Thesis: the attentional disengagement family of predispositions is a healthy and strategic set of adaptations within a species or community with strong tendencies to cooperate. In a species adapted to function through tight coordination, the coordinated activity can become prioritized, causing those engaged to lose sight of the emergent reason for the activity.
In a community centered around presence, or balance, (rather than productivity), attentional disengagement provides opportunities for reflection and reassessment, allowing coordinated activity to be fine-tuned to maintain balance in the collective body of the species relative to its environment.
In communities with a strong directional tendency, where coordinated activity is prioritized to achieve dominance over environmental conditions, the predisposition for attentional disengagement will become pathologized, given its function of maintaining balance within a community relative to its environment.
Absent this balancing function, the coordinated activity of the community will effect changes in the environment, as resources are consumed to fulfill the requirements of the activity.
In a social model where sensory differences are embraced and respected, the collective awareness of the scope of the phenomenal world is increased, as information is shared within a connected community. In a social model that is protective of adherence to a narrow range of views about the scope of the phenomenal world, difference is pathologized.
The case can be made that people with deeply different sensory, behavioral, and cognitive differences are aberrational, divergent, and that the choices for integration into the community are a) to shepherd them toward ability that supports collective coordinated activity where it is possible, and; b) to isolate and institutionalize them into cordoned-off care environments where medication and behavioral mediation manage their attempts to connect directly, as they are wired to do.
This being said, my thesis maintains that in attempting to modify behavior to increase functionality directed toward productivity, or in isolating people with deeply different sensory needs, and not caring for them collectively and unconditionally, we isolate ourselves from our capacity to care.
In a system of care where care means a 15-minute doctor visit paid for with every waking hour of labor, people with different sensory needs create friction. But when integrated into a caring co-regulating community, the quality of care they inspire enriches all of us and increases our capacity to respond to one another carefully.
Anecdotal evidence, from parents and caregivers of children with deeply different cognitive, sensory, and behavioral experiences–young and adult children, suggests that that connecting with people with deeply different experiences brings deep joy. Most of the difficulties come with the isolation, the obligation of one family alone to provide all care in one home with limited resources and no opportunities for collective co-regulation. Literally, no one has time to care.
The pathologizing of people with sensory differences is literally a product of our economic and societal model, which prioritizes coordinated activity directed toward productivity over presence and balance within our environment. I believe that studying other existing, historical, and theoretical economic and societal models, with different, non-pathologizing views toward people with sensory differences, will support my thesis.
Thank you for your consideration.
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