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Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism
This is the rise of the anti-capitalist neurodiversity movementThe neurodiversity movement suggests that it takes all kinds of minds for society to function. Instead of accepting their place as inferior, the divergent are reforging their position as ‘neurominorities’, and are organizing in ever greater numbers to change how they are perceived and treated. Robert Chapman looks at the history that led to this movement, showing how the rise of capitalism created an 'empire of normality' that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine. Blowing apart this outdated and oppressive understanding of mental functioning, Chapman argues that a bright future for neurodivergent communities could be achieved by challenging the deepest logic of capitalism. Liberation from oppression is possible, but only if we can change the conditions that gave rise to pervasive neuronormative domination across the modern world.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 30, 2023
About the author
Robert Chapman
114 books37 followersRobert Chapman is an English philosopher, teacher and writer, best known for their work on neurodiversity studies and the philosophy of disability.
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September 26, 2024
For the longest time in my adult life, I was peripheral to crip theory and neurodivergency. I was aware of queer and critical theory, but I'd never considered how deeply my shame was tied to expectations of normality. I'd be minding my own business, even enjoying uni (strange, I know), then just drop dead, becoming an anxious or dissociated mess who could barely open the curtains, let alone get to class. After delving into trauma studies it all clicked: I'm disabled. Or rather, I've been made disabled. More than raised in an invalidating home, I continue to experience disabling architectures at the hands of the state, the schooling system, and the workplace, with its rigid time schedules and maze of connected papers, an inhuman web that disallows any worker to slow down. If you fuck up, you fuck us all up. The university, by structure, is disabling. It's a miracle I've been able to teach one paper, without my depressions fucking me up. Fucking me up, because I'm not given the time to be fucked up. To simply wait, process, and integrate what I'm going through. No, tutorials must go on. Marking must go on. I must go on. Because I love my students. Because I think pedagogy is vital for consciousness raising. Because I need money. And because I need good references to build a wretched semblance of a career.
Long story short: I have always been a crip, a deviant, a parasite, because we live in a world where normality is define through capital, through one's capacity to labour in a standardised spatiotemporality: through the rigidity of clock time, mechanistic spatial practices, and an increasingly absurd level of flexibility that leaves many exhausted and jobless.
We had a mid-semester test. Not having seen the test myself, I oriented the kids towards open questions, interpretation and critical thinking. "You probably won't need to know the five elements of setting; what's more important is your capacity to critically engage with any one of these elements, to really comment on their literary power to characterise, to convey themes, and to construct ideology." I was wrong. Half the questions were just rote learning, fill in the boxes, Freire crying in his coffin. Even humanities pushes out technocrats. We come to resemble our surroundings, dead labour, dead facts, primed to the movement of plastic clock hands, the smiling face of Mickey as his arms bend beyond his sockets.
I was gonna do a dry and comprehensive review of this book, but I'm sad. Disillusioned. Crushed. The lecture convenor complained about the admin not sending them their marksheets. The admin was sorting through letters that had been handed in out of order. My hours were expected to be 7 a week; I do upwards of 20. The uni understaffs us so we bicker amongst ourselves, wasting energy on in-fighting that could be used to build alliances. The uni grinds us down into neurodivergents, so that even the normative subjects lose their jobs through burnout, bitterness, dissociation, anxiety, despair.
There's a point Chapman makes, near the end of the book, about the legalisation of euthanasia. We've had forty years of neoliberalism, the dismantlement of welfare, social services, cheap and well maintained public transport, and state housing. Under such condition, euthanasia gains a sinister connotation. It may be the choice one picks because life, under neoliberalism, is unbearable.
In the nineties, neurologists believed that the advent of mass pharmaceuticals would finally solve mental illness. This didn't happen. A decade later, CBT and mindfulness began rolling out as the next cure. Mental illness is as high as ever. This is not only because of our greater awareness of it (more people are diagnosed as neurodivergent), it is also because of the intensification of labour under neoliberalism (our conditions are more disabling). We have worse working conditions, longer (or far too few) hours, precarious employment, less social support, the externalisation of care to phone apps, and capitalism extracts more and more emotional and cognitive labour from us, so that we don't even have a semblance of leisure, let alone an authentic or lived sense of self.
