A jumble of thoughts

 

Oliver Sacks is one of my favorite writers, in general, and certainly my favorite among the authors we’ve read for this class.  I was pleasantly surprised (though not actually surprised) to find Sacks’ forwards in some of our recent readings.  In Exiting Nirvana he perfectly sets up the following text, and provides a historical context in terms of prior research on the autism spectrum, and an emotional context by providing certain details of the family portrayed in this book that the author did not provide.  Additionally, I appreciate how he sees the benefits, as well as drawbacks of each disorder he studies.  He includes some of this insight in his forwards.  As we’ve discovered, especially after reading “Prodigies,” among other chapters from our reading, and watching films such as Rain Man, etc., there are many remarkable individuals with autism.  The level of artistic and other skills in the cases we’ve encountered are staggering- not simply considered in the realm of individuals with certain deficits, but among “healthy” children and adults.         

 

Exiting Nirvana discusses “theory of mind” at length, and how people with autism are characterized as not being able to see from another person’s perspective.  Immediately upon reading the first few pages of Thinking in Pictures, I was stunned by Grandin’s ability to create such effective designs mostly due to her ability to see through the eyes of the livestock (both emotionally and literally- creating humane ways to move these animals by thinking about their emotions and physical comfort, and literally seeing through their eyes with the aid of her vivid visual mind).  This raises a lot of questions for me.  First, if humans are animals, why then can certain individuals with autism see from only certain animals’ perspective, and not humans?  Why is there a disconnect here?  If a person with autism possesses an innate ability to empathize with livestock, can this person learn to empathize with other humans easily?  Additionally, as Katie mentions in her post, is there a link between autism and sociopathy (“given that a lack of empathy is also a hallmark of the antisocial personality disorders, the connotation feels a bit negative.”)? 

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Cliche, I know, but after reading "Thinking In Pictures? that saying is so much more powerful. The thought of thinking in pictures is mind-boggling to me. I am an extremely verbal thinker -- everything I imagine comes up as a series of words strung together, or placed in its representative spot. For example, I once was asked to describe my favorite place to be in the world. This happens to be my best friend's bedroom, since I virtually grew up there -- we've known each other for sixteen years and her bedroom has hardly changed. She has a queen sized bed with no frame in the left upper corner, a dresser about three feet in front of that with a tv and a dvd player. To the right of the dresser is a brown book shelf stacked completely with CD's, and to the left is the door. n the adjacent wall, another brown bookshelf, a tall white floor lamp, and her coral colored closet doors. On the wall directly behind her bed, a large window with white sills and mini blinds. When I visualize this picture, however, I don't see those things. I see the word bed, and clumped around it I see 'green, white, purple' for the colors of her bed sheets. The word 'dresser' is in front of that, with the words 't.v.' and 'DVD player' stacked on top of it. The shelf shows as 'shelf' in very large letters, and the word 'CD' is packed over and over very tightly in between the letters. It is impressive and amazing that someone can not only fully visualize an object, but even rotate and see it from all sides. I have never once visualized an object in its entirety.

Grandin addresses the fact that being a visual thinker has the downside of not being able to comprehend words with which there is no concrete image to associate. But what I am curious about is what happens for words that have multiple meanings. I imagine that the first image associated with the word would be the most widely recalled, but is it possible to file the word away again with a second image? For example, the word 'leech'. From older days it means physician or surgeon, and it's also a blood sucking annelid. As a verb it is the act of using an annelid to suck blood, or more generally to drain or exhaust something. Is there such a way for a visual thinker such at Grandin to remember each of these definitions in conjunction with the same word? Can slight alterations to the word affect how she visualizes? I'm reminded of some of the work I do as a computer technician. Occasionally, work orders are lost before they can be completed and I have to create new ones. however, the system won't allow me to create multiple work orders for the same serial number. I avoid that situation by putting in the serial number with a period behind it. I wonder if the same concept could be applied to Grandin's visualization process.

To better understand the mind of the visual thinker, I took Grandin's suggestion and used Google Images. I typed in a few random nouns that came to mind and sorted through he first few pages of results. Simple nouns such as 'leech' yielded pictures of the animal, but after a few pages I started to see boots, which are worn to prevent leeches from attaching to the ankles or getting into pant legs, and vials of blood because that's what leeches eat. Upon searching 'liberty', I got a plethora of pictures of the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and a Jeep Liberty. My final word was 'symbiotic' for which I received a bunch of pictures of different animals that have symbiotic relationships with other organisms. It was a great representation of the associative way people on the autistic spectrum think.

