Neurowild Mind

"Neurodivergence" is becoming a mainstay of the contemporary psychological zeitgeist. While I generally support this trend, I hesitate to use the term because it implies and assumes a "normalcy" from which "other" (non-normal) people "diverge." Sure, this may be accurate in a simple, linear, literal sense. Ironically, though, to accept such simple thinking is to reify the "normal" cognition of what is correlatively called the "neuro-normal." In this sense, characterizing the wide, diverse, multidimensional spectra of human cognition by the simplistic (dualistic; cf. digital) "normal v. divergent" dichotomy ultimately just begs the question. It hides the substance of "normal" within an antagonistic identity of "not-divergent," "not-the other." And this makes sense, because the "normal" in this equation is actually vacuous; it is an empty signifier malleable to the whims of whoever and whatever holds power to dictate the typical. It tends toward the superficial homogenization -- of thought, style, taste, ethics, cultural organization, political imagination, and the like -- characteristic of consumer culture. It caters to the lowest common denominator as a base strategy for expanding markets for mass-produced commodities, perspectives, ideologies, values, and expectations.

Like the inherently meaningless "excellence" of Bill Readings' techno-bureaucratic-consumer-commodity university, "normal" hides its ultimate emptiness by attaching itself to whatever cognitive-moral-ideological trends are peddled by the dominate class and its servant institutions in any given historical moment. Down through history, what is "normal" has shapeshifted to accommodate and promote the actually idiosyncratic values and beliefs of the elites who influence mainstream thought and dialogue through control of religious dogma, media, political dogma, and scientific dogma (oh yes, there is scientific dogma; loads of it).

In this sense, "normal" has never been. Said plainly, what has always been "normal" precisely isn't. What has been eminently normal in human history is change, diversification, extrapolation, experimentation, innovation, divergence, transformation, and adaptation. Aesthetic alchemy. The very qualities characteristic of what is now mis-named "neuro-divergent."

In no reliable sense can human cognition be categorized into two basic, contrasting boxes. There is not even a single spectrum of cognitive styles, forms, dimensions, perspectives, senses, qualities, tendencies, and flavors; there are rather various spectra of cognition -- all unique, dynamic, and contingent with sociocultural-political-ecological temporalities. There is no standard vantage point from which to "objectively" assess such an array (for we must never forget that the doctrine of epistemological-ontological "objectivity" is itself an historical contingency, unique to a particular time, place, and tiny portion of the human population, an idiosyncratic subculture...it is ultimately impossible to give an objective account of objectivity without begging the question).

Forcing such an unruly and unsettled natural phenomenon as cognition into basic conceptual boxes is to make rigid a fluidity. And, as the psychologist Susan David reminds us, "Rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic." Today, in the midst of the least "normal" times ever to exist on Earth, clinging to and enforcing an adherence to the vacuity of a moral-cognitive "normality" or "typicality" is intellectually and phenomenologically toxic. It is relationally toxic, communicatively toxic, and spiritually toxic. It caustically degrades the wild power of untamed human intellect, favoring a robotic mechanism of mind, movement, feeling, thinking, and socializing.

For these and countless more related reasons, I propose an embrace of each of our "neurowild" tendencies and characteristics, not as "divergences" from a manufactured "normal," but as the heart and soul of natural human cognition. For what is "normal" today is an over-domestication of the wildness that characterized human existence for more than 99% of our existence on Earth. By that measure, wild, untamed mind is the most normal thing in the world. The most literal "divergence" here is the shift away from such a state to the cultural-cognitive conformity characteristic of civilizational society, or "consumer conformist" society, as the eco-depth psychologist Bill Plotkin defines it. (See also Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress by Christopher Ryan.)

As you ponder all this, be sure to investigate the frames of reference you use to assess these ideas. How well do they accommodate diversity in conceptual analysis? How welcoming or rejecting are they of these invitations? In other words, are you relying on normalizing frameworks to determine your feelings about these explorations of what's normal or divergent? Can you allow yourself to diverge somewhat from what you typically believe, think, feel, perceive, imagine, and conclude?

If nothing else, allow yourself to be surprised. It's much more fun than pretending you already know what's around the next corner. And why not have some fun in this short, sweet life we were all gifted?