When SBC is back at his old tricks, autistic people suffer
Simon Baron Cohen was in the news again. As usual, what he was up to was not in the best interest of actual (living) autistic people. ICYMI, he had seemingly acquired the diaries of an autistic girl who had died by suicide, seemingly peeping into her life post mortem. That study was paused by the parent (who initially gave consent) after an uproar from the world wide autistic community.
For many around the world, especially the newly diagnosed (or self-diagnosed), Simon Baron Cohen and his work at Cambridge are largely unknown. Yet, in the Global North, with it’s eugenics fetish, he’s the go-to spokesman for all things autism. Given, again, that many have not heard of him, I wanted to bring up an old BBC article from 2009 to really drive home how detestable and loathsome his whole line of inquiry really is.
From the BBC
The BBC article epitomises a troubling approach towards autism and disabilities that is all too prevalent - the tendency to commodify those ‘autistic traits’ deemed “useful” whilst disregarding the full humanity of autistic persons. Baron-Cohen’s central argument displays this reductive mindset. His primary concern (noted in the article) about a hoped-for prenatal autism test is that it could reduce mathematical talent in the population, rather than informing conversations around improving individual autistic well-being across the lifespan. This betrays an ableist assumption that skills benefiting industries like engineering should be prioritised over helping actual living autistic people.
Such selective validation is ultimately more concerned with capitalist outputs than human dignity. Baron-Cohen cautions against “inadvertently ‘curing’ not just autism but the associated talents.” His phrasing separates talents / traits from autism, as if aspects like systematic thinking exist in isolation rather than as part of a neurology that happens to include a full spectrum of talents and deficits. This ghoulish mindset, in the vein of Asperger and his fellow race scientists, demonstrates minimal interest in supporting us in our struggles, fixated instead on preserving autism’s “utilities.” The humanity of autistic people is lost amidst anxieties over losing productivity in lucrative STEM fields.
This commodification of disability for economic gains whilst disregarding impacts on disabled people permeates society. Structures optimising functionality and technical innovation are prized with little regard for justice or welfare. The medical model focuses on “normalizing” people rather than embracing neurodiversity. Workplace accommodations are viewed as expensive burdens instead of basic rights. Welfare systems see disabilities primarily as impediments to employment over factors fundamentally affecting one’s livelihood. In each sphere, the preferences and prosperity of disabled persons are sidelined.
How exactly does one separate a human from their neurotype?
Again, Baron-Cohen’s principal objection to an “autism prenatal test” is that it could “reduce the number of future great mathematicians.” This disturbing perspective reveals an underlying belief that skills benefiting fields like engineering outweigh the adversity many autistic people experience. After all, “preventing” autism prenatally refers specifically to the option of aborting autistic fetuses [yes, Baron-Cohen and his ilk want to make sure that people like me are never born in the first place]. Yet Baron-Cohen laments losing mathematical cognitions. His rhetoric commodifies one autistic trait while dismissing complex realities … or discussing the implications of his premise.
Autism colours every facet of an individual’s existence; it is not an à la carte menu allowing society to pick and choose “useful” elements. Severe sensory, social, and cognitive difficulties can accompany autistic neurology alongside such talents as systematic thinking. For Baron-Cohen though, the focus is on the loss to capitalism. His utilitarianism exposes the still-pervasive medical model seeking to eradicate disabilities rather than accommodate disabled persons.
This attitude remains engrained within prenatal testing discourse. Scenarios involving Down Syndrome and other variances get framed around how births could burden families and economies instead of equally valuing diverse lives. The possibility of losing violin prodigies like those with perfect pitch sparks more fervor than increasing accessibility and inclusion. Each perspective presumes certain human traits as more worthy of protection than others. Yet no life has intrinsic superiority; to assume otherwise exposes our still-eugenic mentalities. All people deserve equal rights, dignity, and opportunity regardless of any condition’s marketable assets or hindrances.
Blasphemy much?
Baron-Cohen’s rhetoric exposes the myopia underpinning much scientific inquiry - the audacity of humans to believe we can “optimise” creation through eliminating this or that trait some group doesn’t like. His utilitarianism embodies a medical model fixed on normalising and eradicating variances, unable to accommodate alternative modes of being (like the “curing” of left-handedism last century). Yet, as I illustrate in great detail in No Place for Autism?, autism has survived via Natural Selection precisely because it confers advantages that benefited our social groups for millennia. Seeking its extermination risks unfathomable downstream effects from disrupting evolutionary equilibrium.
Science often mirrors this hubris - the presumption that our current understanding of immensely complex systems equips us to eliminate existing divergences. We grasp at playing God, tinkering with delicate neurological and biological foundations whilst ignoring all we cannot comprehend. Attempting to dismantle ways of being like autism because they do not conform to arbitrary definitions of “healthy” reflects extraordinary arrogance about modern medicine’s capabilities. Have we contemplated why autistic minds have persevered across humanity’s epochal march - perhaps owing to creativity, persistence, and nonconformity that propelled our species’ progress at pivotal junctures (hint: read my book)? What unseen gifts might autistic people carry that may only reveal themselves in some unforeseen future epoch under environmental pressures we cannot predict?
Yet in his quest for optimisation, Baron-Cohen dismisses such contemplations. Obsessed with productivity, conformity, and able-bodied standards, those with alternate modes of being get framed as aberrant, disabled, and burdensome - their livelihoods and agency forfeit before economic priorities. But creation’s sheer complexity far exceeds our science. And humanity’s diversity remains imperative hedge against uncertainties. Until we temper ‘scientific overreach’ with humility about life’s boundless mysteries, myopic crusades to “cure” autism will continue sacrificing parts of our very souls. The essence that makes us irreducibly human defies any model’s constraints - and we dissolve it at our own peril.