In a section that utterly stunned me, Chapman argues that the spectrum for autism keeps expanding because more and more people fall short of "the social, communicative, and sensory processing capabilities required by [neoliberalism]." Capitalism doesn't merely marginalise neurodivergents, it creates them by extracting beyond the limits of the human body. Our bodies are consumed, broken apart, and made monstrous.
I teach for my kids. I teach, through all this agony, because I don't want them to ever feel as helpless and alone as I did during undergrad. It's not right. It's not fair. I know I shouldn't feel bad unable to keep up with the work, but at some level I do it so others aren't consumed. I'm in my Simone Weil arc. I'm in my mothering unto self-annihilation. All those psychotherapy books: they don't talk about empathic attunement as burnout, nor emotional regulation as taking too many sleep pills so you can get to tutorials on time the next morning. The well-adjusted individual is torn apart by all the worldly misadjustments that prod, pull, and pulverise them into fine dust. Ashes, really. Drifting through the air, they become a haze, and shroud the dreams of others. It's an enveloping love. A love that brings miasma and fever, and burns with the brightest sheen before convalescence. On waking, grace unfurls into the air. Pores exhale galaxies into the dappled sunlight. All around, you can see stars. They pulse in and out of focus. They live briefly in the traces of others.
Long story short: I have always been a crip, a deviant, a parasite, because we live in a world where normality is define through capital, through one's capacity to labour in a standardised spatiotemporality: through the rigidity of clock time, mechanistic spatial practices, and an increasingly absurd level of flexibility that leaves many exhausted and jobless.
We had a mid-semester test. Not having seen the test myself, I oriented the kids towards open questions, interpretation and critical thinking. "You probably won't need to know the five elements of setting; what's more important is your capacity to critically engage with any one of these elements, to really comment on their literary power to characterise, to convey themes, and to construct ideology." I was wrong. Half the questions were just rote learning, fill in the boxes, Freire crying in his coffin. Even humanities pushes out technocrats. We come to resemble our surroundings, dead labour, dead facts, primed to the movement of plastic clock hands, the smiling face of Mickey as his arms bend beyond his sockets.
I was gonna do a dry and comprehensive review of this book, but I'm sad. Disillusioned. Crushed. The lecture convenor complained about the admin not sending them their marksheets. The admin was sorting through letters that had been handed in out of order. My hours were expected to be 7 a week; I do upwards of 20. The uni understaffs us so we bicker amongst ourselves, wasting energy on in-fighting that could be used to build alliances. The uni grinds us down into neurodivergents, so that even the normative subjects lose their jobs through burnout, bitterness, dissociation, anxiety, despair.
There's a point Chapman makes, near the end of the book, about the legalisation of euthanasia. We've had forty years of neoliberalism, the dismantlement of welfare, social services, cheap and well maintained public transport, and state housing. Under such condition, euthanasia gains a sinister connotation. It may be the choice one picks because life, under neoliberalism, is unbearable.
In the nineties, neurologists believed that the advent of mass pharmaceuticals would finally solve mental illness. This didn't happen. A decade later, CBT and mindfulness began rolling out as the next cure. Mental illness is as high as ever. This is not only because of our greater awareness of it (more people are diagnosed as neurodivergent), it is also because of the intensification of labour under neoliberalism (our conditions are more disabling). We have worse working conditions, longer (or far too few) hours, precarious employment, less social support, the externalisation of care to phone apps, and capitalism extracts more and more emotional and cognitive labour from us, so that we don't even have a semblance of leisure, let alone an authentic or lived sense of self.
In a section that utterly stunned me, Chapman argues that the spectrum for autism keeps expanding because more and more people fall short of "the social, communicative, and sensory processing capabilities required by [neoliberalism]." Capitalism doesn't merely marginalise neurodivergents, it creates them by extracting beyond the limits of the human body. Our bodies are consumed, broken apart, and made monstrous.
I teach for my kids. I teach, through all this agony, because I don't want them to ever feel as helpless and alone as I did during undergrad. It's not right. It's not fair. I know I shouldn't feel bad unable to keep up with the work, but at some level I do it so others aren't consumed. I'm in my Simone Weil arc. I'm in my mothering unto self-annihilation. All those psychotherapy books: they don't talk about empathic attunement as burnout, nor emotional regulation as taking too many sleep pills so you can get to tutorials on time the next morning. The well-adjusted individual is torn apart by all the worldly misadjustments that prod, pull, and pulverise them into fine dust. Ashes, really. Drifting through the air, they become a haze, and shroud the dreams of others. It's an enveloping love. A love that brings miasma and fever, and burns with the brightest sheen before convalescence. On waking, grace unfurls into the air. Pores exhale galaxies into the dappled sunlight. All around, you can see stars. They pulse in and out of focus. They live briefly in the traces of others.
