All right, lovelies. 🤗

I just published a #Humanist essay to #BetterWorldsTheory - as part of the new framing for this newsletter, which will more frequently cover media literacy, humanist topics, and spec-lit publishing news.

If you'd like a wee meditation on neurodivergence as a concept that doesn't properly account for the extremism of many different ways of thinking, seeing, & being... Well, hope you enjoy!

(Off to celebrate a friend's birthday with cheesecake! 😋)
https://mlclark.substack.com/p/on-tankies-street-preachers-and-ye

Again, @MLClark, a great read. Some reactions:

💚 TY for the source links.

🗃️ Yes, we like categories: human evolution owes much to our capacity to think abstractly & group various emergent properties into overlapping categories of understanding.

Are you using ND almost as a word for "thinks diferent"? Or diff *beliefs* 🤔

📖 Re “better spells”: better *narratives* is how I think of it, as the stories we tell are so critical to how we perceive https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2813

@MLClark
Let me clarify the remark:

I don't see differing perspectives or beliefs as neurodivergent, but the article reads that way sometimes. E.g. the street preacher just has the problem of identifying with his beliefs so strongly, he's incorporated them into his entire concept of himself: he doesn't separate his religiosity from his sense of self, so to impugn or express religiosity counter to his perspective means you impugn/counter *him* personally (in his perspective).

@MLClark
... This identify issue is not what I would normally call ND, it's just an immature, flawed way to approach life.

That's what I'm trying to say, I guess.

@FernLovebond

Thanks for engaging with the piece!

I had hoped that by contrasting so many different external manifestations it would be clear that the specific ensuing beliefs aren't the issue; it's an underlying behaviour type.

There are many ways that we come to ND outcomes (the ND universe struggles with "born this way" rhetoric the same as queer communities) but whether by make-up or conditioning, these people are all wired in ways that yield very different ways of perceiving and being.

@FernLovebond That's also why I brought up the ND labels we don't exactly boast about - the NPD, the ASPD, the psychopathy. These also fit your definition of "immature" thinking, but they nevertheless describe real people--lots of 'em!--whose divergent ways of perceiving & being are very destructive.

The rhetoric in ND communities is about empowerment, but it takes a false baseline of "typical" human behaviour that doesn't address how much our society is built for destructive divergences, too.

@FernLovebond That said, I love your thoughts, love this feedback, love the thoughtfulness and shared linking too. Thank you for setting up such constructive frameworks for dissent with the work! Always makes the conversation stronger in the end. 💛

@FernLovebond (And I hope that doesn't come off as insincerely gushy. I just *really* love constructive dissent and don't think our culture does enough to create space for it. Everything that isn't 100% fawning sometimes gets taken as an attack, and that doesn't help any of us to keep growing, stay mindful, differentiate between our Self and our output, and refine our thinking on a topic all along the way. So thanks again for this.)