Hans Asperger

I have read quite a lot of the journal article, and there really is no more than speculation about Asperger's political inclinations. The main argument for Asperger being sympathetic to the prevailing regime at the time (the National Socialist party) seems to be that his writings and speeches gained approval from certain prominent figures in that regime. The author of the paper says that Asperger had an "ambivalent" attitude toward the ideology of the National Socialist party. He was apparently a member of a Catholic organisation which had its own ideas about eugenics but was opposed to the overall ideals of the National Socialist party. In 1945, after the war had ended, Asperger was the only one among his colleagues who wasn't fired for being a member of that party, so obviously they had some information available back then to support the conclusion that he wasn't working for the party.

The argument is also made that Asperger's early career benefitted from the fact that his Jewish colleagues lost their jobs. Certainly, he was an ambitious person and wanted to build his career, but there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the misfortune his Jewish colleagues suffered, and, after all, there wasn't really anything he could do, given that he held a very junior position when it happened. I suppose one could say that he should have resigned in protest, but how many people would really do that, and what good would it have done? He had no idea how long the political situation would last, and it's all nice and good for us to be looking back with 20/20 hindsight saying what he should and shouldn't have done. The political climate of the time was his reality, and he wanted to conduct his research within that framework. He did everything he could to keep the National Socialist party off his back while rejecting the inhuman aspects of the regime.

There is evidence that Asperger treated his Jewish patients the same as any of his other patients, and he tried to advocate for them as much as he could. He also used his language to try to protect children with mental incapacities from forced sterilisation, while seeming, with the wording he used, to fall in line with the ideology of the National Socialist party (the latter of which he is now being criticised for).

Something Asperger is criticised for in the paper is his voluntary participation in a program to screen residents of a children's home to select those suitable for being euthanised. The paper says that 35 out of 200 children were selected for euthanasia. There is no detail of the specifics of Asperger's participation in that program, but it is very clear that he was only one of several people involved in the screening. It could very well be that more of the children would have been selected if Asperger had not been involved. Just because he was involved in this horrific exercise does not mean that he agreed with it, so I think it is unfair to make assumptions without all the details.

We have to remember that the political climate of the time was very dangerous, and also that it was nearly a century ago. Some of the language used by Asperger himself was in line with the language typically used at the time, and that type of language would be considered quite unpalatable to people of today, even if there was no specifically racist or otherwise negative attitude behind it. He is said to have used harsher language than others about some of his patients, but he also clearly opposed having them classified with a genetic condition which would result in forced sterilisation or worse.

Pretty much anyone who lived in that part of the world in that time and came out of it unscathed could be accused of all sorts of things, but how far would most "good" people go against a very dangerous political regime? Think about what is happeneing in the world today. There are still dictators and otherwise really nasty people in political office now, and why is that allowed to happen? Because people who know that what's happening is wrong are afraid to lose their power, their careers, their political credibility, or even their lives. That fear was a very real part of everyday life back then as well.

I think we should be very careful before we condemn a person who is no longer around, because he has no way to defend himself against the accusations. I'm not saying that he definitely was or wasn't a sympathiser, and I have no personal reason for wanting it to be one way or the other, but I don't think a reliable conclusion can be drawn from the available evidence. I especially think that we as Aspies don't need anything more for others to think we should feel ashamed about, just because someone happened to conduct research on our condition in the time and place that he did.

I have read it through, but a second read is necessary. I'm not feeling condemnatory about this.  It is bound to put a new slant on many things though. I guess we might eventually benefit from this by realising the need for constant re-examination of our hypotheses, notions and beliefs. WW1 & WW2 obviously did put Hans Asperger in a hard place. This makes me reflect on my own 'inadequacies' when faced with difficult decisions. Hard as that might be on our heroes and heroines, I think this article is very necessary reading. Better to publish it than just carry on ignoring some inconvenient truths.

I have read it through, but a second read is necessary. I'm not feeling condemnatory about this.  It is bound to put a new slant on many things though. I guess we might eventually benefit from this by realising the need for constant re-examination of our hypotheses, notions and beliefs. WW1 & WW2 obviously did put Hans Asperger in a hard place. This makes me reflect on my own 'inadequacies' when faced with difficult decisions. Hard as that might be on our heroes and heroines, I think this article is very necessary reading. Better to publish it than just carry on ignoring some inconvenient truths.