February 14, 2024
Very good. It’s very complete while also being, what I hope, is the start for more work by Chapman and others to approach the Marxist perspective of disability through the myriad lens informed by individual experiences and cultural symptoms
November 21, 2023
A very worthy read. I have slight disagreements with some of the thought, as I come from a Pragmatist lens, rather than Marxist. But Chapman argues very well. There is so much that this small book offers in how to understand modern capitalism's drastic impact on mental health, creating an environment in which coping is just too hard. Further, the books main argument is capitalism has only been beneficial in part for Autistics et al. when they have something profitable for offer. Beyond that, Autistics and other neurodivergent folk are alienated by being outside the norm. Chapman is right on this, and whether the solution is Marxian or not, we need to work for change in our culture in how we view those of differing neurotypes.
May 5, 2024
I have the attention span of a pea but despite the complexity of the topic this was incredibly well-structured, well-written, and easy to follow. Highly recommend this read!!
December 26, 2023
This is a thoughtful, well-researched and meticulously written book that is a first!
I was impressed by how the author applies Marx’s historical materialism to chart the invention of the ‘normal’ mind, and dialecticism to understand how capitalism both requires neurodiversity, and yet devalues and seeks to control it in service to capitalist productivity (chapter 10).
I found the collectivist examples, and building mass consciousness convincing in terms of how to both think and act for a post-capitalist future.
I love the analogy, towards the end of the book, that likens our current state of collective consciousness as a fog that will pass.
Thank you, Dr Chapman.
I was impressed by how the author applies Marx’s historical materialism to chart the invention of the ‘normal’ mind, and dialecticism to understand how capitalism both requires neurodiversity, and yet devalues and seeks to control it in service to capitalist productivity (chapter 10).
I found the collectivist examples, and building mass consciousness convincing in terms of how to both think and act for a post-capitalist future.
I love the analogy, towards the end of the book, that likens our current state of collective consciousness as a fog that will pass.
Thank you, Dr Chapman.
September 8, 2025
La neurotipicidad no es solo una fase temporaria para cualquier individuo, sino que es una fase cuya prolongación se vuelve más improbable con cada año que pasa a medida que el capitalismo se intensifica.
Cuando compré este libro en la Feria del Libro de Madrid, el librero que me lo vendió me aseguró que era una de las mejores lecturas que había hecho este año —qué vas a decir si te juegas el sustento del día— y que, a diferencia de otros ensayos sobre el tema, no era un libro en absoluto pesado. Esto último me asustó: temí que fuese uno de esos ensayos que, por temor a ser densos, acaban siendo un mero libro de opinión, con algún que otro hecho sin citar. Pero no fue así.
El imperio de la normalidad ofrece un recorrido por la historia de la salud mental, que va desde la Grecia clásica hasta la aparición del movimiento de la neurodiversidad, todo ello desde la perspectiva del materialismo histórico. Y lo hace yendo al grano presentando, uno tras otro, los acontecimientos más relevantes que han configurado lo que hoy consideramos «normal», que no es más que un constructo diseñado con el objetivo de controlar y encorsetar a la población al servicio del capital.
Chapman desarolla este recorrido con tanta claridad y ligereza que, en diversas ocasiones, tuve que pararme en la lectura para indagar sobre ciertos temas. En ese sentido, el libro funciona a la perfección como una introducción a la cuestión de la neurodiversidad, pues no se detiene en un análisis profundo de cada aspecto, pero sí aporta una bibliografía útil para quienes quieran investigar.
Sin duda, una relectura pendiente.
April 9, 2024
I can't stop fan personing over this book. Not only is it an excellent history of neurodiversity, but it is also a great resource for the history of capitalism. Definitely one of my favorite books I've read this year.
March 2, 2024
It often happens that I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot sleep for 2h or so, thinking about the state of the world. Is it a sleeping problem? No, this is how my brain functions, and moreover uninterrupted long night’s sleep is a pretty recent invention of the last around 150 years. It is capitalist societies that decided that for greater productivity during the day our bodyminds must be moulded into a new paradigm, in which there is little place for natural diversity and a healthy model of two or more shorter sleeps within 24h, which served humans well for centuries.