I am fascinated by this system and have many questions. Do all of the visual thinkers have memories that are inexhaustible? if only a percentage of visual thinkers have Grandin's ability to modify information, is there a point where those without that skill are "maxed out" on their ability to associate a word with something? Do visual speakers excel at word games such as anagrams and scrambled words? Grandin offers a lot of insight on the visual mind but I suspect that she is right when she says that it works in ways forever incomprehensible to the non-visual person.

The Uncertainty of Autism

Apart from the obvious separation between fiction and memoir, Exiting Nirvana and The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time are two books about autism, separated by view points. Haddon gives the perspective of Christopher, an autistic boy whereas Park gives her own, neurotypical perspective on her autistic daughter, Jessy. Something that struck me after reading Park’s memoir was the constant and very detailed search for an answer to her daughter’s differences and the
realizations and perceptions that come from the perspective of an outsider.

Exiting Nirvana is written in such a way that allows the reader to work through the same process that Clara experienced when trying to understand or at least grapple with her daughter’s autism. The anecdotes are usually coupled with Clara’s attempts to reason and come to grips with the fact that Jessy meant to ask a question rather than make a statement, or that she has a sudden obsession with clichés, or that the sky suddenly has so much power over her emotions. Through deduction and reasoning, much like the way Jessy solves math problems, Clara comes to the conclusions that Jessy’s “clichés help her express herself, but their real advantage is far more fundamental. They help her give structure to chaos” (37) and “ ‘Jane’s house is in New Jersey.’ It sounds like a statement…Yet she doesn’t know where Jane’s house is, and the statement is false. But she has no reason to mislead me, and she is incapable of a convincing lie, so I’m able to guess: this is one of her odd assertions that function as a question” (55). These efforts to understand do not always end in success, however.

Jessy’s need to keep everything constant and in perfect order and her inability to comprehend change and abstraction is difficult for any outsider, including her mother, to decipher. “Jessy loves charts: they too reduce an untidy world to order” ( 36). In spite of all her efforts to understand Jessy, for Clara, there will always be a void. When recalling the anecdote where Jessy had eight pieces of bacon, Clara states, “Though it would make for a neater narrative, I won’t reinvent the words of the question I didn’t record. My question mark, floating in the blankness, is a truer rendition” (26).

The math that Jessy employed as a child didn’t have any real rhyme or reason to an observer and although it seemed that “gradually, numbers lost their magic” and Jessy’s “emotions seemed independent of the weather” (82), a meeting with Oliver Sacks twenty years later proved these theories to be only somewhat true. Something that I was very taken with after reading both, Mark Haddon’s novel, and Clara Claiborne Park’s memoir, is the world of total “bewilderment” that comes with autism. Not only does it come from the observers of the autistic, like Clara Claiborne Park, but it most certainly comes from the person housing the illness, like Jessy and Christopher.

Bridging the Gap (With Empathy).

