(In-person) Seminar: Healthism, Neurodiversity, and Respectability Politics

Accustomed to posting news of many seminars and events that I cannot attend, this one does produce some frustration in that it is of marked interest but in-person. I am reaching out, seeking slides, and papers, and will follow-up, as for me, Professor Kukla's seminar really 'speaks' to Hodges' model. The relation conjoins the individual and collective, as it did originally for Brian Hodges in creating the eponymous model:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2023/08/brian-e-hodges-r-i-p.html

Hodges' model is invariably potentiated, as are all conceptual (idealised) models to encompass self-care, individual health care through to family, public and population health. As posted previously, the family(!) of -isms can be represented too:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search?q=ism

Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy 2024-25: Session 15

Healthism, Neurodiversity, and Respectability Politics

Quill Kukla (Georgetown University)

28 February 2025, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa, Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)

 

Abstract: “Healthism” is the pervasive ideology according to which each of us is responsible for valuing and protecting our own health and prioritizing health over other values, while society has the right to enforce, surveil, and reward healthy living. Neurodiversity and other forms of cognitive difference are generally understood through the lens of health: they are taken as diagnosable pathological conditions that should be treated or mitigated via medical interventions. Putting these two ideas together, neurodivergent people are supposed to try to be “healthy,” through pharmaceuticals, behavioral therapy, and the like, and society has an investment in making them be “healthy.” But neurodivergence is not a morbidity in a typical sense, so it is unclear what “health” means in this context. In practice, our societal standards for health for neurodivergent people are defined in terms of what avoids disrupting neurotypical expectations and systems or making neurotypical people uncomfortable. “Health,” for neurodivergent people, is in effect respectability—it is not defined in terms of their own needs or flourishing but in relation to the norms and needs of others. This can be seen from a close reading of diagnostic definitions and official medical “treatment” methods and goals. Trying to “treat” neurodivergent people by making them respectable citizens who are palatable within neurotypical productivity culture is usually likely to backfire; typically bad for their own well-being, and a social loss.

See also: 'recovery'

Jones P. (2014) Using a conceptual framework to explore the dimensions of recovery and their relationship to service user choice and self-determination. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine. Vol 3, No 4, (2013) pp.305-311.