Robert Chapman, autistic author of “Empire of Normality. Neurodiversity and Capitalism”, doesn’t write about sleep. He writes, however, about how capitalism shaped the idea of a ‘normal’ brain and how neurodiversity as a concept emerged as something abnormal, often seen as a disorder to be fixed, albeit with a slight change in the approach emerging. Drawing from the UK and US cultures (sadly there is no mention of more developed and inclusive countries), he provides a decent history of the development of disability movements and the capitalist oppression. I was especially keen to learn more about anti-psychiatry movements and now understand better how calling psychiatry ‘science’ and fetishising western-style talking therapies is nothing more than a “form of state control”; it is psychiatrists who decide who is healthy and who is not and thus have the often abused power over individuals. I found it enraging reading about ‘treatments’ (based on rewards and punishments for behaviour) which autistic people, especially children, have been forced to undergo to “push them toward normality”. Behavioural therapies are still widely used in the UK and the US and are a lucrative industry (!).
As much as I found the book educational and thought-provoking, I found the style in which it was written dry and uninteresting. Oftentimes it read like a school textbook. I would appreciate more author’s ideas on how we can clean up the mess that capitalist countries created. Inspiration from more inclusive socialist cultures would make the discourse more invigorating and offer hope for the future.
Robert Chapman, autistic author of “Empire of Normality. Neurodiversity and Capitalism”, doesn’t write about sleep. He writes, however, about how capitalism shaped the idea of a ‘normal’ brain and how neurodiversity as a concept emerged as something abnormal, often seen as a disorder to be fixed, albeit with a slight change in the approach emerging. Drawing from the UK and US cultures (sadly there is no mention of more developed and inclusive countries), he provides a decent history of the development of disability movements and the capitalist oppression. I was especially keen to learn more about anti-psychiatry movements and now understand better how calling psychiatry ‘science’ and fetishising western-style talking therapies is nothing more than a “form of state control”; it is psychiatrists who decide who is healthy and who is not and thus have the often abused power over individuals. I found it enraging reading about ‘treatments’ (based on rewards and punishments for behaviour) which autistic people, especially children, have been forced to undergo to “push them toward normality”. Behavioural therapies are still widely used in the UK and the US and are a lucrative industry (!).
As much as I found the book educational and thought-provoking, I found the style in which it was written dry and uninteresting. Oftentimes it read like a school textbook. I would appreciate more author’s ideas on how we can clean up the mess that capitalist countries created. Inspiration from more inclusive socialist cultures would make the discourse more invigorating and offer hope for the future.
February 25, 2025
Mannnnnnnn I was in love with this book for 4/5 of it. The author manages to offer a really interesting history, touching on things that many other books about both neurodiversity and anticapitalist disability justice texts miss. There are points in here I had not thought of before that I am really grateful for. Chapman does an excellent job showing how repeatedly failing to take capitalism into account when fighting ableism, or vice versa, is a recipe for failure- or even worse circumstances than those one is fighting against. The section on how the increase in autism and ADHD diagnoses could also be caused by a world causing increased sensory and attention based pressure is a good point. I also loved that the author managed to discuss both the biomedical model and the antipsychiatry model as two flawed poles of a larger more complex system and calls out some anti-psychiatry's minimizing of the suffering of real mental illness and struggle as just normal (which quickly becomes bootstrapping, neoliberal junk they are often trying to fight against.)
Then the author started going into the more popular sphere of things. I started to get worried when we learn about how one person starts to identify as autistic while reading an article, before even finishing it. We go through the good ways neurodiversity can help everyone, then falter into the same sorta neoliberal talking point stuff without the author realizing it. If everyone is X, what IS X actually? There is still wisdom woven throughout but then we get to the discussion of "neuroqueer" which the author calls "intersectional" when it is not. It is another appropriation of queer put together by academics to say anything a little bit weird is "queer" or whatever. Sigh. After that I felt a bit bored by the end.
Anyway, this book is mostly great and worth reading for sure.
