Is the rise of autism diagnostics a sign our society is getting unsane?

rise in diagnosis is due to the rise in awareness and in the internet.

when i was in school computers were just coming out, internet wasnt normal, so spread of information wasnt there and no one had awareness of anything. nothing got diagnosed, no one knew anything.... my parents generation have a huge lack of knowledge on all sorts due to no internet in their day, they dont know what autism is, they heard of it one time and they think its when your kid smears poo on the wall....

I am quite the opposite to what you describe (see my recent thread titled 'irrational fears').

I am autistic, quite irrational, almost always random in my responses. People are always taken back by how unique my ideas are, I've built a creative career from this thinking.

I find your post to be ignorant (I'm sure you aren't being conducending or callous at all) it's just how it feels to me to read.

Given the spectrum to be like a galaxy in my mind, and not a linear chart, we are all many flavours of ice cream from one day to the next. Willy Wonka couldn't make a candy that tastes like us because we would just go cameleon and invent a new flavour.

AI won't keep up with us I know it

I had a similar crazy encounter last month; it felt like I was on a Formula 1 race track.

That's the book which inspired me the title indeed ;)

I am indeed noting that society is becoming less well adapted to difference and was wondering wether you also see it this way and yes spectrum feels normal to me as you explain. As you point out where would we be without this "nerdy" way of thinking? Nerdy is another label that worries me. I still prefer "sensitive and rational", that's how I see it.  

To Add: Erich Fromm's Sane Society is also a good read.

My short answer is yes. From enough research one can see is the problem exactly. There were a few philosophers who saw it coming as well. America is colonising the west and pushing east. It sounds odd, but it seems this free-for-all of a nation has taken the psychoanalytical term of the "Neurotic Paranoiac" to a new extreme. (Lacan had stated "We're all a little Neurotic" long before the phrase we're all a little autistic came to exist.)

Anti-Oedipus (Capitalism and Schizophrenia) is a great exploration on how this happens in Capitalism without limits. It's a rather large book. As a politics of economy, the limits of capitalism are always shifting, and in a response, society becomes homogenised and more closed in how it thinks and perceives, and what it expects.

I might suggest we call the Autistic-Analytic 'wiring' a specific distinction from the Neurotic-Paranoiac (this technically means something different than what it appears). The Neurotic being a frame of thinking which keeps the tribe together and the Autistic keeps the tribe from killing itself or allowing the sociopath to do so. What's key is a type of drive, whether one is public about it or not. How far will you go to keep community? Will you be the only one to not drink the poison? The biology of the two differences are quite interesting with a little thought. Not on a surface level but in very instinctual ways. A more analytic reasoning will require a lack of attachment to value judgement. But in order to keep a collective cohesive, language needs to be fluid enough to keep up appearances. It seems an interesting twist that evolution afforded this autistic brain an ability to stay plastic with it's ability to calculate sense perception, while the other is more malleable with language and can filter out unwanted sensations. These two should work together. But in a free-for-all individualised society, a sociopath can end up "Trumping" everyone. And so behaviour becomes a matter of morality - a reflection of the subconscious rather than a differing of strengths and limits. 

A Field Guide for Earthlings also gives a practical explanation of what's currently happening. But the other I mentioned really explains in detail how we got here. 

I've hacked my environment so it's not a nightmare; fewer LEDs, less 'stuff' in general, we cook a lot and have to mind allergies, human friendly sensory (natural fibres & products - watch out for 'sustainable' which is a facade). I've noticed some in our family mature much slower in various ways. My son is quite wise but behind peers in other things. He'll get there like I did, but I'll simply make sure he has help and isn't left compromised like my parents left me. 

Some of those "small quirk" people will be autistic. Some aren't but have some significant traits. They aren't the graceful the Swans they seem on the surface. Their little legs are powering 50 to the dozen against a neurotypical tide, they do not understand.

Yes, society once tolerated "little quirks", let us find our own niche where it suited us. The IT driven, social media age leaves no room for this being different business.

I'm sort of bemused by your post. I'm not sure whether you are saying: 'We're all a bit autistic. Never mind', or whether you are legitimately noting that society is becoming less well adapted to difference (felt that in the bank the other day, lol).

