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Autism and Socialism
There is an interesting idea called Sparseness-Adaptive Theory that seeks to explain the evolutionary development of autism as arising from individuals largely isolated within "frontiers" characterized by low-density human population and a sparseness of natural resources; the idea is that it would not be evolutionarily viable for these low-density "frontier" populations to develop sophisticated social mechanisms when simple individual survival was such a herculean task on its own. The thought is that, in a scenario in which resources are limited and uncertain, self-interest is prioritized over cooperation. (In a scenario in which two individuals compete over just enough food for one individual to survive the day, equal distribution of the food means death to both individuals.) This goes a way toward explaining a prominent characteristic of autistic development: challenges with "typical" modes of social interaction. The law of natural selection predicts that all traits that survive generation after generation possess some evolutionary viability. Minimizing the ability to construct the sophisticated theory of mind necessary to operate among "typically" developed populations provides the opportunity to intensively cultivate other survival habits. These habits would become quite rigid, as deviation from proven methods of survival can mean death in an uncertain environment. This goes a way toward explaining another prominent characteristic of autistic development: challenges with deviating from habit and routine. Maladaptive autism is accounted for, as well: autistic development alone is only "maladaptive" inasmuch as it presents challenges with coping with expectations of a largely "typical" society. That most modern autistic individuals would probably not survive in "frontier" conditions doesn't present a problem for the theory, either, as autistic development may often be concurrent with other developmental challenges, to say nothing of the fact that many modern "typical" people would be unlikely to survive such conditions on their own. Other searches into the evolutionary development of autism reveal genetic traits that suggest the persistence of traits characteristic of Homo neanderthalis. Since no population's evolutionary development is a clean transition (something both Darwin and Marx would assert in different contexts), it is possible that neanderthalis interbred with early sapiens, facilitating the continued existence of traits that would come to be considered atavistic. I am by no means suggesting that autistic individuals are "less developed" than "typical" individuals or "neanderthals". What seems to have happened is that certain atavistic traits survived into modern times due to their facilitation of survival in low-density "frontier" populations.
Now, what does this have to do with socialism?
According to Engels, the primeval division of human beings into different classes so to speak originally occurred in the subordination of the female to the male at the advent of agriculture and pastoralism. Until then, women had more or less been supreme power in the primitive communistic home, and clans were matrilineal. Take special note of the fact that women were traditionally keepers of the clan and home, while men were tasked with procuring food and other resources. Women, then, would, from an evolutionary standpoint, have to be naturally resistant to developments minimizing their capacity for socialization. Indeed, women were often allied as classificatory sisters as leverage against men, as well as being traditionally tasked with raising children. Men, however, could easily transfer from clan to clan, showing that as sophisticated a capacity for socialization was not strictly necessary for him with regards to the survival of the clans. Further, procuring food and resources requires specialized knowledge of the environment and would demand repetitive behaviors, as such things were necessary to be procured fresh daily at one point. Repetition, that is habit was conducive to survival in that deviation from successful methods of procuring necessary resources could potentially be disastrous for the entire clan. It is in this way that we may have a Marxist-Darwinian explanation for the advent of autistic development, characterized by the minimization of social capacity and the maximization of habit and specialized focus. This explanation would be congruent with the observation that autistic development is much more common in males than it is in females. This primitive "autism," if it can be called that yet, saw the prioritization of self-interest (extended to the father's children) over the interests of society at large (the matrilineal clan), hence the transition from mother-right to father-right and patrilineal inheritance from which private property ultimately arose.
