One of the reasons I have not posted in more detail is that I suspect that anyone reading will already have made up his or her mind one way or the other, and that makes me cranky.
A lot of it comes down to money. Isabelle and Tony go on tour to promote their publications, their remedial programs, and their professional interests generally. The spouse-support organisation hosting the show benefits from association with respected names in the field. The teaching and medical professions are heavily represented in the audience and are rewarded not just with the offered material but also the opportunity to network with one another and a nicely-printed certificate of attendance at the finish, with their employer or government department picking up the tab. The specialist bookseller makes a killing during the breaks. Why heck, even I went there with the hope of making some useful connections — not least with Tony himself, who I am hoping will contribute a brief written introduction to a book I am co-authoring, but also with the event organisers and their supporters, who I believe are the perfect readership for my book.*
* [ETA: A labour-of-love-in-progress, not only mine, but that of quite a few others as well. Please forgive me my moment of proprietary over-enthusiasm.]
At what point does personal interest leave off and pecuniary interest begin?
I had no quarrel with the workshop presentations, which were thorough and well-founded. Even the humorous observations by both Tony and Isabelle, which could be taken as insulting by the more sensitive among us, seemed affectionate enough (not to mention accurate enough) to me.
I did wonder, as I looked around the audience, "Where are all the aspies?" Not that we walk around with it tattooed on our foreheads or anything, but still. And I, like others who have posted, was saddened by the offensive nature of some of the questions and comments from the floor.
There is a vast, yawning gulf of incomprehension, with spectrumites on the one hand, their spouses and families on the other, and the helping professions stuck somewhere in between. With so much ill will in both camps, it's easy to despair at common ground ever being found. Tony Attwood and people like him are still a relatively rare commodity in the world, and are obliged to do a delicate balancing act to speak to both sides of the discussion.
The time may soon come when the advocacy & self-help forces are equal in clout to the family-support forces. I for one would like to see reasoned dialogue, rapprochement and cooperation, not the hating and blaming mentality which currently seems to prevail on both sides of the issue.
28 Apr 2009, 4:59 am