Losh and Capps point to a critical and widely accepted notion in proper emotional and social development. In a neuro-typical individual, “advances in emotional understanding occur as children are increasingly able and inclined to locate emotions within causal–explanatory frameworks and evaluate their significance in relation to self and other.” The authors go on to argue that “the development of such evaluative skills has been argued to be a key factor in the enabling of children to penetrate the psychological and sociocultural dimensions of complex affective encounters.” Thus it is the acquisition of these increasingly complex abilities that is lacking in autistic individuals.
Though this would seem to encompass the lack of empathy long assumed to be a hallmark of both Kanner’s and Asperger’s autism, such a definition circumvents the slightly caustic ring of former classifications. I use the word caustic here, because to claim another individual lacks empathy sounds (at least to me) somewhat accusatory.
Perhaps this is a case of cue distortion on my party, but given that a lack of empathy is also a hallmark of the antisocial personality disorders, the connotation feels a bit negative.
I find it preferable, therefore, to conceive of the undeniable emotional barriers faced by autistic individuals not as an absence of the very emotion that renders us human, but as a snag in his or her emotional development. Or, as Temple Grandin might put it, a short-circuit in the computer wires.
In reference to this, I think the work of Martin Hoffman is an appropriate parallel. In Hoffman’s view, empathetic ability increases as a direct function of developing cognitive awareness of others (Hoffman 1984). In simpler terms, as more complex mental capacities develop, so too does the capacity to engage in and experience empathy. In infancy (0-1 years of age), for example, only a rudimentary form of empathy exists, wherein a basic imitation of adult gestures—or, motor mimicry— is observed (Meltzoff 1977), as well as what Hoffman terms the “primary circular reaction” wherein newborns reactively cry upon exposure to other crying infants (Sagi and Hoffman, 1976). By contrast, in later childhood and early adolescence, “person identity” (the realization that others’ identities, opinions, personal experiences and emotions are not solely dependent upon oneself—and that they exist outside of immediate, observable situations) enables a more advanced (and abstract) understanding of others. Only when person identity is acquired, Hoffman argues, can individuals “take the other’s role and asses their reactions in particular situations [while] also generaliz[ing] from these situations and construct[ing] a concept of the other’s general life experience” (Hoffman 1984). By transcending early childhood fusions of self and other, and by refining the resulting perceptions of separate entities, a more complex and mature form of empathy is engendered.
In its entirety, Hoffman’s model of empathy comprises four distinct stages (of which primary circular reactions and person identity acquisition are associated with the first and last, respectively). As for the second stage (1-2 years of life), sympathy (in absence of the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, as mandated by empathy) is made possible by the attainment of person permanence (the notion that people do not disappear when, say, they leave the room). Following this is the stage lasting from 3 to 10 years of age, wherein role taking (the ability to assume another’s perspective) develops, and thus empathy takes its first roots.
If this model is to be applied to autistic individuals, one might argue that—dependent upon the severity of their symptoms—they are prevented from progressing to the third and fourth stages of empathy acquisition, based on neurological hindrances. In other words, from a developmental standpoint that carries a hint of psychoanalytic theory (inasmuch as this might be mistaken to parallel Freud’s psychosexual stages—and this is by no means my intention), autistic individuals may be neurobiologically incapable of engaging in role taking, which is necessary for the more complex forms of empathy.
To me, this correlates with the “complex attributional processes hinging on later developmental achievements, such as the capacity for reflecting upon experiences
and evaluating them in relation to sociocultural norms and expectations, as well as the appraisals of others” that Losh and Capps refer to. In that sense, though it may seem somewhat tangential, Hoffman’s approach to empathy development might shed a more humanistic light on cases of autism. Not that I find them to elicit the negative connotations associated with antisocial personality disorder. But I do believe that there is a want of empathy in the neuro-typical population and their reactions to autism.
Not only is there a disconnection on the autistic individual’s part—as they can engage only limitedly in the emotional currency upon which otherwise normal individuals rely. There is also a critical lack of understanding on the parts of non-autistic individuals who, say, observe their neuro-developmentally impaired counterparts and cast them off as retarded or burdensome. Perhaps, then, if empathic connections are fostered on more basic, more rudimentary or earlier forms of empathy (as one would attempt to cultivate in youngsters who have not yet developed a person permanence or person identity), a greater communication between the two seemingly opposite worlds could be achieved.

