Neurodiversity and social change
your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful
The thing about not-being-a-person is:
They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all.
They will have no idea who they are talking to.
You yourself will start to forget, too.
They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them.
You will do math, constantly.
How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this …
...[Read More]Julia Bascom on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More
For all that I’m still learning something new every week about what’s been happening with autism in society over the last decade or so, that fact itself provides me with a perspective that is like[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 11/27/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
Somali Children in Minnesota and Autism
A child’s lifelong maturation rates are set several weeks before birth by the mother’s testosterone levels. A mother with high testosterone gives birth to low testosterone males and high testoster[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/25/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
Lucid dreaming is the process of being aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. The study of lucid dreaming was popularized by Carlos Castaneda. Scientist Stephen LeBerge conducted researc[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/24/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
Autism, Dance, Performance and Mirroring
Jacqui Russell is the artistic director of Chicago Children’s Theater. My good friend Arnold April mentioned to me the unique program that Jacqui manages at Agassiz Elementary School in Chicago[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/23/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
Autistic Genius: Real or Imaginary?
I’ve run across a couple of other writers recently who’ve made efforts to debunk the notion of autistic genius, and since I’ve been one to lean heavily on the idea that “autistic intelligence,[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 11/20/09 | No Comments | Read More
Neurodiversity’s Neighboring Conditions
I’ve sometimes wondered what a theory of human personality and psychotherapeutic intervention would look like if contemporary psychodynamic theory was based on a theory of human evolution that embra[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/18/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
It has been observed that a human baby displays many of the characteristics of an embryo in the womb. The infant is unable to slumber longer in the dark or he or she would not be able to depart. Their[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/17/09 | 3 Comments | Read More
Neurodiversity Deep Sea Diving
We live in a society that believes that it is pragmatic to presuppose that consciousness is contingent upon evolutionary conditions that led to its emergence. Self awareness occurred by chance. Acad[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/16/09 | No Comments | Read More
Time for this Elephant to Leave this Circus
Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo. Those were the four big places to go. The weirdest of all was Limbo. Limbo was where they sent unbaptized babies. The reasoning was, “It wasn’t their faul[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 11/13/09 | 6 Comments | Read More
Abortion, Female Infanticide and Autism
Male control of the female body is a hallmark of a patrifocal society, the Right Wing and hierarchical societies. It is no mistake that the contemporary Republican Party has its roots in the anti-abor[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/11/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
A conundrum frequently reveals itself during my observations of left-handed people. An answer to this riddle seems to be connected to an understanding of how bridges, brain bridges, are made. Lefties [Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/9/09 | 4 Comments | Read More
There is a short story I read years ago that I’ve always remembered as a tiny masterpiece of irony. It was set among what are sometimes called First Nations people, but viewed with a slightly diff[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 11/6/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
Autism researchers such as Simon Baron-Cohen have noted a pattern. The mother’s testosterone levels influence the likelihood of a child having autism. The higher the mother’s testosterone level, t[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/4/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
Neurodiversity, Neuropsychology and Evolution
In ancient cultures across the world, there are myths describing a time when women controlled society with a magic more powerful than men’s. These stories go on to describe that there is a loss of t[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 11/2/09 | No Comments | Read More
While the notion of Everyday Autism Everywhere is still in the air around here (welcome, William Stillman readers), I’d like to further expand some of the ideas Mr. Stillman and I have been floating[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/30/09 | No Comments | Read More
When I was a kid, my sisters and I would place a marble in the middle of the dining room linoleum floor and watch it begin rolling toward the hallway. Quickly, it would pick up speed, pass through the[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/29/09 | 51 Comments | Read More
A couple entries ago, I proposed a predictable display of variation of the physical features in the children of a family over time as a mother’s testosterone level slowly rose with age. This predict[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/28/09 | No Comments | Read More
Georges Cuvier was an early French biologist, a contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck, unfortunately, died before Cuvier and ended up vilified in a famous eulogy by his younger, very influent[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/27/09 | No Comments | Read More
There was a cascade of insights and epiphanies that was set off for me from coming to the knowledge, at the age of 36, that both myself and a 7-year-old girl who later became my stepdaughter occupied [Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/23/09 | No Comments | Read More
It could be said that it all begins in the womb. It is even deeper and more subtle than that. Autism researchers such as Simon Baron-Cohen are coming to the conclusion that a mother’s testosterone l[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/22/09 | No Comments | Read More
Autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen has a theory that the autistic male shows evidence of a brain that is too male for his own good, the autistic personality being male to the extreme, evidencing exaggera[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/20/09 | No Comments | Read More
There is a tribe of males more than a little infatuated with themselves and their own ideas. We’re often described as narcissists. Upon discovering I fit into this group, I was appalled, and predict[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/19/09 | 6 Comments | Read More
Grandma, They’re Not Santa Claus!
