I will admit I am doing a disservice to these outwardly focused writers by stating my opposition too starkly, so I will amend my opposition by saying my quarrel lies more with the socio-cultural politics of those who champion these writers than with the writers themselves. No artist is as glib or as one-dimensional as his or her fawning fans would have you believe. It is quite true that you are more likely to be grossly misrepresented by your admirers than by your critics who simply misrepresent you.

Regardless, I am outnumbered in this business, for everyone these days seems to be outwardly focused: i.e., pandering to someone’s pocketbook or sociopolitical demographic.

On Poets
Poetry, almost by definition, is atomized. Owing to its general economy, good poetry strips away action, pares down or eliminates motive, and concerns itself principally with quiet perceptual undertakings where all is revealed.

(Potential Aspie and writer, Jane Austen, is often misrepresented as either a victim or a would-be social reformer.)

The Conceit of Understanding the Creative Mind
Perhaps stemming from my involved, convoluted creative process, I have always had a degree of contempt for critics and “authoritative spokespersons” who offer up definitive interpretations on what art means, or what a particular individual “intended” when he or she created something. Goethe once wrote about the unlikely prospect of meeting a man who could see the end of his creative work at the beginning. Indeed, there are creative people who endeavor to visualize their projects whole from the outset, and are even so bold (or disingenuous) as to propose that it will mean this or that or will be made with a specific purpose or interpretation in mind. More likely, this type of rationalization is done after-the-fact, because onlookers, especially if they like something, require explanations. I have even engaged in retro-explanation myself (see the companion notes for my book). Retro-explanation, whether originating within the social realm of language, the cause-and-effect world of logic, or the unexamined sphere of moral judgment, is the only way we can share what we create with others. One should never forget such modes of expression are inferior to the actual act of experiencing art tête-à-tête, for art, at its core, is transcendental in nature and intent. As I have explained at length in the previous section, the transcedental dimesnion lies beyond all logic or reason—and this point is illustrated nowhere better than while taking in works of art on their terms. When many artists shrug their shoulders on being asked what their art means, or say bluntly it "means nothing," they speak essential transcendental truth:

Art is meaningless: meaning, its reason to be transcends our need to be reasonable. (7/09/09)

Yet when we love things, we tend to love them too much, and people who make a living explaining the things they love invariably come to misrepresent those things. This reduction to absurdity is the peculiar domain of higher education. And the higher the education (and the more exclusive the higher education), the more absurdist it becomes.

The question for me is not who was neuro-atypical in the arts, sciences, and letters, but who was not. Yet this aberrant state of mind is never considered in any thorough discussion of creativity. For example, I recently tried to listen to an “academic” discussion about Jane Austen, and I became so upset after fifteen minutes I had to stop listening. The default setting of academia is leftist, where everything—and I do mean everything—is seen in terms of repression and exploitation. Jane Austen was described as “terrifying” because of the “repressive world” of economic darwinism and gender inequity she documented in her writing. The fact that she was a wit and connoisseur of human frailty, possessed a mostly conservative view of how the world does and should work (she was a reader of Samuel Johnson!), and was most probably a gifted autistic quite content to live in her own little imagined world, does not count for a jot.

Creative people generally intend nothing by their acts of creativity. They only want to satisfy a compulsive and mostly enjoyable need to create. Having written a book, I did not intend anything more than a cogent and thrilling story. There was no plan or grand strategy to talk about Kant or Schopenhauer, or to document my autism, or even to write a veiled memoir. There was no way I could have envisioned what I wound up with given my beginnings back in 2003. I wrote and rewrote incessantly, and was literally presented with an infinity of possibilities. What ultimately decided the final ordering of events in my chapters was fatigue and a process of elimination. (5/16/09)

A note on Austen: Many readers (and especially women) are under the impression Miss Austen “had a thing for bad boys” because she populated her books with them. As an autistic, I must counter this assumption. First, Jane Austen’s desire for moral rectitude in behavior is well documented in her novel, Mansfield Park. Secondly, those with autism have difficulty with nonverbal communication, and as a result they have a formal understanding of what people intend in their actions—and almost exclusively by what they relate in their verbal communication. Therefore, if people do not say what they mean, or contrive to misrepresent who they are by their language, then this not only leaves the autistic in the lurch, but also exposes them to the worst kind of betrayal. If high functioning autistics ever adhere to rigid, formal rules, then it is in the social arena; and if an individual, and especially a young man of questionable character who employs charm as a way of manipulating people, does not follow the rules, then he is deserving of sanction. Jane Austen's dim view of bad boys is more a measure of her resentment for a certain type of person than it is an indicator of any fascination.

