Critics Debate Autism's Role in James Damore's Google Memo (themarysue.com)

James Damore "wants you to know he isn't using autism as an excuse," reports a Silicon Valley newspaper, commenting on the fired Google engineer's new interview with the Guardian. But they also note that "he says being on the spectrum means he 'sees things differently'," and the weekend editor at the entertainment and "geek culture" site The Mary Sue sees a problem in the way that interview was framed. It's the author of this Guardian article, not James Damore himself, who makes the harmful suggestion that Damore's infamous Google memo and subsequent doubling-down are somehow caused by his autism... It frames autism as some sort of basic decency deficiency, rather than a neurological condition shared by millions of people.... This whole article is peppered with weird suggestions like this, suggestions which detract from an otherwise interesting piece.. All these weird suggestions that autism and misogyny/bigotry are somehow tied (as if autistic feminists didn't exist) do unfortunately detract from one of the article's great points.

Having worked at a number of companies large and small, I can at least anecdotally confirm that their diversity training rarely includes a discussion of neurodiversity, and when it does, it's not particularly empathetic or helpful... Many corporate cultures are plainly designed for neurotypical extroverts and no one else -- and that should change. I really do think Lewis meant well in pointing that out. But the other thing that should change? The way the media scapegoats autism as a source of anti-social behavior.

Comments

Willfully missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of the (well written) original article was that Damore had handled things poorly due to his condition, not that his opinions arose due to his condition. E.g. he describes how he was associated with people he had never supported following the media backlash, and his poor social skills prevented him from being able to properly articulate his true position. Also he described how aspects of the wording in his memo could have been improved if he had been able to better predict the reactions of those around him.
It seems to me that this Mary Sue article has an axe to grind, perhaps not surprising given the source.

Early days

[MangoCats]

The media "broke coverage" of Autism with Rain Man in 1988, and other than a few brief echos on Oprah and such it didn't say much again until the new millennium.

Would you think that with 17 years of practice, they'd have it down to a graceful sensitive socially correct science by now? I wouldn't. There was 10 years of "AWARENESS" beating the drum as loudly as possible while the "diagnosed" rates climbed from 1:10,000 through 1:150 and settled down around 1:68. Now that everybody is AWARE, there's been scant attempt to teach the nuance between Aspergers' and the various levels of dysfunctionality.

Give it another generation, when people who were AWARE in elementary school start framing the message it might take on a more human tone. For now, we're still getting our stories from the barely clued in.

Re:The medicalization of dissent

[interkin3tic]

Straw man argument there. What I (a flaming liberal compared to the entire US government) heard in my circles was:

- He released a company wide memo which predictably upset a lot of his coworkers

- The right wing media was taking a break from lecturing about personal responsibility to champion him as a poster boy for political speech run amok

- He might be claiming to have a PhD when he didn't actually finish it

- He performed a lewd skit in front of his grad program and got in trouble for it

- He might be going on conservative media playing up the "I'm a victim of liberals!" angle.

I'll admit all of that is behavior I've come to expect from republicans, but I heard ZERO indictments of him about his political leanings. Maybe that was just because there was too much material to get to boring stuff like that in his 15 minutes of fame.