To Take Away What is Unnecessary, You Must First Define What Is Necessary

Through the fictional autistic narrator, Christopher, author Mark Haddon introduces a vital theme, not only apparent throughout The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time, but also evident in the non-fictional accounts of autism provided by Oliver Sacks (throughout his Anthropologist on Mars). The theme is that of Occam’s razor, which (in Christopher’s translation from latin) states, “no more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary” (Haddon 90).
There is certainly evidence enough to argue that Christopher’s mental state is an illustration of this tenet. For one, he (like other autistic individuals) considers the non-goal-oriented chit-chat that so greatly comprises human interaction as unnecessary: “I didn’t reply to this either because Mrs. Alexander was doing what it called chatting, where people say things to each other which aren’t questions and answers and aren’t connected” (Haddon 40). [As Feinberg describes this phenomenon, albeit rather bluntly: individuals with Asperger’s (the less-severe and more functional form of autism), “…cannot see the point in social chit-chat. They do not ming having a discussion…on a particular issue in order to establish the truth of the matter…But just a casual, superficial chat? Why bother? And what on earth about? How?...it is both too hard and pointless” (Feinberg 172). Perhaps a more neutral and reflective tone is found in Oliver Sacks’ description of the same sentiments (or lack there of) in Temple Grandlin: “By professional standards, she is extraordinarily successful, but other human interactions—social, sexual—she cannot ‘get’” (Sacks 260). Indeed, the emotional understanding and communication that serves as the basis for such social interactions (be it chit-chat or deep empathic exchange) rests on an individual’s ability to share the emotions of the other person, an ability that is also lacking in Sacks’ other true-life character, Stephen: “He seemed not to understand different emotions and would laugh if one of the children had a temper tantrum or screamed” (201).
In turn, Christopher’s direct, simplistic thinking is another example of the reductionist motif. He does not waste time in mincing words or thoughts, but states and attends to things without the presumed prefrontal cortical inhibition that causes otherwise neuro-normative individuals to hold their tongues: i.e. when Christopher explains to Mrs. Alexander why he does not feel sad about his mother’s (supposed) death: “I don’t feel sad…because mother is dead. And because Mr. Shears isn’t around anymore. So I would be feeling sad about something that isn’t real and doesn’t ecist. And that would be stupid” (Haddon 75). Or, when Christopher shows up at his mother’s house and genuinely asserts to Mr. Shears that “I’m going to live with you because Father killed Wellington with a garden fork and I’m frightened of him” (192). Likewise, Oliver Sacks’ depiction of Temple’s lack of “…diffidence or embarrassment (emotions unknown to her)” (Sacks 262) while displaying her bedroom and squeeze-machine “…with a complete absence of inhibition or hesitation” (265). Thus the regular tentativeness, humbleness, or self-consciousness that might be expected of a non-autistic individual is not apparent. Such is the case, as well, with Steven Wiltshire who “…seemed to have no sense of either vanity or modesty, but showed [Oliver Sacks] his drawings, commented on them, in an ingenuous way and with total absence of self-consciousness” (Sacks 205).
A further embodiment of the theme present in Occam’s razor is the presumed “hypertrophy of a single mental faculty” (Sacks 193) to the exclusion of all others that characterize savant talents. Inherent in this distinction is a cleavage of all (or most) other mental faculties that unrelated (and thus unnecessary to) the hypertrophized faculty—i.e. verbal/communicative skills, emotional competence, etc. Christopher compares this to the otherwise normative state of mind, wherein “most people are almost blind and they don’t see most things and there is lots of spare capacity in their heads and it is filled with things which aren’t connected and are silly, like ‘I’m worried that I might have left the gas cooker on” (Haddon 144). Thus, at least to Christopher, such non-autistic minds to not cleave the unnecessary or surperfluous.
It is crucial to note, however, that to define “necessary” or its counterpart, “superfluous” is entirely subjective. Indeed, Christopher sees what others may deem necessary as silly, or stupid (in his words); while most non-autistic individuals would deem his retention of every detail when looking at a farm field, for instance, as equally unnecessary—disadvantageous, in fact. Thus it can be argued that perspective is inherently correct.
This, of course, leads into the discrepancy over whether savantism is a deficit or a gift. Most would see it as a disadvantage, if it is to be accompanied by social deficits and interpersonal dysfunctional; however, as Temple asserts, “If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not…Autism is par of who I am” (Sacks 291); “It is possible that persons with bits of these [autistic] traits are more creative, or possible even geniuses…If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants” (292).
In summation, then, one individual’s take on Occam’s razor may be entirely different than another’s: unnecessary and necessary (and the removal of and/or implementation of each) are highly dependant upon perspective—which, itself, is colored by an individual’s predisposition, emotional interior, exterior, and cognitive capacities. The very insistence that deficits such as autism are unnecessary can even be lumped into this discrepancy.

Welcome to My World

What strikes me the most about Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime is how evidently blunt the writing it is and where the bluntness comes from. Because we are reading the story from the perspective of a young boy with Asperger syndrome, we receive a very straightforward narrative with very little description or speculation. Christopher, because of his condition, is extremely deliberate in anything that comes across his mind. He doesn’t like yellow and brown. He likes red. Different types of food on the same plate cannot touch one another. There is no real designation for why he likes these things those ways. There is even a chapter about why Christopher doesn’t like yellow and brown, but it provides no true reason for why he hates yellow and brown, but creates more of a list of yellow and brown things. The idea behind this is that Christopher believes that when the reader notices his “list” they will automatically realize why yellow and brown are terrible.

