I love this topic and reading your essays on it, but you lost me at calling Baron-Cohen a “preeminent authority” on autism and then moreso by linking an interview with professional word-salader Peterson. From my perspective, this sucks credibility from your argument. But also, I am but one perspective.
One of the advantages of a blog is I can let my biases show a bit more. I like Peterson, though of course not the word salad part. His work on the Big Five was influential in my own research, and he's an excellent reviewer for the right guests (eg. Muraresku, McGilchrist).
As for Baron-Cohen, I don't see the argument he isn't a preeminent authority. From his wiki:
"Baron-Cohen is professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College."
Additionally, I was using the interview to show that there is political motivation to minimize sex differences, and I thought Baron-Cohen doing a lot of throat clearing on the subject, even when discussing it with Peterson, was a good demonstration.
"He received a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List 2021 for services to autism and was awarded the Medical Research Council (MRC) Millennium Medal 2023, which is the highest personal award for medical researchers in the UK, in recognition of his pioneering research into the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism, his establishment of the ARC, and his work in the public understanding of neurodiversity."
Well, this was my gut feeling, based on his reception in my circles. As this is not my field of expertise I asked ChatGPT, so take it with a grain of salt:
"Conclusion:
Simon Baron-Cohen was a “preeminent authority,” especially within the mainstream cognitive-psychological framework of the 1990s and 2000s.
Today, he is more representative of an older, deficit-oriented paradigm, which is increasingly being challenged by neurodiversity-affirming, participatory, and interdisciplinary approaches.
He remains influential, but he is no longer representative of contemporary autism research, which increasingly incorporates autistic perspectives."
So perhaps not peaked, but the wheel of science turned on without him/ he then reaped the fruits of his earlier work?
This has given me lots to think about, It makes sense that woman would be (or should be) the vanguard of self awareness as her body gestates another self, and birth is then a sort of separating threshold moment. Weaning an ‘I’ from (m)other.
And I read somewhere that the pregnant body has to register the foetus as part her part not-her in order for her to not abort it as hostile alien. So in theory the female body has some education in the birth-self process even if the woman herself does not. Though the latter seems to be a real cultural failure that leads to all sorts of decay. Ideally, woman would be conscious of and artful in her aptitude as threshold ‘I’ maker. It’s an important role.
Personally I have next to no memories from early childhood.
I think it could also depend on the style of mothering one grows up with. Mine was a ‘devouring’ mother sort, not good at separating self from child.
The subject also has me curious about not only different styles of separation (good and bad) but also different experiences of I-self.
In my dreams I often loose my body, my form, and I become other people and sometimes other things. In some ways I melt. It is not fun and symptom of a great instability that I still today try to survive.
I am excited by the potentials of multiple styles of consciousness though lack general comprehension to grasp them
I love this topic and reading your essays on it, but you lost me at calling Baron-Cohen a “preeminent authority” on autism and then moreso by linking an interview with professional word-salader Peterson. From my perspective, this sucks credibility from your argument. But also, I am but one perspective.
One of the advantages of a blog is I can let my biases show a bit more. I like Peterson, though of course not the word salad part. His work on the Big Five was influential in my own research, and he's an excellent reviewer for the right guests (eg. Muraresku, McGilchrist).
As for Baron-Cohen, I don't see the argument he isn't a preeminent authority. From his wiki:
"Baron-Cohen is professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College."
Additionally, I was using the interview to show that there is political motivation to minimize sex differences, and I thought Baron-Cohen doing a lot of throat clearing on the subject, even when discussing it with Peterson, was a good demonstration.
Baron-Cohen as a “preeminent authority” on autism
- perhaps in the mid 90s/early 00s that would have been true. :)
From his bio it doesn't look like he peaked in 2000: https://www.autismresearchcentre.com/people/simon-baron-cohen/
"He received a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List 2021 for services to autism and was awarded the Medical Research Council (MRC) Millennium Medal 2023, which is the highest personal award for medical researchers in the UK, in recognition of his pioneering research into the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism, his establishment of the ARC, and his work in the public understanding of neurodiversity."
Well, this was my gut feeling, based on his reception in my circles. As this is not my field of expertise I asked ChatGPT, so take it with a grain of salt:
"Conclusion:
Simon Baron-Cohen was a “preeminent authority,” especially within the mainstream cognitive-psychological framework of the 1990s and 2000s.
Today, he is more representative of an older, deficit-oriented paradigm, which is increasingly being challenged by neurodiversity-affirming, participatory, and interdisciplinary approaches.
He remains influential, but he is no longer representative of contemporary autism research, which increasingly incorporates autistic perspectives."
So perhaps not peaked, but the wheel of science turned on without him/ he then reaped the fruits of his earlier work?
In the interview he specifically mentions that he doesn't like the term "Autism disorder" because it frames it as a deficit. So even then,,,
This has given me lots to think about, It makes sense that woman would be (or should be) the vanguard of self awareness as her body gestates another self, and birth is then a sort of separating threshold moment. Weaning an ‘I’ from (m)other.
And I read somewhere that the pregnant body has to register the foetus as part her part not-her in order for her to not abort it as hostile alien. So in theory the female body has some education in the birth-self process even if the woman herself does not. Though the latter seems to be a real cultural failure that leads to all sorts of decay. Ideally, woman would be conscious of and artful in her aptitude as threshold ‘I’ maker. It’s an important role.
Personally I have next to no memories from early childhood.
I think it could also depend on the style of mothering one grows up with. Mine was a ‘devouring’ mother sort, not good at separating self from child.
The subject also has me curious about not only different styles of separation (good and bad) but also different experiences of I-self.
In my dreams I often loose my body, my form, and I become other people and sometimes other things. In some ways I melt. It is not fun and symptom of a great instability that I still today try to survive.
I am excited by the potentials of multiple styles of consciousness though lack general comprehension to grasp them