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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

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.

ocschwar 8y ago
It is not just gossip. He was complicit in multiple murders. His work, such as it was, was based on only 4 cases.
- ocschwar 8y ago
  Decided to add something. Notice also how Leo Kanner only published about autism in 1943, writing about just one child. Wonder why? The two doctors Hamburger and Asperger replaced, Frankl and Weiss, went to the US to work with Kanner. Yet none of them wrote about specific children until 1943, after the US was in the war, after the US turned about face about eugenics,, and after Kanner could do due dilligence to make sure that he could write about the Donald T case and not endanger the child. You, as your comment indicated, have left a paper trail about having Asperger's. I'm an MIT alum, and know quite a few people who could be diagnosed without raising any eyebrows. But already "autism" is a term of abuse in the chan crowds, and Asperger's history is worth keeping in mind in that regard.
  - klyrs 8y ago
    > But already "autism" is a term of abuse in the chan crowds, and Asperger's history is worth keeping in mind in that regard. Also noteworthy, "autism" is the boogeyman of the antivax movement.
chris_wot 8y ago
Whilst it is hard to hear, if the man was complicit with the Nazi regime it should be acknowledged.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
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.
- ocschwar 8y ago
  In hunter gatherer packs, out of 70-100 people, you generally get a loner here and there who pays more attention to the local flora and fauna than to the rest of the tribe, and helps revise the tribe's oral knowledge. You also get the tribe members who feed the orphans instead of siring their own children. It's likely we're evolved to throw dice in our brains so that some of us fill different roles than others, whether it's autistic tendencies or homosexuality.
- cwbrandsma 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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.
zasz 8y ago
It's not "just" gossip. There isn't exactly a smoking gun for something like a psychiatric diagnosis, and until we can diagnose these with the same precision that we can identify a particular kind of cancer, the point that the article is making is that perspectives on mental illness will be permanently biased by whatever image society has of the ideal citizen at the moment. In a time where society demands a great deal of conformity, more people are likely to get a diagnosis of Asperger's; in a time where society is less demanding, fewer would. It is troubling that our conceptions of what autism and Asperger's are were heavily informed by the Nazi idea of the model citizen, and we should be wary now that our current applications of these diagnostic labels might be heavily culturally biased by our current norms.
dang 8y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Historical material isn't gossip, and is welcome on HN.
azeirah 8y ago
For what it's worth, what I got out of the article was nothing like what you described, rather, it made me think of the importance of reading about history. By talking about what he did, and why he did it within the context of his culture, it laid bare to me just how much our culture influences our behavior and personality. I don't think it's necessary to conclude what an article may mean for another person. The article definitely had value for me.

ocschwar 8y ago

It is not just gossip. He was complicit in multiple murders. His work, such as it was, was based on only 4 cases.

ocschwar 8y ago
Decided to add something. Notice also how Leo Kanner only published about autism in 1943, writing about just one child. Wonder why? The two doctors Hamburger and Asperger replaced, Frankl and Weiss, went to the US to work with Kanner. Yet none of them wrote about specific children until 1943, after the US was in the war, after the US turned about face about eugenics,, and after Kanner could do due dilligence to make sure that he could write about the Donald T case and not endanger the child. You, as your comment indicated, have left a paper trail about having Asperger's. I'm an MIT alum, and know quite a few people who could be diagnosed without raising any eyebrows. But already "autism" is a term of abuse in the chan crowds, and Asperger's history is worth keeping in mind in that regard.
- klyrs 8y ago
  > But already "autism" is a term of abuse in the chan crowds, and Asperger's history is worth keeping in mind in that regard. Also noteworthy, "autism" is the boogeyman of the antivax movement.

chris_wot 8y ago

Whilst it is hard to hear, if the man was complicit with the Nazi regime it should be acknowledged.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

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.

ocschwar 8y ago
In hunter gatherer packs, out of 70-100 people, you generally get a loner here and there who pays more attention to the local flora and fauna than to the rest of the tribe, and helps revise the tribe's oral knowledge. You also get the tribe members who feed the orphans instead of siring their own children. It's likely we're evolved to throw dice in our brains so that some of us fill different roles than others, whether it's autistic tendencies or homosexuality.
cwbrandsma 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.

zasz 8y ago

It's not "just" gossip. There isn't exactly a smoking gun for something like a psychiatric diagnosis, and until we can diagnose these with the same precision that we can identify a particular kind of cancer, the point that the article is making is that perspectives on mental illness will be permanently biased by whatever image society has of the ideal citizen at the moment. In a time where society demands a great deal of conformity, more people are likely to get a diagnosis of Asperger's; in a time where society is less demanding, fewer would. It is troubling that our conceptions of what autism and Asperger's are were heavily informed by the Nazi idea of the model citizen, and we should be wary now that our current applications of these diagnostic labels might be heavily culturally biased by our current norms.

dang 8y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Historical material isn't gossip, and is welcome on HN.

azeirah 8y ago

For what it's worth, what I got out of the article was nothing like what you described, rather, it made me think of the importance of reading about history. By talking about what he did, and why he did it within the context of his culture, it laid bare to me just how much our culture influences our behavior and personality. I don't think it's necessary to conclude what an article may mean for another person. The article definitely had value for me.