Another note on Austen: Furthermore, Austen has been criticized for being too narrow in her literary scope, and for not addressing contemporary historical events of her day. This need to incorporate “the world” and the politics of the world into one’s art and outlook is a queerly neurotypical preoccupation, and one no more finds it in the genius of Austen than one finds it in the genius of Shakespeare. Geniuses of this caliber make art for the ages, and are not to be confused with editorial cartoonists who live and die with the current events they chronicle. (See next section.)

The Neurotypical Why Versus The Neuro-atypical How
Neurotypical culture is typically framed in questions of why and what: Why was this made? What did the author intend in making it? The presupposition is always rational and linear. Art must be made for a reason that reason can understand. Nothing simply exists on its own terms. For example, Jane Austen is not merely writer but a women’s writer, which means she has a point of view that supersedes her need to create or is superimposed over it: namely, the culture, politics, etc. of a woman. It is doubtless a form of entertainment that many gather at literary conferences to dissect Miss Austen so that she may, in an extra-literary sense, address material issues of their lives. However, none of this in any shape, form, or fashion touches Miss Austen. Why presupposes a starting place, and anyone who starts with why ends up with why bother.

Neuro-atypical culture is both less logic-centric and less moral-centric than neurotypical culture. The questions here are how and what: How was this artistic feat accomplished? By what mechanical means was it achieved? Neuro-atypicals (and I am thinking chiefly of autistics in this case) are more manual than cerebral when it comes to process, where one proceeds from parts to wholes, and from mimicry to originality. There is a little autistic (idiot) savant in every neuro-atypical. This does not mean that what neuro-atypicals are making is soullessly computational and unthinking. Rather, the way something is arrived at is neither utilitarian nor egotistical in nature. Something is made for the joy of making it: creativity for creativity’s sake. In other words, like the artwork itself, the making of the art transcends all other considerations: It is transcendental in the rarified Schopenhauerean sense of the word. Art for man’s sake is a neurotypical concept, for the neurotypical will always put the group before the individual.

This is not to say that neurotypicals cannot champion individualism, or that neuro-atypicals cannot be didactic blowhards. It is only to say that each tends to a different agenda. Similarly, not every artist is neuro-atypical. Indeed, most are probably not, which is one reason why the art for man’s sake argument gets traction among many artists. However, regardless what allegiance an artist may profess, it is mainly through neuro-atypicals that innovation and singular creative vision is realized, because nothing artificial or contrived stands between the creator and his or her creation. (6/04/09)

“Able autistic individuals can rise to eminent positions and perform with such outstanding success that one may even conclude that only such people are capable of certain achievements.” ~Dr. Hans Asperger, 1944

The Enemy of Lazy Thinking
“But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.” ~Spinoza

When you do anything that defies rigid and unimaginative categories, you are basically digging a grave for others to toss you in. He who lives by the category prospers by the category and dies by the category. There is no escaping the punishment of ignoring them, or even placating them. The world is run by bureaucrats and kingmakers whose Rolodexes revolve around too few ideas and too few people, and the culture we receive at their hands arises from a politics of familiarity—not the impolitic of vision.

Those who enable these worse tendencies are quick to point out that the lowest common denominator pays the bills. But this is only a cynical excuse to justify unimaginative and lazy habits. It is a fallacy of false choices. Either/or arguments, like those about hobgoblin consistency, reflect an unwillingness to rise above indifference in order to make even small accommodations. This is the nature of all beasts encumbered by the inertia of their collective mass.

This inertia, by my reckoning, is an extension of the neurotypical mindset, and resultantly I see nothing to gain by spending too much time complaining about what nature has deemed advantageous to the species. It is what it is, and the most I can do is chastise people who, in wielding modesty as the highest virtue, seek to hide their conceit, intellectual laziness, and indifference under a thin veneer of politeness. (See first section of Chapter Twelve.)

On Politics
From theory to practice, politics is the fine art of convincing others on the ground that you, perched on the dinosaur’s head, are driving the behemoth. When things go wrong (as they always do), politics is the fine art of convincing others on the ground that dinosaurs, after all, drive themselves. (Read Omar’s take on political think in Chapter Twenty-three.)

Philosophy and Autism

It is interesting to note that Wittgenstein, who was also profoundly influenced by the ideals of Schopenhauer and Kant, is thought to have been afflicted with Asperger’s Syndrome.

It has even been argued that Kant, whom it was joked was so predictable in his habits you could set your watch by him, was likewise afflicted by the disorder.

