Re: NEW TOPIC: Discovering ander Durig and his writings on autism (re Freud)

[Guest guest]

PS Since I referenced Freud, I should add that I think Freud went haywire where

he attempted to moralize or draw conclusions about people's motivations based

upon his initial classifications. I think that is where neuroscience would have

helped him. For example someone with hypersensitivity to physical touch, will

have very different behavior than someone who didn't, and attempting to explain

that by reference to progression along some spectrum from " infancy " to

" maturity " will completely miss the boat. But I think his initial

classifications were valid ways of thinking of aspects of the mind.

NEW TOPIC: Discovering Durig and his

writings on autism

 

Try c 

http://alexdurig.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/food-neophobia-%E2%80%93-textbook-psyc\

hology-in-action-or-the-emperor%E2%80%99s-neoclothes/

 

But then go further. Most of the way down his blog you'll come across a link to

his other blogs, and there you have it. Incidentally, he spends a fair amount of

time on the phenomenon of labeling, something that's timely what with the

pending close of the comment period briefly re-opened, on the DSM 5 brouhaha on

Autism.

 

I " met " through an obscure paper he wrote in 1993 which was published (very

early) on the Internet. In it, he introduces himself to the academic reader as

an autistic graduate student in the field of sociology in which he eventually

got his Ph.D. at Indiana University, went on to a brief but colorful career as a

university professor and adjunct this and that, and has since then branched off

into management consulting, preparing business plans, and doing all kinds of

sundry work. Kingsley published his second book, How to Understand

Autism - The Easy Way , which, for intellectuals, is a step down from his very

difficult to get ahold of first book, published by the State University of New

York Press, Autism and the Crisis of Meaning . Since then has embarked on

the co-authorship of a third book with a colleague which I haven't read or heard

of before now. I'm pretty sure the hectic life of a professor wasn't a good

match for him. He's much too wide-brush kind of a thinker for the relatively

minor league of universities and colleges he found his early teaching positions

in, and he burned out pretty fast.

 

kind of dropped off the map after a brief flurry of publicity about his

second, most readible book, but the guy's a deep thinker. I didn't slosh

through any more than a couple of his blogs, but he does go on and on, and is

really rich mind food. He's close with Olga Bogdashina, a leading author in the

field of sensory sensitivities and autistic behavior and thinking, and is " right

up there " with the UK intellectuals, even though he's chosen to remain here in

the US to ply a rather pedestrian trade as a lecturer, commentator, author, and

generally good fellow.

 

I don't know whether has ever met Temple Grandin. By temperament, they're

quite different, but in their own way, as intellectuals and as very heady

thinkers whose observations have been tempered by years of reflection " on the

condition, " their respective written output is quite cogent.

 

Give him a whirl.

 

What got me going in re-contacting him after a long hiatus was the writing of a

fellow named who is a communications theory scholar who just

completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Communications at University of

Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who's written a brilliant dissertation on the

dissolution of broadcasting as a public medium into the morass of corporate

capitalism and the psychology of market greed and control. Something about

's thesis, available for all at

http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/26240/_.pdf?seq\

uence=1  brings back some fond memories of my years as an undergraduate with a

shared minor in philosophy and the sociology of knowledge. 

 

Incidentally, I " introduced " to Kingsley, my publisher, who

promptly extended a publishing contract to for his second book. Good luck,

that. After that, however, I kind of lost track, yet a simple Google search got

me " re-united " with him, if only through his blog.

 

Do give his writings and observations some time. He's a pretty remarkable

thinker. Big picture stuff. One of the things that connects Durig with an

intellectual like is 's fascination with the phenomenon of

a sociological observational and analytical tool first systematically developed

by Irving Goffman called " dramaturgical analysis. " This is " big picture " stuff

that allows one to strip away the posturings and outer vestments of power and

influence relationships, and go into the calculus of power and authority and

social roles directly. If folks decide to download the dissertation,

you'll find a fascinating description and discussion of this very significant

analytical device introduced in his first chapter starting at page 18.

 

Food for thought, this.

 

N. Meyer