The clear-cut decisions and thoughts bring up an interesting style of narrative. Some would argue that it waters down the true quality of the prose, but in the case of Mark Haddon, that fact is almost the idea behind the novel. Everything is very frank to Christopher, thus making things like finding out about his mother and Mr. Shears just seem to be something that happened, instead of the horrible affair that is truly behind the discovery. The lack of adjectives helps to make frightening sections of the novel, like Christopher’s father becoming very angry unfold in a slow motion style. They are occurring with no real emotion and because of the lack of emotion, the narrative becomes extremely powerful.

Although the subject matter is entirely different, I couldn’t help being reminded of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The same style of writing is employed, giving the narrative a blunt side that takes away from the beauty of writing but enhances the experience of the novel. Horrible moments become that much more terrible because of their exposure to the reader. Each sentence is naked, creating a strong piece of writing.

I believe that the experience that the reader has when moving through the narrative of The Curious Incident is the important part of the novel, and the idea that Mark Haddon is looking for. He presents it to the reader very obviously in Christopher’s perspective, but also through his actions and thoughts because he forces the reader not only into seeing the way Christopher sees, but also the way he thinks, and the affect that it has on the reader. One cannot help reading The Curious Incident and being shocked at some points in the novel, and if you are shocked then Mark Haddon has achieved his goal.

 

 

On Part One: I am No One

On page 59 Mark has his first post-accident recognition of another patient’s sadness when he overhears someone sobbing in a room near his. This “feat of intellect” as Karin calls it seemed to be so much more to me at that moment. Every now and then while reading Powers’s novel I stop and have that moment of questioning: is he the echo-maker? Is he simply echoing what his interrupted mind grasps, words or actions that instigate a connection, a memory? It cannot be this simple. Mark recognizing sadness seemed pivotal to me in the unorganized, time-warped narrative. So much of him seems to still be present and what is missing is baffling because it seems to be so little he is not capable off. He shoots the shit with his two buddies and they recognize his progress but he gets overwhelmed. “When they’re near, he can’t hear himself think. Too much happening at once for him to see what’s wrong.” (67). He receives necessary, pseudo-romantic attention from Bonnie and then becomes captivated, infatuated by Barbara. He is able. He can walk and talk. Tracking his progress is confusing because of the parallel narrative of his sister, that at times overshadows his deficits and puts the reader’s focus on Karin. The self—our self, knowing who one is through memory and self-preservation—is not only taken from Mark but to an extent more so from Karin by her brother’s Capgras syndrome. “You think I’m just a symptom?” (92), she asks Daniel. Her sense of self, the idea of the life she has created and thought she knew and could hold on to, is taken away by the accident and Mark’s recovery and misidentification delusions send Karin deeper and deeper into the chase, the struggle. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be talking to your sibling, the closest genetic organism to you, knowing that they do not recognize who you are. I ask a completely unanswerable question: Why does Capgras manifest itself in this way? Why do patients not recognize loved ones especially? The mysterious note only adds to the delusion and shattering of the self. I am No One. To bring back someone else? Is Karin the one who needed bringing back? The obvious answer seems to me to be Mark but it is his challenge to bring back that other.
The pages are filled with cryptic lines about identity, life and death. Mark realizes on page 64 that he doesn’t even know where the dead are. For some reason this line and so many others seemed to make my mind pause and think and then blank. On the next page, he has another realization that seems so wise, so natural for someone who has had their world flipped inside out and upside down from one millisecond to the next. While asking his sister/actress to get him some sort of identification Mark seems to grasp something that at this very moment seems beyond me. They can operate on your brain without you even knowing it. In this thought Mark at once comes to terms with his accident and current situation and surrenders his body to the technology that, without his consent, has kept him alive.
I found myself struggling with the unannounced switch from Karin’s point of view to Mark’s. I definitely enjoyed reading the Mark sections more. Knowing his thoughts, the way they are presented and the way they expose his personality, made me understand the entire narrative better. “Nobody’s quite what they say they are, and he’s just supposed to laugh and play along.”