Thanks, Deepthought. Yes... the approach I had planned is along these lines.  At the last staff meeting, I brought up several issues that need to be addressed as part of the overall smooth running - and, as it happens, regulatory requirements - of the service.  These included:

* Cleaning out of company vehicles (primarily of fast-food rubbish) after every trip.

* Cling-wrapping and correct date-labeling of opened food items before they are stored in the fridge.

* Cleaning of recyclable waste prior to placing in recycle bins (otherwise, it's a waste of time the company paying for recycling services, and the dirty waste causes hygiene issues).

So far, all of that is still routinely ignored.

As a manger in my younger days, in various positions, the above mentioned approach was referred to as 'maiming-it'. But fair play ~ information overload mistakes are good to learn from.

Keeping vehicles, fridges and refuse in an orderly state would of been the first and only objective ~ from a managerial standpoint.

The thing about health and safety issues in the sense of 'clean-as-you-go' being routinely ignored, it is actually being habitually ignored, which involves rebellious teenager mode as such with dependency issues ~ i.e. other people being their parental servants, or bail outs.

There are lots of issues surrounding the completion of statutory paperwork.

This one is not unusual actually, to a small extent from time to time, but slack working standards in this respect are definitely a managerial issue. If the staff do not get on with it, the manger/s have to sort it out and the staff in question. 

Also - one of my main niggles - is the widespread use of personal mobile phones on duty.  Most of the clique have their phones to hand for much of the day, and interact with one another on them.  When they go out into the community with clients - say, to a play park - they sit and use their phones instead of interacting with clients.  But they get away with it because they're all at it.  The deputy manager has even admitted that our service is severely slacking in comparison to others in the group.  It's absolutely no surprise to me why! 

One of a friend's parents ran a care service and staff were given a company phone, and were not allowed to use their own with a client, in any circumstance whatsoever.

It basically amounts to institutional laziness and incompetence. 

Or more technically speaking, 'institutional inertia' and 'professional incompetence' or more likely 'negligence'.

But I'm quite new in, and fresh eyes often see obvious things that are overlooked.

The old Aspergian eye for detail would be another factor here of course, perhaps?

But he's come into the service from outside, and they're running him ragged with meetings, training, procedural changes, etc., so he hasn't really had the chance to get to grips with things.

In our management team set up, if newbies were not on track fully by three months, they got edged out by those who did in the first and second months. I mean it always takes a bit time to get used to the flow of things or clean up after a previous manager left, but once on track (or whilst getting on track) the newbie would tighten up the slack and pull it all together.

As far as I can see, it's just him and a couple of others of us who actually do the job properly... and carry the rest of them.

It seems like only a matter of time then perhaps, until they are either asked or told to or even warned about needing to fully carry out their contractile obligations, by the management.

Perhaps as such then support your manager, as you are both newbies, and also strengthen your relationship with those who work according to their training and contractile obligations. Those who do not may smell the coffee on this as your manager gets on track, and as in terms of learning from those of you who are on track.

Be careful though as a newbie not to 'knock the apple-cart' or 'rock the boat' as those expressions go, for at this stage of things that is specifically your manager's job, if need be. Some managers for instance use the direct approach more, others the indirect approach, or some a bit of both. With you and the others keeping on track ~ any good manager in one way or another will find that extremely useful, especially as a working efficiency objective for the whole team, or new members of the team.

Yes.  That's basically how I'm approaching it.  I think he understands the situation, though.  There's a couple of other colleagues who have grievances in similar areas.  One of them is considering leaving because of it.  I can understand that.  I'm going to write a few things down to discuss with the manager when the opportunity arises.  He's already said that he doesn't want to instigate a ban on personal phones, which is in place in other premises in the group.  I think he's looking at purchasing 'in house' phones, only for work use and without internet connectivity.  That's been in place in other institutions where I've worked.  It's a shame it has to come to additional expense - but if it tackles the problem, then so be it.  It's a huge problem now, though, in many sectors - especially, I'd say, with the under-40s.  These people have been brought up on this technology and are wired into it.  It governs much of their lives.  A colleague had a full-blown and quite real stress-panic a short while ago when his mobile died.  It's all very sad, but a symptom of the times we live in.

So support your new manager and let him do his job. From what you've said he will deal with the clique over time.