Then the author started going into the more popular sphere of things. I started to get worried when we learn about how one person starts to identify as autistic while reading an article, before even finishing it. We go through the good ways neurodiversity can help everyone, then falter into the same sorta neoliberal talking point stuff without the author realizing it. If everyone is X, what IS X actually? There is still wisdom woven throughout but then we get to the discussion of "neuroqueer" which the author calls "intersectional" when it is not. It is another appropriation of queer put together by academics to say anything a little bit weird is "queer" or whatever. Sigh. After that I felt a bit bored by the end.
Anyway, this book is mostly great and worth reading for sure.
December 6, 2023
When I got this book, I wasn’t sure I’d understand it because I’ve never read anything about economic systems. I did read it slowly because there was a lot to comprehend, but it was a really clear explanation of the history of defining disability, the history of society’s (mainly UK and US) relationship to disabled people, and the schools of thought being applied to neurodiversity going forward. Re: the current thinking about neurodiversity, the author does a great job of examining the importance and limitations of each model. So helpful.
It made so many things fall into place for me and empowered me to question a lot of things I had believed about myself as a neurodivergent person, my fraught relationship with employment, and my role in society as it is today.
I got the paperback and quickly bought the Kindle version, too, so I could annotate it easily. And I just bought a copy to ship to a neurodivergent friend who will find it very interesting.
It is a complex subject but the writing is very clear, and I just loved it.
It made so many things fall into place for me and empowered me to question a lot of things I had believed about myself as a neurodivergent person, my fraught relationship with employment, and my role in society as it is today.
I got the paperback and quickly bought the Kindle version, too, so I could annotate it easily. And I just bought a copy to ship to a neurodivergent friend who will find it very interesting.
It is a complex subject but the writing is very clear, and I just loved it.
March 22, 2024
A wonderful and well researched and written book. Solid arguments made plainly and without a lot of academic padding or jargon. Probably a very good book for people interested in investigating theory but are intimidated by the style of many writers. Very much for fans of Foucault; which is hopefully a welcome comparison. I look forward to hopefully reading more from Chapman.
December 16, 2023
This is the best non-fiction book I've ever read, which I hope Robert doesn't take as a backhanded compliment. I mean it in the best way. The book explores an intersectional materialist analysis of our current global system, interweaving the connections between different movements and events through layered analysis and thought. It was an incredible read and it expanded my understanding of neurodiversity and capitalism.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2024
Absolutely incredible and so fascinating, an essential read for understanding the capitalist structure of society as it relates to neurodivergence and mental illness. It’s quite dense and academic to read, I’ll definitely have to reread a couple times to properly understand and appreciate this masterpiece
September 30, 2024
The book ties capitalism with rising rates of mental illness really well. The autism spectrum is expanding not because we overdiagnose it, but because capitalism’s requirements for emotional labour and sensory processing are ever increasing. Those who cannot cope (be productive) are labelled as neurodivergent.
Our conception of normality/health develops according to political-economic conditions, and is tied with productivity. It then becomes a tool of oppression of the neurodivergent. This, however, doesn’t mean mental illness is fake - the book goes to great lengths to debunk the anti-psychiatry movement.
Our conception of normality/health develops according to political-economic conditions, and is tied with productivity. It then becomes a tool of oppression of the neurodivergent. This, however, doesn’t mean mental illness is fake - the book goes to great lengths to debunk the anti-psychiatry movement.
June 12, 2024
Tipp topp. Legger frem historien om nevrodivergens i relasjon til vårt kapitalistiske samfunn på en lettfattet måte, og viser tydelig hvordan samfunnet marginaliserer og til og med skaper nevrodivergens, og hvorfor frigjøringsprosjektet til raringer<3 er en essensiell del av et bredere frigjøringsprosjekt.
March 1, 2024
good, although there was an editor involved I feel like it needed more editorial work. Sometimes cutting corners where more explanation was welcome, dropping names without more info or references, incomplete citations(?), sometimes repetitive (though that might just be me being familiar enough with marxist analysis) but at the same time there is too much of "as discussed in the previous chapter" and whatever it references to wasn't discussed well enough to understand the new thingy. some things were written too academically, i.e. just not well-written. overall I feel like a book with plain text wasn't the best format for this rich information, or at least the structure and how the chapters are connected feels under-edited anywayyyyyyy
those are all details compared to a good overview and good analysis. do pls read if you're into the topic of "we are all fucked by racial capitalism but some people are even more fucked" & "eugenics is everywhere"
those are all details compared to a good overview and good analysis. do pls read if you're into the topic of "we are all fucked by racial capitalism but some people are even more fucked" & "eugenics is everywhere"
Read
April 5, 2024I’ll revisit this book at some point; truthfully I had a hard time comprehending what was being explained, even though the sections I DID understand were very interesting and educational! This was my first introduction to the specific and historical ways that neurodiversity and capitalism intersect (beyond the obvious), and while it caught my attention, the writing was ultimately too dense (almost like a textbook) for my current liking. I felt very in over my head (at no fault of the author—I just don’t feel intelligent enough for this yet lol). I did make my way through to the end & felt like I followed along well with a handful of chapters, but I’ll appreciate this book more a second time around once I have a better foundational grasp on this topic. Leaving it star-free for now :)
May 19, 2024
…we must work towards breaking the associations between health, normality, and productivity.
