Asperger's -- The Jewish Syndrome?

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"Asperger's -- The Jewish Syndrome?"

I had always identified myself by my grandparent's national citizenship, didn't know my real ethnicity until later in life, so never used it as an excuse for my social stresses.

Of which I am now aware, I fit this heritage and these mannerisms to a tee (except for the mouth breathing.)

Makow is anti-Zionist apologist. I believe that his sensationalism easily attracts emotionally-charged respondents, irrespective of the merits of his arguments, or lack thereof.

I want to be relevant, but most user-generated content has been an ongoing source of unhappiness, for some years. I find this stuff, everywhere I go -- not only in the socalled alt media.

Last edited by friedmacguffins on 26 Jun 2012, 7:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Suggesting that certain character traits (usually negative) are innate to a race is racist.

The internet is swimming in anti-Semitism. If you wish to avoid it I suggest staying away from much alt media as well as the comments sections of mainstream newspapers, especially if the article has anything to do with Jewish people. There is no need to for you to be au fait with the views of people like that, they are not relevant but in fact quite behind the times.

While certain racial groups are more prone to certain physical ailments for various reasons (e.g Ashkenazi Jews and Tay-Sachs, or African people and sickle cell anaemia) I've never seen any link between race and autism. I'd suggest that even if there was anecdotal evidence it would most likely be due to better access to services and diagnosis. For instance, the majority of the world's Jews live in Israel, the US and Europe where medical care is relatively accessible. I'd imagine diagnostic rates are lower in children from communities that find it harder to access services, such as recently arrived immigrants.

I find that that my wirehair terrier and Springer spaniel have different mannerisms. I love them equally but for different reasons.

If you wanted to say the same was true of different people, it wouldn't have bothered me -- especially when the allegations are mainly bookishness and acquisitiveness.

But, FWIW, I have never used a persecution complex as a crutch.

I still don't get this thread? Is the OP asking if Jews are prone to Asperger's? Can he prove this?

I will now edit my punctuation, to show that I was quoting someone else -- at the other end of the link. I am not seeing the question in the traditional, blue text with underlines, so this did not look like a url in my browser.

Asperger's is not a form of hypochondria and, of which I am aware, I am not prone to hypochondria as a result of my race.

Furthermore, the symptoms of Asperger's are not necessarily unflattering.

I don't mind if someone says that Jews are more prone to Asperger's but did not care for many of the comments which were left beneath Makow's article.

No.

Almost all the Aspies and Aspie-like personalities I have known are white anglo-saxon protestant.

First off, I'm not sure you could make a convincing case, based on actual genetics, that Jews are a race. A culture, yes, a race, no.

Here is the article I believe the original poster was citing. It's bizarre...
http://www.henrymakow.com/aspergers_--_ ... iseas.html

One might make the same case for several Asian cultures. I rather doubt it's due to AS, but rather a culture that values literacy. The Chinese have a long tradition of valuing literacy & the arts in certain socio-economic circles. As no sources or scientific studies are cited, I draw the conclusion that the author of the article is just engaging in wild speculation based on biased speculation, especially as he only seems to be considering a very, very narrow pool of filmmakers.

In other words, compost material.

That's actually funny that you mention that, because I thought my family was "white anglo-saxon protestant" until a discovery of our family history proved that both sides of my family were German and Ukranian Jews who hid their identities for fear of persecution before coming to America.

My point being? These kind of hypotheses are so nebulous that it's really hard to pin down anything certain, and the whole issue is usually tied up in needless controversy.

Statistically, autism is shown to cross all ethnic, racial, and religious borders, according to the "experts."

Both kanner and asperger noted there were a high percentage of jews in there case studies.I dont know if that is still true or if it was a coencedence of the time

I wonder why. One would need to look at the historical aspects surrounding the case studies to determine whether or not that was coincidental, accidental, or a reflection of the population statistics of the time.

i dont know either

There is an odd tendency for Ashkenazis to have higher IQs than most groups. It is very difficult to discount cultural factors, of course, but there is a not-so-crazy theory that being a Jew in medieval Europe actually selected for higher IQs. AS symptoms might be correlated with higher IQ, so the theory could explain both.

In the case of Asperger I imagine it was just because there were quite a lot of Jews in Vienna (before the Holocaust) and the vast majority of them were middle class - the sort of people who would take their children to a Dr if they were concerned about them. The Jewish population of Vienna in 1938 was around 185,000 people. Half of all Austria's Doctors and Dentists were Jewish, and 60% of lawyers. This was a large, affluent community and amongst middle class Austrians at the time there was a real interest in psychology (Sigmund Freud worked in Vienna until the Anschluss). I would imagine that any apparent over-representation of Jewish people was simply a case of demographics and their over-representation amongst the middle class. By the end of the war the demographics were very different; 130,000 Jews emigrated, 65,000 were deported to concentration camps (2,000 survived) and 800 Jews survived in hiding. Although Hans Asperger's paper was published in 1944, his research would have been done when there were still Jews living in Vienna.

I'm not familiar enough with Kanner's work or milieu to comment on whether his findings were for similar reasons.

Are you a historian? Because this is very good information.

I don't buy into this at all, as it does smack of racism/cultural bias, but at the same time there is definately an inadvertant form of natural selection at work here due to the pograms inflicted against the jews in Europe from the dark ages up to the Holocaust inflicted by the Nazis.

Those who have to foresight and intelligence to see something bad coming and take action to get away from it will inadvertantly be the survivors left to perpetuate their offspring when the bad times are over. --Those who are either not intelligent enough to see a bad thing coming down on them or are naiive enough not to belive that something bad will happen will be caught up by the scourge.

In a way this is quite funny, because it has exactly the opposite effect that the perpetrators of the pogroms intended.

But then again, does this make Jewish people more susceptible or prone to ASD's? Probably not more so than anybody else, because it occurs in people of all races. The only real differance, is that a lot of Jewish people are , (in the USA at any rate) more likeley to hold a college degree, and therefore more likely to have the income at their disposal for ASD's to be correctly detected at an early age.

I think that yes, to a certain degree, Jewish people may be "prone to aspie-ism" due to their history and different interpretations of things and such as a group overall, but socioeconomics definitely plays a hidden role as well. There are definitely a lot of under-served people in poverty, some of which may not even have the diagnosis officially but probably need it. Or, even if they have the diagnosis, they or the people do not work with do not have access to resources that can help them. People do not always know what's out there. Most people I know who tend to be more served have some money whether it's on their own or through financial backing of their family or such.