I would suggest a strategy of "laying out the jigsaw pieces in front of him" and allowing him to make his own connections and draw his own conclusions, rather than attempting to solve the issues yourself. That's not your responsibility and in any case will only alienate you from your current colleagues even further.

Keep your head down, but delight your new boss by consistently delivering a little more than you've been asked to. If your colleagues are given enough rope, it sounds like they'll hang themselves out to dry.

Thanks, Deepthought. Yes... the approach I had planned is along these lines.  At the last staff meeting, I brought up several issues that need to be addressed as part of the overall smooth running - and, as it happens, regulatory requirements - of the service.  These included:

* Cleaning out of company vehicles (primarily of fast-food rubbish) after every trip.

* Cling-wrapping and correct date-labeling of opened food items before they are stored in the fridge.

* Cleaning of recyclable waste prior to placing in recycle bins (otherwise, it's a waste of time the company paying for recycling services, and the dirty waste causes hygiene issues).

So far, all of that is still routinely ignored.  There are lots of issues surrounding the completion of statutory paperwork.  Also - one of my main niggles - is the widespread use of personal mobile phones on duty.  Most of the clique have their phones to hand for much of the day, and interact with one another on them.  When they go out into the community with clients - say, to a play park - they sit and use their phones instead of interacting with clients.  But they get away with it because they're all at it.  The deputy manager has even admitted that our service is severely slacking in comparison to others in the group.  It's absolutely no surprise to me why!  But I'm quite new in, and fresh eyes often see obvious things that are overlooked.  It basically amounts to institutional laziness and incompetence.  We have a new manager who is above all of the clique business and is very efficient.  But he's come into the service from outside, and they're running him ragged with meetings, training, procedural changes, etc., so he hasn't really had the chance to get to grips with things.  As far as I can see, it's just him and a couple of others of us who actually do the job properly... and carry the rest of them.

On a smaller scale, the concept also applies to workplaces, with 'cliques'. 

On a yet smaller atomic scale, there are the inter-phasic geometrical structures and spatial cavities involving seven dimensional plains in the fields that form the brain, which are called neuronal 'cliques'.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2017.00048/full

There are about 15 regular staff where I work, and although they're all pretty decent people individually, there's a clique of about 10 (including the deputy manager) who regularly meet up as friends after work.  They do favours for one another at work and cover each others' backs.

In terms of societal groupings, the social structure you describe here is pretty universal. 

A couple of other staff are on the periphery of the gang. 

The first grouping of 10, they are the more neurotypical oriented members, and the couple of other staff are the more neurologically atypical members, of the gang.

There just seems to be a couple of us who aren't involved.  We're often the ones who end up doing the dirty jobs the others leave, or having to cover for their absences.

The couple of you who you state as not being involved, are involved, in the sense of being the more neurologically divergent members of the gang. Whichever part of the 'clique' structuring you and the others fit into, you are all part of the team.

Doing the dirty jobs left by others involves you and your colleague as being in the "They" position of "They do favours for one another at work and cover each others' backs."

Due though to the lack of social familiarity with you and your colleague, the undesirable jobs that people like least to think about and do ~ goes to those who they least relate with and know about, in social terms.

They often, too, seem to be the ones who get the 'plum' days and go on all the really good trips out. 

And conversely, the 'plum' days and 'good trips out' goes to those who have the most familiarity together, with the most favourable objectives being their main focus ~ if they are 'seekers', or their main gravitation ~ if they are 'finders'. 

Some of the 'teamwork' issues really niggle me, and I'm going to find a diplomatic way of addressing it all at our next staff meeting.  I'm not hopeful that it will make much difference, though.

As a consideration perhaps, with addressing all the 'teamwork' issues, maybe instead address one or a small set of which in detail, and effect an incremental adjustment of working practices step by step, stage by stage. 

Or alternatively, make a really simple listing of all the issues, bullet point style, and do the address one or a few of which in detail thing, and go about things incrementally in that way. The team as such can make one agreed upon change, and feedback potential on the others increases.

If you try and gain favour for a whole system of changes, forget not or consider anew that social or working groupings tend to be quite like ourselves regarding change.

Micro adjustments tend to involve more productive outcomes on the whole, and if one finds an appropriate starting point, all in one's do happen, or at least things get smoother a lot quicker.

If any of that helps any?