In practice, Neurodivergent Marxism requires moving away from diversity consultants teaching companies how to exploit more neurodivergent workers, and towards neurodivergent workers organising as neurodivergents to radically change the structures and expectations of the workplace.
Marx’s vision of the highest stage of communism was one where it moves from each according to their abilities to, ultimately each according to their needs. That is, the end goal is one where people are provided for and valued regardless of their individual ability.
In practice, Neurodivergent Marxism requires moving away from diversity consultants teaching companies how to exploit more neurodivergent workers, and towards neurodivergent workers organising as neurodivergents to radically change the structures and expectations of the workplace.
Marx’s vision of the highest stage of communism was one where it moves from each according to their abilities to, ultimately each according to their needs. That is, the end goal is one where people are provided for and valued regardless of their individual ability.
July 6, 2024
appreciate the critique of liberal approaches to neurodiversity inclusion + the argument that capitalism is to blame for a rise in physical and mental illnesses AND “creates” categories of illness in the sense that it demands homogenization out of peoples minds and bodies. i wish the central claims of the book were easier to follow / that there was more connective tissues between paragraphs. an ambitious project, though!
November 19, 2024
I'm a sucker for books that critique the concept of normal. This book had the feel of a PhD dissertation converted to a trade book. A lot of the historical review is found in other books about autism and the history of mental illness. The novel contribution of this book is the combination of Marxism and neurodiversity, but unfortunately not a lot of time is spent developing this topic.
Overall, this book is a worthwhile read, but it's not the best version of itself that it could be.
Overall, this book is a worthwhile read, but it's not the best version of itself that it could be.
July 16, 2024
this book offers a complete and nuanced history of both capitalism and neurodiversity, and uses it to argue for neurodivergent liberation. it is also surprisingly easy to read and understand, despite the complex topics.
October 12, 2025
qué libro tan lúcido (gracias por salvarme la tesis)
April 19, 2026
What does it mean to be neurodivergent? Chapman attempts to find an answer to this question by discussing the history of neurodiversity. More accurately, he looks at how the pathologization of neurodiversity has come to be, with much of it being due to capitalism’s ever shrinking definition of neurotypicality. Here, Chapman makes the correct observation that being neurodiverse is strongly linked with how productive one can be within the current system of production. What we would have thought of as a benign difference in the past (much like how we would like to see ethnicity today) is now being treated as an illness to be fixed.
The author explores the history of the concept of “normality” and its galtonian origins. This naturally leads into a discussion of eugenics and its relation with the idea of normality. Finally, there is a discussion of the rise of the neurodiversity movement, which seeks to depathologize and destigmatize neurodiverse existence.
What I appreciated about the book is how the author was able to handle such a complex topic. Some anti-psychiatrists (influenced by Szasz and his work) do claim that mental illness does not exist, and some of them even do argue so from a marxist standpoint. Chapman explains that his standpoint does not deny the existence of mental illnesses. In fact, he argues for better support from society (community and state) for mentally ill individuals. What he argues instead is that the definition of mental illness is inextricably linked to notions of capitalist productivity. This is evidenced in the history of the DSM. As demands of productivity increase, the number of people deemed to be neurodivergent also increases. The rise of the service economy, argues the author, can be linked to how we view autistic individuals (and others with different social interactions) as individuals in society. Of course, autism has always existed. That is, diversity in the way human brains function has always existed. This diversity being seen as a negative thing is socially constructed. Thus, by taking aspects of the scientific approach of psychology and psychiatry, Chapman constructs a case that does not flirt with anti-psychiatry.