I would go so far as to suggest Schopenhauer was an aspie. (You may regard this as a pseudo-demonstration, but here goes):

In Bryan Magee’s excellent book on Schopenhauer, he attributes many of Schopenhauer’s neurotic tendencies to having suffered from “maternal rejection.” Young Arthur’s mother would be today referred to as a “refrigerator mom,” and prior to our modern understanding of high functioning autism this was frequently the label assigned to mothers who reared emotionally distant children. Schopenhauer’s mother was no nurturing mother, to be sure, and if I may be permitted to make my case, it is even possible she was his hereditary link to the disorder.

Here is Schopenhauer’s psychological profile as presented by Magee, prompted by the philosopher’s troubled relationship with his mother: “a lowered if not depressed view of the world, and of the behavior to be expected from the people in it; second, a cut-offness from people, an inability to form or maintain close relationships with anyone; third, a neurotic sense of personal insecurity, whether in the form of anxiety attacks, or phobias, or hypochondria, or a permanent conviction that catastrophe is imminent.”

Additionally, there was Schopenhauer’s notorious rage (he once pushed an old woman down a staircase), and his daily, unbending habits, like always playing the flute after dinner. It is also telling how he preferred the company of complete strangers at meals. And like the reclusive Spinoza, he attached great value to human empathy in the abstract.

Remarkably, Spinoza’s idea of undifferentiated reality resembles the nexus Schopenhauer used to improve on Kant’s thing-in-itself. (Spinoza has similarly been linked to Asperger’s.)

Is there something in autism that predisposes individuals to these ideas? I know in my own case I was attracted to Kant's transcendentalism long before I knew of my condition. It is more likely that the gifts occasioned by autism are applicable to any number of perspectives and pursuits, although lacking a “big picture” in a practical sense is surely an advantage in understanding things that are not so easily confined to a frame on a wall.

(It should also be pointed out that Einstein—the most celebrated candidate for high functioning autism—was himself an admirer of Schopenhauer’s Buddhistic ideas.)

Straying only slightly from this line of thinking
I should like to add David Lynch, the film director, to the growing list of possible aspies. It is odd how many of the people with whom I feel an affinity, from Lewis Carroll to Jane Austen to Nietzsche to Salvador Dali, have been subsequently linked to autistic traits. Truly, it was in part because of these common biographical details, as well as a certain way of seeing things, that I was keenly drawn to these individuals in the first place.

In David Lynch’s case, here are the things we share: Lynch is given to wearing the same-type cloths—almost as a uniform.

Lynch in 2001.

Lynch in 2007.

There is that flat voice of his (I mostly lost my monotone while still a child), and stories about him often eating the same thing everyday. More to the point, his films are an Asperger-dream-come-true. The perceptual aspect of his films is paramount in understanding the way his mind works. He is preoccupied with objects and sensations, which he never explains in his narratives: colors; numbers; textures (think velvet); droning, repetitive background sounds; flickering, brightening lights; unassuming objects that, close up, take on ominous portent. (Lynch practices transcendental meditation and relates that it influences his creative thinking.) Despite the psychologically terrifying nature of many of his films, he has (like me) a simple, even sentimental admiration for old movie stars and President Reagan: Mel Brooks once called him “Jimmy Stewart from Mars.”

Going further in this comparison, Lynch and I have similar artistic pursuits, including musical composition, painting, and cartooning. As writers in our own ways, we also share an overriding desire to get past form. I once heard one of Lynch’s colleagues relate how the director had little interest in “big picture” narrative in his films, and how he mostly saw characters and storylines as either being perfunctory or a means to get at what fascinated him most: absurd juxtaposition. Stanley Kubrick also wanted to get past form, and, not surprisingly, viewed Lynch’s Eraserhead as one of his favorite movies. (Kubrick, too, has been linked to Asperger’s.)

Lynch’s idiosyncratic details occasionally overwhelm the whole of his films, but when he gets it right, as in my all-time favorite movie, Mulholland Drive, he is a genius equal to Hitchcock and Kubrick.

Note on Schizotypal thinking: As illustrated in Chapter Eighteen of my book, I am prone to episodes of schizotypal thinking. Schizotypal thinking differs from schizophrenia in that those afflicted with the former intellectually understand the improbable aspects of delusional ideas. Hypochondria is a good example; a predilection to believe in conspiracies is another. These things in and of themselves are not autistic, but coupled with autism they are not unusual. I have turned this tendency in myself to good use in my cartoons, although it is always a struggle to get the better of the mindset. On discovering David Lynch believes in the Nine/Eleven conspiracy theory, I was disheartened to hear it but not surprised.