Might not be our place to say and I might be bang out of order here, but you do astrophysics right? Engineering and science is where some "nerds" aka undiagnosed autistic people do oft gather - odd little quirks and all and are reasonably well treated and tolerated 'cos everyone is like that in those environments. Attwood did call the world's universities "Aspie day care centres". 

And errr, statistically engineer/scientist is a common profession for parent of quirky, autie kid...hmmm, is it vaguely possible that you and your quirky colleagues are on or edging toward the Spectrum too and therefore it''s all a bit "perfectly normal" to you all? Might be speaking out of turn here, but err worth thinking about. If so, not a bad thing, is it? Where would we be without our nerdy scientists, astronomers and engineers? Still trying to figure out how to make fire by rubbing sticks together, no doubt.

Thank you Martin! I get it! My headphones to cope with the city and small retreats after overloads have nothing to do with the intensity you feel. That must be exhausting.

For most of my life I thought that other people had similar problems to me, but they were much better at coping with them. It came as a surprise that the problems I faced on a day-to-day basis just did not exist at all for most other people. I realised that I was the tough one. I was coping with much more than they ever had to.

Martin said:

I do not see the increased suicide rates of autistic people being he result of being labelled, or self-identifying as, autistic, but the result of society being a hostile environment for them.

To be honest Martin, I could cope with the hostile environment - I had established reasonable "work-arounds" - it was hard bloody work, but I had coped for 50 years.  My problem was simply not understanding WHY society was such a hostile and alien place for me.  Naturally I thought it was just me - perhaps mad, perhaps sad or perhaps bad.......but actually, I'm just different in a definable and identifiable way.  Things now make so much more sense.  THANK GOD (and science - obviously!)

Thank you! I did not want to offend anyone. I just do not see neurotypicals the way you do. I would even say they are failed autists.. full of biaises that you might not have. 

You must understand that anything that smacks of either, "You don't look autistic", or, " My seven year old nephew is autistic, and you are nothing like him", raises the hackles of most autistic adults and your post was close to both. Hence the reaction.

I actively sought diagnosis after I realised that I was autistic. Rather than a label imposed from outside, many autistic adults seek an autistic identity. This is because it validates their traits and experiences. Rather than being individually, and inexplicably, 'strange' and 'peculiar' they are part of a community of similar people. They are not 'failed neurotypicals', but autistics in a society that does not allow them to flourish.

I do not see the increased suicide rates of autistic people being he result of being labelled, or self-identifying as, autistic, but the result of society being a hostile environment for them.

I am deeply concerned about the suicide rate and that's why I am asking whether the problem does not lie on the other side, ie society. My son was picked up due to language delay mainly but when kids were not forced to school he wouldn't have been noticed. Many scientits in history had non classical chidhood deveopments. My question was really an open one. What pushes society to label autistic people? 

Annie,

I can't quite grasp what you are trying to ask - or intimate - in your contribution above.

I am, however, pretty damn certain that no one here wishes to try and define borders between various outward manifestations of autism.  This is simply a friendly and supportive community where like-minded folk can converse and share their thoughts and experiences.

Many of us are not blessed with a "very open minded rational atmosphere" in our daily lives - or even if we do - we don't have people who understand our brains nor share the various challenges and struggles that we encounter during our days.  We might have outwardly "small quirks" only, but have you ever considered what is going on beneath our exteriors within our weird and wonderful brains?  Are you aware of the suicide rate known to exist for autistic folk - both great and small?

From what I can see, people here are generally just talking.  That's a good thing.  I hope that is OK with you.

Thanks for raising your words.

As an autistic scientist (clinically diagnosed), I would say that clinical diagnosis, and the traits that lead to clinical diagnosis, are the border between autistic-like behaviours and autism. What I glean from your post, is that your view regards people with less overt autistic traits than your son as being not autistic. Please correct me if I am wrong. If my appreciation of your post is correct then I have to say that it insults and invalidates the many autistic people that manage, with great difficulty and considerable distress, to function in a society that is hostile to them.

Working for 34 years in scientific research I would say that autistic and autistic-like people are more common in science than in the general population.