As for the question of "frontiers," it's my assertion that these "frontiers" are not strictly low-density populations among harsh environments, although they may provide the genetic wellspring for autistic development among males of primitive-communistic societies. Consider that autism, in its broadest sense, is characterized by the breakdown of social expectations. Indeed, the "frontier" in question may be the "frontier" of the transition from primitive communism to class society. The traditional social order had been female supremacy in the home and matrilineal inheritance. The breakdown that occurred saw the development of male supremacy and patrilineal inheritance. Consider that Marx and Engels enumerated several epochs in human history marked by the assumption of power by a class that was, at one point in its development, a "lower" class. In each transitional period from one epoch to the next, there was a breakdown of the old social structures. I assert that these transitional periods are "frontiers" in their own right and that these breakdowns are marked by a kind of autistic development that subverts social structures. That this kind of autism would have played a role in the development of class may seem to predict that autism will not play a similar role in the advent of socialism. However, human civilization is entering an epoch in which the individual interest (self-interest) no longer needs to be in conflict with collective interest. Indeed, socialism is in humanity's best interest as capitalism is unsustainable. Recognition of long-term non-sustainability and the historical development of class and property is not inherently conducive to capitalistic individual survival, but such recognition is a specialized focus that requires dedicated cultivation (habit). We are at the frontier, the edge of a new communist world, and so we see these "autistic" deviations from the "typical" in ourselves and in humanity at large. Indeed, while autism remains a clinical diagnosis when it manifests as what is considered a "disorder," the autistic spectrum is broadening, and humanity is approaching an understanding of neurological differences that challenges the notion that there is indeed a "typical" neurological development at all. "Autism" characterizes the transition from capitalism to communism in that, developmentally, ours and the coming generations will be more capable of breaking down the old social order and developing highly specialized focuses that work in tandem to develop a comprehensive new social order. This isn't to say an autistic individual is automatically a socialist, but that a broad understanding of autism in its evolutionary development informs the history of class and property from a neurological standpoint, as it informs the destruction of the sold social consciousness heralding the development of a new one. When we cease to think of autism as a spectrum of clinical disorders and understand it as a recurring trend in the continuum of human history, we are empowered by an understanding of human development at the neurological and social levels as they relate to the material conditions of the epoch in transition.
to have a theory like this stand on any ground at all, you would definitely need to first demonstrate that autism is more prevalent in less densely populated areas, and go from there. as well as find a way to overcome my skepticism of evolutionary psychology.
That wouldn't be necessary at all, comrade. Sparseness-Adaptive theory predicts that the autistic spectrum of development arose ancestrally in those outer-areas of ancient human populations that were quite low-density. It is generally accepted that these "frontiers" had to occur and that traits that persist over time develop adaptive inertia.
As for your individual skepticism of evolutionary psychology, I'm not really sure why my overcoming it is a condition of Sparseness-Adaptive Theory's soundness or my own tangential comments regarding its relation to socialism.Originally Posted by Gregory B. Yates: A Topological Theory of Autism; 2002i23 Draft
1. People with autism are not so much selfish as oblivious (by varying degrees) to the social and emotional cues of others, which might include indications of a desire to share in something.
2. Socialisation is still important even when one is moving from group to group. In fact I would argue that a greater capacity for socialisation would be needed, as one would require the ability to better pick up non-verbal cues from less-familiar individuals, something which would be necessary in order to successfully integrate with a new group.
The above two points seem to blow a couple of rather large holes in your hypothesis.
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This would be explained by Sparseness-Adaptive theory. The genes that play a role in the development of the ability to comprehend social cues would be, for the most part, selected out due to frontier isolation.
In areas of great isolation, though, socialization would be mostly selected out of development because it was vestigial in a sense. Remember, Sparseness-Adaptive theory is predicting the development of autism in the frontier, and men in very low-density population areas would not have as much exposure to other people by definition. And men are not likely to need to develop a very sophisticated understanding of human emotional cues the same way, say, a mother would if women were largely expected to care for children. Killing animals in roughly the same way every day strikes me as a simpler task socially than raising a human being from infancy to adulthood.
It's possible that my own ideas about how S.A. relates to Engels's conception of the pre-monogamous family are wrong, but S.A. isn't my conception at all. I'm merely applying it to Marxism.
Possibly, but I'm having trouble crediting the idea simply because we did not even know of autism before the 20th century, making it difficult to judge how prevalent the condition of autism was throughout human history. Extreme cases would likely have been seen as mad or possessed, while milder cases would be seen as "eccentric individuals". Of course just because one is considered eccentric does not mean that one is autistic in any way, hence the difficulty for us in the 21st century.
