Disgusted

I do care what Hans Asperger did during the Second World War, however, I can separate that from his "discovering" Asperger's syndrome.

In the same way his "discovery" should not wipe out his deeds during the war, his deeds during the war should not wipe out his "discovery".

I dislike the sanitisation which is taking place.

In time, the most of the general public will have forgotten Han Asperger's deeds during the war (and I suspect a fair number have no idea about them now); I am not saying that is right or wrong, just that is what will happen.

this is the comment I can definitely agree with. I'm personally very torn on all this. On one hand, I totally agree that the awareness for Asperger's has only reached the public and people will get confused when they are told it's now Autism. Specially when most people still solely associate Autism with Rain Man and tend to deny Asperger's as Autism due to the fact that most of us manage to fit in due to us learning neurotypical behaviour. On the other hand, I'm also a child from a family that has suffered from the ***. Many of my ancestral relatives died in the Nazi death camp, so you might say I'm a bit sensitive to anything related to Nazi science and how they got and treated their human guinea pigs.

With that last fact in mind, I tend to be actually rather favourable to the removal of Asperger's name as a main denominator for the condition. An the other hand, every other argument I read in this thread has its own value and I noticed that I earned better reactions from my surroundings when I said I had Asperger's than when I said I had Autism, which always sounds bigger than life. Nevertheless, I believe that reactions to the term 'Autism' will regulate themselves in the public mind in future years, so maybe now would be the right time to decide on the definitive name and yes, Asperger's is factually Autism, so why not call it that?

Nowhere Mat said:

Many of my ancestral relatives died in the Nazi death camp, so you might say I'm a bit sensitive to anything related to Nazi science and how they got and treated their human guinea pigs.

I'm from a Sephardic background so my family were North African. The plight of North African jews is mostly ignored by history. Italy had camps there mainly. I had family who were in Giado and then packed off to Belsen-Bergen. Giado was a camp in Libya. A few escaped but lots were left. The irony is that my grandfather helped liberate both camps but they never liberated or saved any of my family. He got to see what had happened to his wife's family first hand.

I too abhorr Nazi's but policing language due to our sensitivities and ethnic background echos the totalitarian nature of their ideology. There were far more groups than just the Jews that were targeted and could have input into this matter. LGBT people, Black people, Roma people, people of a Communist ideology (however they haven't been too soft on some groups themselves, including Jews, ideologues tend not to be too concerned with empathy.) and many others. Our identity and sensitivities are something that shouldn't count as emotional currency in a debate that involves so many other groups.

Which brings me onto my final point. The Third Reich and Mussolini were very, very, very anti-neurodiverse. Which is the main group that this concerns. Not Jews. We have to look at this through a practical lens, without bias toward an outcome that plays into the realm of our ethnic identity and ancestors experiences. The practical implications of this furore that Czech has, in my opinion, exploited by using the visceral qualities that appeal to our natural emotional reactions and bias, could be disasterous. I've already seen several fingers pointed at valuable researchers in the Autistic communtity. This concerns me massively. There is little to no experience in the mental health system of how to even approach AS. There are also implications in getting benefits, housing, access to resources, workplace adjustments and many other things. Changing the terminology may have an effect on the already sparse awareness in these areas.

If we use our identity as currency to demand more gravitas in the debate to gain our desired outcome, does that not hark to the same ideals that the Nazi's upheld. They were obsessed with race and built a value system around it. I'm not keen on Communism either because of things that happened to my father's family.

The main thing here is not who is offended, it's who and what it effects. I can deal with my condition being named after a guy who has been disgraced, if it doesn't have any adverse effects on the Autistic community.

Nowhere Mat said:

Many of my ancestral relatives died in the Nazi death camp, so you might say I'm a bit sensitive to anything related to Nazi science and how they got and treated their human guinea pigs.

I'm from a Sephardic background so my family were North African. The plight of North African jews is mostly ignored by history. Italy had camps there mainly. I had family who were in Giado and then packed off to Belsen-Bergen. Giado was a camp in Libya. A few escaped but lots were left. The irony is that my grandfather helped liberate both camps but they never liberated or saved any of my family. He got to see what had happened to his wife's family first hand.

I too abhorr Nazi's but policing language due to our sensitivities and ethnic background echos the totalitarian nature of their ideology. There were far more groups than just the Jews that were targeted and could have input into this matter. LGBT people, Black people, Roma people, people of a Communist ideology (however they haven't been too soft on some groups themselves, including Jews, ideologues tend not to be too concerned with empathy.) and many others. Our identity and sensitivities are something that shouldn't count as emotional currency in a debate that involves so many other groups.

Which brings me onto my final point. The Third Reich and Mussolini were very, very, very anti-neurodiverse. Which is the main group that this concerns. Not Jews. We have to look at this through a practical lens, without bias toward an outcome that plays into the realm of our ethnic identity and ancestors experiences. The practical implications of this furore that Czech has, in my opinion, exploited by using the visceral qualities that appeal to our natural emotional reactions and bias, could be disasterous. I've already seen several fingers pointed at valuable researchers in the Autistic communtity. This concerns me massively. There is little to no experience in the mental health system of how to even approach AS. There are also implications in getting benefits, housing, access to resources, workplace adjustments and many other things. Changing the terminology may have an effect on the already sparse awareness in these areas.

If we use our identity as currency to demand more gravitas in the debate to gain our desired outcome, does that not hark to the same ideals that the Nazi's upheld. They were obsessed with race and built a value system around it. I'm not keen on Communism either because of things that happened to my father's family.

The main thing here is not who is offended, it's who and what it effects. I can deal with my condition being named after a guy who has been disgraced, if it doesn't have any adverse effects on the Autistic community.