Let’s get right down to it. We’re still stumbling around in the darkness of bias in spite of centuries of discovery and learning, in spite of integration and mixing. Imagine being one of those first students to attend the U. of Bologna, a school nearing its millennium anniversary. Imagine having the foresight at the time to say, “In a thousand years, there won’t be anything new to learn about humans and about their place in the universe and in society.” One thousand years of university study and research have demonstrated that not only do we still have much to learn about one another, but also that in an effort to expand justice for all, we inadvertently separate and segregate by means of university-driven research.
What further research does one need to do? Haven’t we digitized it all and made uncounted statements about the equality of humans? Haven’t we fought for inclusiveness in society, and haven’t the universities led the way in inclusiveness? Doesn’t all that research in psychology demonstrate the bonds we all share? Isn’t knowledge about our common humanity as conveniently packaged as processed baloney? Haven’t we found out what makes us all human and what we have in common? Haven’t we unveiled the mysteries of the universe and our collective place in it as we are stuck on this little planet near the edge of a huge galaxy? What was the state of knowledge about humans in Bologna a thousand years ago? Did they start a trend that separated humans on the basis of their abilities? After all, not everyone goes to college. Is the very nature of college enrollment an outgrowth of human diversity and our segregation by differences?
If we’re still in the dark about how we are related and “equal,” then the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the West, is to blame. After all, they had a lock on academic pursuits and on accumulating knowledge, and they put in motion the founding of and the nature of universities and their ways of gaining knowledge about our species.
Why should we blame the first university for the failures of its many doppelgangers to resolve questions about equality, individuality, and justice? But is that same university now revealing how university research divides as it attempts to unite us under the aegis of equal rights? Take, for instance, the University’s push for ways of knowing and assessing our knowledge as wrapped up in its program labeled Neurodiversity between Law and Science (NEBDELS).
Again, yes. Like you I asked, “What? What’s that about? I understand Biology Department, English Department, History Department, but NEBDELS?” So, we’ll use their words:
NEDBELS inquires into the legal impacts and socio-political implications of the concept of neurodiversity. This term pertains to individuals diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism), as well as people displaying Language-Based Learning Disabilities (such as Dyslexia). The concept of neurodiversity hypothesizes the emergence of a new category of difference in the human population.
A new category of difference in the human population? And here you thought that thousands of years of separating people by race, economic status, and birth was a thing of the past. Have you not been paying attention? Here’s what NEDBELS* is up to:
Among the scientific and medical community, NEDBELS is progressively demonstrating the legal backdrops of the usage of diagnostic labels, and how they potentially impact the fundamental rights of patients and their family. Among the community of law scholars, NEDBELS is fostering debate around the importance of pushing legislation forward in order to design more efficient provisions for fighting stigmatization, rejection and discrimination of neurodiverse people. These assumptions are reinforced by data derived from the neurodiversity-related case law analysis. This shows how judicial enforcement of the law as well as legal interpretation of fundamental constitutional principles might benefit from a more up-to-date scientific understanding of the disorders associated with the concept of neurodiversity. In fostering this specific debate, NEDBELS is arguing for a shift from a strictly “medical model” of disability to a “rights and citizenship” one.
But the “rights and citizenship” model proposed by NEDBELS relies on treating some humans differently because of their neurodevelopmental disorders. “Maybe I did kill him, judge, but take into consideration my neurodiversity. Surely, the law that applies to others can’t apply to me.”
Back and forth, universities have been sometimes holistic and sometimes specialized, but the trend has generally been toward the latter. Here’s the argument as related to me. In a university meeting of different departments, one faculty member said that an environmental science course offered by a department of earth sciences should have in its list of readings certain biology texts. A biologist objected. “How dare someone in earth science use biology books.” See the problem that specialization generates? It separates disciplines into discrete bodies of knowledge owned by an elite few. And that, you might note, seems to be one of the roots of NEDBELS. Inclusivity falls because of increased diversity, or in the case of NEDBELS, neurodiversity.
Rodney King’s rambling effort to quash riots in Los Angeles in 1992 included, “I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while, let’s, you know, let’s try to work it out….” Poor Rodney, he meant well, but he didn’t realize that the most educated of us would pursue reasons for segregating and ways of prejudging. If someone is “neurodiverse,” doesn’t that person qualify for special treatment?
So, go ahead, name a group. In any group you’ll find a subgroup, and in subgroups there’ll be further divisions. Political parties turn on themselves because of their own diversity and sliding scale from Far Left to Far Right. Religions will turn on themselves because of their diversity. Name the group, and each will show the same kind of development that universities have shown: Special classes of individuals all vying for “rights” that apply to them and to them alone.
No, we don’t have to be insensitive to people who are “neurodiverse.” That term implies a distinction, however. The thousand-year-old University of Bologna is now at the forefront of a movement that seeks to establish a new category of difference in the human population.
We’re not going “to get along” because at the highest and most sophisticated levels of our culture, we will continue to identify further subdivisions of humans. Eventually, we’ll be unable to accommodate all the “special” and diverse characters that make up our species. And someone from one group will have no right to judge someone from another group. No one will be a peer. Laws will become so twisted by convolutions that each person, acknowledged as being both equal and individual, will require some special set of rules. You and I are a bit different, aren’t we? Should the burgeoning government add another agency, the Agency of You or one entitled the Agency of Me?