I enjoyed reading this book, though I do believe that the last two chapters are a weak link. Here, the author provides a history of the neurodiverse movement but it feels a bit bloated and disjointed at points. Overall, however, this is a solid book. It is well written and easy to follow, and in my opinion, a must-read for neurodiversity justice. 4/5
The author explores the history of the concept of “normality” and its galtonian origins. This naturally leads into a discussion of eugenics and its relation with the idea of normality. Finally, there is a discussion of the rise of the neurodiversity movement, which seeks to depathologize and destigmatize neurodiverse existence.
What I appreciated about the book is how the author was able to handle such a complex topic. Some anti-psychiatrists (influenced by Szasz and his work) do claim that mental illness does not exist, and some of them even do argue so from a marxist standpoint. Chapman explains that his standpoint does not deny the existence of mental illnesses. In fact, he argues for better support from society (community and state) for mentally ill individuals. What he argues instead is that the definition of mental illness is inextricably linked to notions of capitalist productivity. This is evidenced in the history of the DSM. As demands of productivity increase, the number of people deemed to be neurodivergent also increases. The rise of the service economy, argues the author, can be linked to how we view autistic individuals (and others with different social interactions) as individuals in society. Of course, autism has always existed. That is, diversity in the way human brains function has always existed. This diversity being seen as a negative thing is socially constructed. Thus, by taking aspects of the scientific approach of psychology and psychiatry, Chapman constructs a case that does not flirt with anti-psychiatry.
I enjoyed reading this book, though I do believe that the last two chapters are a weak link. Here, the author provides a history of the neurodiverse movement but it feels a bit bloated and disjointed at points. Overall, however, this is a solid book. It is well written and easy to follow, and in my opinion, a must-read for neurodiversity justice. 4/5
June 27, 2025
de lo milloret que he llegit sobre salut i malaltia des de l'spk. Principalment, és un estudi marxista de la relació entre neurodiversitat i capitalisme rebutjant les visions liberals de la neurodiversitat que acaben sent una forma de pensar en els individus com a éssers privats i formalment iguals i també un rebuig a les tendències antipsiquiàtriques que en negar la malaltia neguen el patiment que l'acompanya.
Sí que crec que falta que l'autori es mulli una mica amb donar una descripció marxista de la salut. crec que shi apropa, però mai hi arriba.
L'única cosa que potser no m'ha agradat tant és la visió naive de la pràctica política revolucionària, com quan sents que qui ho escriu no ha abandonat la lògica del movients socials.
sigui com sigui molt recomanat
bisousss neurodivertitsss
Sí que crec que falta que l'autori es mulli una mica amb donar una descripció marxista de la salut. crec que shi apropa, però mai hi arriba.
L'única cosa que potser no m'ha agradat tant és la visió naive de la pràctica política revolucionària, com quan sents que qui ho escriu no ha abandonat la lògica del movients socials.
sigui com sigui molt recomanat
bisousss neurodivertitsss
August 16, 2024
Probably the first non-fiction book I read that significantly changed the way I look at the world. Not the easiest read, but strongly recommended for anyone interested in a historical and political perspective on the myth of the “normal brain”.
July 19, 2025
A very worthwhile critical analysis of the concept of normality, not at all from some "wooshy" viewpoint as one might fear, but historically, philosophically and scientifically grounded. Also cover goes so hard.
August 12, 2025
realment 3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
El llibre està bé però no incideix gaire amb tots els autors que cita i tots els moviments que explica. Parla de mooolts temes que individualment ja mereixerien un llibre sencer. Malgrat això, el recomano per qui vulgui introduir-se al mon de la filosofia de la psiquiatria i salut mental :) fa una overview accesible i genèrica.
El llibre està bé però no incideix gaire amb tots els autors que cita i tots els moviments que explica. Parla de mooolts temes que individualment ja mereixerien un llibre sencer. Malgrat això, el recomano per qui vulgui introduir-se al mon de la filosofia de la psiquiatria i salut mental :) fa una overview accesible i genèrica.
July 21, 2025
This was Brilliant.
November 2, 2025
A very good read that goes in depth into systems that have created and perpetuated the idea of normality and their being a standard or ideal way to be and exist. Highly recommend for anyone and especially those who are interested in Marxist theory and/or the neurodiversity movement & paradigm.
January 6, 2026
A life-altering book - lots of this has been swimming around in my mind over the years and Robert puts it into a hypothesis that is really compelling.
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