On a smaller scale, the concept also applies to workplaces, with 'cliques'.  There are about 15 regular staff where I work, and although they're all pretty decent people individually, there's a clique of about 10 (including the deputy manager) who regularly meet up as friends after work.  They do favours for one another at work and cover each others' backs.  A couple of other staff are on the periphery of the gang.  There just seems to be a couple of us who aren't involved.  We're often the ones who end up doing the dirty jobs the others leave, or having to cover for their absences.  They often, too, seem to be the ones who get the 'plum' days and go on all the really good trips out.  Some of the 'teamwork' issues really niggle me, and I'm going to find a diplomatic way of addressing it all at our next staff meeting.  I'm not hopeful that it will make much difference, though.

As my other 'independent' colleague puts it: 'Some people come here to see their friends.  Others come here to work with the service users.'

An interesting reflection on our times.  All times, perhaps.  I can think of a few belief systems which have always operated in this way.

Not 'All times' as it goes ~ but since about 1500 BC yes, as the elitism thing has been since then developing as a more generalised international behaviourism.

In terms though of galactic seasons or ages, it is now the beginning of spring, with the darkness of the galactic winter over ~ humanity has thus as such been in the process of waking up some, since the end of the second world war, and now more recently, some are getting up from and distancing themselves from their malevolent and brutal day-dreaming.

Obviously perhaps, the spring of the solar year is about three months, and the galactic year about three thousand years, as a basic time scale. In galactic time scales then there is variability of about 500 years, meaning that a galactic season can last between 2500 and 3500 years, as depending on the elliptical obits of our solar system in the rotations of this galaxy.

Currently, since the second episode of international war in Europe, i.e. World War 2, the trend for group thinkers to be willingly driven by "heard" mentality into culling programmes, has lost it's popularity in the social sense as a practical or traditional pass-time. Military uptake of new ground personnel is dwindling, hence instead the increased development of long-distance, remote and AI weapon systems.

We have about four years left regarding the nihilistic apex of elitist tendencies in humans, and however long it takes to wind down from it ~ with the earliest preliminary estimation being from about 2030 to 2050, until behavioural extinction of Nazism or Elitism in the majority, by about 5000 AD, very roughly speaking ~ in galactic June or July sort of thing.

So until then, whichever version of Nazism or Elitism a person prefers ~ depends on which type of individual or group of individuals they most want to blame, punish, exclude and thereby exterminate ~ given the thing with Authoritarian Role Transfers, and the repercussive domino or knock on effects of which, and all that.

Reading the 'The Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and "race hygiene" in Nazi-era Vienna' paper, there were so many cross overs involving Carl Jung and many other psychologist and medical professionals during the second world war, involving other papers written regarding euthanasia and slave labour etc.

In terms of recommended reading in relation to this topic, I found Erich Fromm's book, 'The Fear of Freedom' to be incredibly insightful and useful.

Deepthought said:

Add sociopathic, nihilistic and necrophilic dictators, who like getting other people paranoid, and stirring up hatred and violence ~ then such societies start finding it a lot more acceptable to let or make other people die instead of themselves, and their families.

An interesting reflection on our times.  All times, perhaps.  I can think of a few belief systems which have always operated in this way.

StephenHarris said:

Indeed, but an awful lot of them were in some form or another; denouncing neighbours or turning a blind eye to the regime's abuses.

There is a thing called Adulteration Abuse, which is not often mentioned, given that Normalised Abuse is the more palatable and less inflammatory version. Basically the vast majority of the human population operate according to societal "Group-Think", which is shared and enforced amongst the egotised masses, and involves to some extent more or less ~ ageism, sexism and tribalism, as amounts to generalised elitism.

When then work, basic food supplies and services start getting short in supply or too expensive, people die. When people keep dying it becomes traumatically normalised due to shock, and increasing fear ~ as rationally balanced thinking is obstructed by quasi-rational and thus misdirected delusional thoughts.

Add sociopathic, nihilistic and necrophilic dictators, who like getting other people paranoid, and stirring up hatred and violence ~ then such societies start finding it a lot more acceptable to let or make other people die instead of themselves, and their families.

Option one is conform and perhaps live,

Option two is rebel and most likely die.

Suicide is for most not an option.

Indeed, but an awful lot of them were in some form or another; denouncing neighbours or turning a blind eye to the regime's abuses.

So did millions of others but it doesn't mean they were all complicit.  

Asperger had the opportunity to flee. He chose not to take it.