*https://www.unibo.it/en/research/projects-and-initiatives/research-projects-horizon-2020-1/nedbels
What further research does one need to do? Haven’t we digitized it all and made uncounted statements about the equality of humans? Haven’t we fought for inclusiveness in society, and haven’t the universities led the way in inclusiveness? Doesn’t all that research in psychology demonstrate the bonds we all share? Isn’t knowledge about our common humanity as conveniently packaged as processed baloney? Haven’t we found out what makes us all human and what we have in common? Haven’t we unveiled the mysteries of the universe and our collective place in it as we are stuck on this little planet near the edge of a huge galaxy? What was the state of knowledge about humans in Bologna a thousand years ago? Did they start a trend that separated humans on the basis of their abilities? After all, not everyone goes to college. Is the very nature of college enrollment an outgrowth of human diversity and our segregation by differences?
If we’re still in the dark about how we are related and “equal,” then the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the West, is to blame. After all, they had a lock on academic pursuits and on accumulating knowledge, and they put in motion the founding of and the nature of universities and their ways of gaining knowledge about our species.
Why should we blame the first university for the failures of its many doppelgangers to resolve questions about equality, individuality, and justice? But is that same university now revealing how university research divides as it attempts to unite us under the aegis of equal rights? Take, for instance, the University’s push for ways of knowing and assessing our knowledge as wrapped up in its program labeled Neurodiversity between Law and Science (NEBDELS).
Again, yes. Like you I asked, “What? What’s that about? I understand Biology Department, English Department, History Department, but NEBDELS?” So, we’ll use their words:
NEDBELS inquires into the legal impacts and socio-political implications of the concept of neurodiversity. This term pertains to individuals diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism), as well as people displaying Language-Based Learning Disabilities (such as Dyslexia). The concept of neurodiversity hypothesizes the emergence of a new category of difference in the human population.
A new category of difference in the human population? And here you thought that thousands of years of separating people by race, economic status, and birth was a thing of the past. Have you not been paying attention? Here’s what NEDBELS* is up to:
Among the scientific and medical community, NEDBELS is progressively demonstrating the legal backdrops of the usage of diagnostic labels, and how they potentially impact the fundamental rights of patients and their family. Among the community of law scholars, NEDBELS is fostering debate around the importance of pushing legislation forward in order to design more efficient provisions for fighting stigmatization, rejection and discrimination of neurodiverse people. These assumptions are reinforced by data derived from the neurodiversity-related case law analysis. This shows how judicial enforcement of the law as well as legal interpretation of fundamental constitutional principles might benefit from a more up-to-date scientific understanding of the disorders associated with the concept of neurodiversity. In fostering this specific debate, NEDBELS is arguing for a shift from a strictly “medical model” of disability to a “rights and citizenship” one.
But the “rights and citizenship” model proposed by NEDBELS relies on treating some humans differently because of their neurodevelopmental disorders. “Maybe I did kill him, judge, but take into consideration my neurodiversity. Surely, the law that applies to others can’t apply to me.”
Back and forth, universities have been sometimes holistic and sometimes specialized, but the trend has generally been toward the latter. Here’s the argument as related to me. In a university meeting of different departments, one faculty member said that an environmental science course offered by a department of earth sciences should have in its list of readings certain biology texts. A biologist objected. “How dare someone in earth science use biology books.” See the problem that specialization generates? It separates disciplines into discrete bodies of knowledge owned by an elite few. And that, you might note, seems to be one of the roots of NEDBELS. Inclusivity falls because of increased diversity, or in the case of NEDBELS, neurodiversity.
Rodney King’s rambling effort to quash riots in Los Angeles in 1992 included, “I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while, let’s, you know, let’s try to work it out….” Poor Rodney, he meant well, but he didn’t realize that the most educated of us would pursue reasons for segregating and ways of prejudging. If someone is “neurodiverse,” doesn’t that person qualify for special treatment?
So, go ahead, name a group. In any group you’ll find a subgroup, and in subgroups there’ll be further divisions. Political parties turn on themselves because of their own diversity and sliding scale from Far Left to Far Right. Religions will turn on themselves because of their diversity. Name the group, and each will show the same kind of development that universities have shown: Special classes of individuals all vying for “rights” that apply to them and to them alone.
No, we don’t have to be insensitive to people who are “neurodiverse.” That term implies a distinction, however. The thousand-year-old University of Bologna is now at the forefront of a movement that seeks to establish a new category of difference in the human population.
We’re not going “to get along” because at the highest and most sophisticated levels of our culture, we will continue to identify further subdivisions of humans. Eventually, we’ll be unable to accommodate all the “special” and diverse characters that make up our species. And someone from one group will have no right to judge someone from another group. No one will be a peer. Laws will become so twisted by convolutions that each person, acknowledged as being both equal and individual, will require some special set of rules. You and I are a bit different, aren’t we? Should the burgeoning government add another agency, the Agency of You or one entitled the Agency of Me?
*https://www.unibo.it/en/research/projects-and-initiatives/research-projects-horizon-2020-1/nedbels
RSS Feed