You're not making yourself entirely clear on whether (proto-?)autistic individuals in ancestral times lived alone as individuals, or in groups of any size.
If they operated as individuals, then how did they survive harsh "frontier conditions" without at least one extra set of eyes to keep a lookout? It's not as if non-autistic individuals aren't capable of keeping to a schedule or routine.
If they were in groups, then why did their relative lack of social skills not count against them in the survival stakes?
It's an interesting idea, but my understanding is that human beings are social animals, and the autism thing kind of runs against that.
The Human Progress Group
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains - Karl Marx
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller
The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Check out my speculative fiction project: NOVA MUNDI
That's really the shit of it, though. Autism is coming be understood as a developmental spectrum rather than a grocery list of disorders. Other research into autism has discovered that the genetic predisposition to autism recalls certain traits of Neanderthals.
They were probably not wholly isolated individuals, but the groups to which they belonged would have been small.
Because their social skills were adjusted to function among a very narrow range as a matter of necessity. We're not discussing autism as a disorder, remember; we're discussing it as a spectrum of neurological development.
how do you know the behavioural traits of Neanderthals?
I understand that, but that says nothing about the prevalence of autistic traits throughout human history, which is an unknown quantity (to me at least).
I'd be interested to read more about this. Autism does not manifest physically to my knowledge, and idiosyncratic behavioural traits don't fossilise well.
As a person with Asperger's I can understand this, since I feel most comfortable in small groups of up to five, maybe six people (including myself). But small isolated groups have a reproductive penalty via inbreeding unless they can get fresh blood in, which is something for which sociability can provide a definite advantage.
The Human Progress Group
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains - Karl Marx
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller
The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Check out my speculative fiction project: NOVA MUNDI
Paleoanthropology. There's even a whole Wikipedia page about Neanderthal behavior by itself. Of interest is this citation:
Wynn T, Coolidge F (January 14 2012). "The inner Neanderthal"
. New Scientist 213 (2847): 26–27
It points out that much of Neanderthal behavior was very rigid, repetitive even.
It's possible pronounced autistic traits were more prevalent in the past, but I wouldn't have any knowledge of autism's history in the sense of appearing as a pronounced disorder. I don't think there is any way to know that just yet.
I mentioned this above; paleoanthropology is the field dedicated to answering such questions. In a citation earlier in this post, I mentioned research that describes Neanderthal behavior as rigid to the point of dogmatism, neophobia, and repetitiveness.
Also of interest is the abstract to the Neanderthal Theory of Autism that describes that Neanderthals would have had to have contributed their DNA to the evolution of modern man through the Caucasian genome.
Some extent of inbreeding would probably have occurred at the frontier level, but the pool would've been much larger than six.
but these articles about Neanderthal behaviour are speculative and not backed by any observations.
I am autistic but am an Indian. I thought only Europeans had neanderthal genes? This theory is interesting but sounds too far fetched.
This theory seems shaky to me. I have worked with a significant number of autistic people -- it is hard to imagine that the brain is doing something adaptive. Perhaps certain flavors of milder autism could conceivably be advantageous in certain, rather extreme, circumstances. I could see that some people with Asperger's syndrome might be better suited for more isolated circumstances.
But like Great Apes, and Canines, we are social animals. It is patently obvious that people "on the spectrum" suffer from something gone wrong in their central nervous systems.
Not so. Even though no one can travel back in time and observe a Neanderthal in his natural habitat, it is still possible to determine their behavior. Neanderthals spend their lives in small groups of about ten people (contradicting what I'd said earlier about their living in groups "much larger" than six). The Neanderthal Theory of Autism suggests that Neanderthals may have lived to one hundred fifty years, but most evidence suggests that few lived past thirty five. Skeletal remains show that injured Neanderthals were nursed back to health. Few traveled outside their home territories. "Marrying out" of the small group was common by adolescents.