There’s a comic on XM Radio’s Canadian Comedy Channel who’s gotten good mileage out of his grandmother having told him that she does not believe in gay people. He recounts going around and aro[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/16/09 | No Comments | Read More
When I was exploring the possibility of a human genetic precursor that was random-handed with a larger brain encouraged by a song-and-dance-based matrifocal culture, I hypothesized that if representat[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/14/09 | 2 Comments | Read More
NightStorm is a 23-year-old Asperger-diagnosed autist, a watercolor artist and writer of original and fan fiction, a blogger and a lover of storytelling and role play. Like so very many others then, s[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/13/09 | No Comments | Read More
I THINK IN PICTURES. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When someb[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/9/09 | No Comments | Read More
Four out of five of our last presidents were left-handers. Researcher Marian Annett hypothesizes that there is a gene for being right-handed and a gene for being nonhanded or random-handed. One could [Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/8/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
Politics and the Environment: Cause of Autism #3
A child exhibits characteristics from both parents. The parents’ features in their children can complement each other in ways that reinforce and even encourage specific maturational trajectories. Fo[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/7/09 | No Comments | Read More
Time Machine: Cause of Autism #2
Though little discussed, the ability to send our children back in time is an ability all of us have. This ability has to do with how we choose a mate. It has been estimated that our lineage of homo de[Read More]
Andrew Lehman on 10/5/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
“Stick to the image” is perhaps the most concise advice one can come away with from James Hillman’s archetypal psychology. When trying to see through to what is happening in a dream, or in an [Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 10/2/09 | 1 Comment | Read More
Autism has been here all along.
Considered as an evolutionary condition with far-reaching social implications, its full presence and impact remain hidden in plain sight, unrecognized and uncredited.
Part neurological mystery, part social construct, and part secret society unbeknownst even to its own members, autism does not lend itself to explanation by those who hold it apart from society, from themselves, or from consciousness itself. Definitions are revised, overhauled, and abandoned all while efforts to explore and examine this condition on its own terms are only now gaining momentum.
Shift Journal aims to showcase and encourage such efforts. Entertaining the notion of autistic as a legitimate way to be in the world, from the crossroads of theory, society, and personal experience, Shift welcomes relevant contributions from all comers.
Mark Stairwalt
Editor and Publisher
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Shift Journal founder Andrew Lehman's groundbreaking cross-disciplinary work Evolution, Autism, and Social Change draws from evolutionary biology, neuro-psychology and related fields to outline an evolutionary process complementary to natural selection that may explain some forms of autism as well as -- and perhaps more importantly -- long-term shifts in large-scale social structure. Download or purchase Evolution, Autism, and Social Change here.
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In a world which relentlessly demands practical advice for day-to-day, Shift Journal remains focused on promoting reflection and discovery. Readers however who are seeking useful information and how-to guidance assembled by a down-to-earth, conscientious and scientifically literate crew who once sought such information themselves and found it difficult to come by may find The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism to be just what they are looking for:
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New or established writers wishing to contribute original or previously published posts may use the submissions page or contact us directly.
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Autism and Empathy Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism Neurodivergent Sexuality Just Stimming Autistic Passing Project