This question has been asked in many ways, but better history and understanding of ourselves sheds a different light on it. It’s intuitive that modern life requires different mental skills than early tribal life. So, how do we deal with the genetics we have, our inherited nature? Do we keep treating it like it’s a sickness? Indigenous cultures embraced these differences.
That was an interesting read.
The author makes some excellent points, seems to me a perspective worth taking on board.
The “neurodiversity” movement has been trying to whitewash themselves as just people with different personality quirks rather than serious disorders for years. They’re completely wrong.
Some of the diseases on the list are very manageable – e.g. ADD, but most of the others like autism and bipolar disorder are serious diseases that require treatment in order for the person to be even a little bit functional in any environment. If some prehistoric people had those diseases, they would have at minimum been a burden on others and lowered the community’s fitness …not regular people with different talents or whatever.
It’s also worth noting a lot of more or less healthy people like to claim minor problems as being under the neurodivergent thing because they like the attention and hope for special treatment.