Homo neanderthalensis actually lived in both Europe and Central Asia, and it's likely these genes were dispersed through interbreeding with early modern humans (Cro-Magnon or early Homo sapiens sapiens). Consider than the Indian language is related to European languages (the Indo-European language family); this suggests that the cultures are related to an extent.
Much of what we see of autism is what's called maladaptive, in that the individual's development present challenges to typical functioning in the environment. Consider that the modern world is much, much different from the world of the Neanderthals. I have an autistic younger brother, in fact, and he is particularly fascinated by film and related trivia, almost to the point of obsession. Had he been born among Neanderthals, however, his obsessive tendencies would have necessarily been redirected toward some other behavior. Given that there were a very limited number of things to do back then (all directly related to the survival of the species), he would've likely learned necessary survival habits. However, autistic development in modern times also tends to be accompanied by other challenges not directly related to autism; why this is remains uncertain. Consider also that autistic development probably didn't manifest identically to the way in which it manifests in the modern day.
I don't agree with this one bit. Modern humans are typically social and, by and large, this has helped the species propagate itself and survive. However, conditions haven't always been such that it was strictly necessary for human beings to approach the same level of socialization that they do in the modern day, and it's possible that the conditions of our environment will change in such a way that we will be retrospectively grateful for the preservation of autistic development in the gene pool. The only thing "wrong" with the neurologically atypical is that they are ill-adapted to living in a world thoroughly dominated by neurologically typical perception. If you were to take a modern autistic person, for example, and drop them in the jungle, it's reasonable to say that they wouldn't survive, but the same is typically true of "normal" people; we're raised by and judged against the standards of a society developed by and for neurologically "typical" people.
Given the paucity of skeletons suitable for DNA sequencing and the wide temporal and geographic spread of these, such hypothesis are non testable and little more than guesswork.
I hardly think an entire field of science is "little more than guesswork."
One thing you haven't shown is that although there may in theory be a trade-off between the ability to survive more or less through brute force and cognitive functioning necessary for complex social interactions, a human brain quite capable of considerable behavioral plasticity is in fact highly adaptive even in "frontier" conditions. The skills needed in human interactions are largely a by-product of our brain's capacity, and are unlikley to have been important enough for long enough to be subject to natural selection. Inter-individual variability in social skills is almost certainly an exaptation: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosit...ptations.shtml
Indeed this is arguably how language became possible. And in some respects fronteir life places a higher premium on the very cognitive skills that help us become attuned to things like subtleties and look for cues even more so, in part because in places like ancient Europe, a larger fraction of the diet appeared to consist of animal proteins from highly mobile and quite intelligent mammals and birds than available to gatherer societies or societies that ate a lot of fish/insects/seafood. The point is that it is hardly clear close person-to-person encounters are a necessary pre-requisite for evolving social behavior - such behavior can readily arise as a mere by-product of more sophisticated cognitive skills.
In short, there is reason to believe that rather than there being a trade-off between survivability and social skills, in fact the adaptive value of the human brain in difficult survival situations promotes and favors the ability to acquire social skills.
Meteorology? String theory?
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My brother has been diagnosed as Aspergers (mild Autism ). I don't know. I feel like mostly he just like to stay inside.
This is nothing more than evopsych nonsense and its painfully easy to see, and to say that because its a field of science in today's material conditions means that it can't be more than guesswork is preposterous. Have you never heard of Pinker?
I'm not convinced by the OP, but I think it's an interesting line on inquiry. It's silly to claim that people on the spectrum are necessarily antisocial or asocial. Just because someone has difficulties, small or large, with personal communication, doesn't mean they don't wish to communicate or be amongst people.
It does appear that there are evolutionary advantages to neurodiversity. Having a minority of people who do think in very different ways can be a tremendous help. I've thought it mostly in terms of psychosis as potentially creative. A number of abilities which are much more common with people on the spectrum would be huge advantages, particularly when modern media didn't exist, isn't available, or isn't relevant.
