On Aspergers and Abstraction

As you might imagine, having a brother with Aspergers has given me some unique perspective into the human condition.  Though I'm no expert (at least not in the academic sense) of Asbergers, I have observed that my brother struggles most with Abstract thought, which disrupts his ability to pick up social cues, make decisions, and process information, among other things.

In fact, I dare say that impaired abstract thought is not just a symptom, but the core characterstic of his condition.  Thus, it has been because of my brother that I have come to understand the critical importance of abstract thought--which in turn illustrates the dire necessity of imagination.

For example: My brother naturally gravitates towards the concrete and literal for want of abstract thought. He is terrible at Apples to Apples, because he always picks the most literal card to correspond with the prompt, both for himself and for others.  He does not abstract how other people might respond to a card--that is, his impaired abstract thought also impairs his ability to get inside other peoples' heads.  He cannot imagine what it must be like to be other people.

A more specific example: Whenever Dad treats him out to lunch, he'll always without fail order the most expensive item.  I've tried pulling him aside and explaining to him that when someone buys lunch, you should generally try to not order something more expensive than the person paying (something most folks understand intuitively), but it never takes.

One time, he ordered a steak, and Dad asked for a bite.  "Hey, you could've ordered your own steak you know!" he protested.  "I did," Dad retorted; and my brother got this flustered, for it had honestly never occurred to him how Dad might feel about him ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.

Abstract thought, in fact, is necessary for imagining how other people think or feel--that is, you need to be able to abstract to empathize.  Lack of empathy, in fact, is a sign of impaired abstract thought I've realized.  Now, my brother is no sociopath (he's the friendliest guy you'll ever meet), but he can often be tactless, and struggles with genuine empathy, due to his abstract impairment.  Thus, whenever I meet someone who is rude or ego-centric or entitled or unsympathetic, then I assume they are lacking in advanced abstract thinking ability, and perhaps has a learning disability. 

Beyond empathy, abstraction is necessary for identity: my brother prefers clothing with concrete expressions of his identity, e.g. he like jerseys that list both his name and birth year, he has a cap for near every Seattle sports franchise (even the minor-league hockey team), and he once for a stretch wore a large, brass "S" (for "Samuel") on his jacket zipper, the same way a rapper might wear a giant platinum necklace with his name across the chest (which I bet my Samuel would wear if someone bought him one).  The existential concept that his identity is somehow other than his name, stats, or regional affiliations, is just too abstract for him to grasp.

Thus, it's from my brother that I learned that identity is an abstract concept, one that requires a deep well of imagination to construct a self-image that is free from externalaties. That is, to be free to define yourself, instead of letting other things define you, requires abstract thought.  To act, and not be acted upon, requires imagination.  Hence, whenever I see someone who lets themselves be defined by, say, brand-name clothing, or sports fandom, or political party affiliation or what have you, then I assume they lack advanced abstract thinking ability.

None of this is to denigrate my brother, who is the soul of innocence; my brother just has a mental impairment, what's your excuse?

But abstract thought isn't just necessary for empathy or identity--it also influences very physical concerns.  He often has cracked hands for example, because though he washes his hands out of habit, he sometimes forget to wash off all the soap, further exasperating his dry skin.  That's because, though he understands the mechanical act of washing his hands, he has difficulty abstracting the actual purpose behind it.  So again, take note: if you are a "letter-of-the-law" type who only cares about keeping the rules, not why the rules exist, or if they even should exist, then you may have impaired abstract thinking.

This isn't to say that my brother is incapable of thinking or problem-solving--only that his problem-solving is impaired by his lack of abstract thought.  Another Example: once upon a time (in the days before ipods and CD-Rs), my brother asked Dad what he wanted for Christmas.  Dad told him of a pair of scratched CDs he'd like replaced.  So my brother got him a CD/DVD scratch-repair-kit instead.

Dad and I laughed about it, for my brother's logic was flawless, impeccable even!  Dad had scratched CDs, he wanted them un-scratched!  Why not just help him repair them instead?  Moreover, this gift will allow him to repair other scratched discs he may have in the future!  But what Samuel failed to abstract is that my Dad did not want to go to the trouble of cleaning old discs, that part of the gift was in sparing him the effort of having to fix or replace the CDs himself.  My brothers chain of logic was perfect, except for his base premises.  And premises must be abstracted.

Thus, I've learned from my brother that logic matters less than one's base value system.  Please don't mistake, I love logic, and hate when logic is violated; but to go to the extreme example, Hitler hated Jews.  Logically, therefore, he should kill them all, as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Hitler took anti-semitism to its logical conclusion.  Hitler's logic was perfect, but his basic premises were monstrous. The most perfect logic in the world doesn't matter an ounce without an abstract moral code to ground it out.  Now, my brother is the exact opposite of Hitler; nevertheless, from my brother I realize that the root of madness isn't in one's logic, but in one's premises, which again, must be abstracted to be correct.

Please don't mistake me, my brother is no monster or basket case, far from it: he simply misses out on the unspoken, which can often be delightful.  For example, once in Boy Scouts, our troop was going over the map, and my brother noted of the squiggly rivers flowing into lakes, "Hey, those look like little sperms!"  And of course all us immature boys burst out laughing.

Now, there was absolutely nothing crude or vulgar about my brother's intentions: he was simply making a concrete observation!  The innuendo flew right over his head, because innuendo is implicit, the implicit is unspoken, and the unspoken must be abstracted to be conceptualized.

For these same reasons, my brother struggles with math.  Not numbers, math.  For he can remember birthdates and ages and phone numbers and so forth like nobody's business; but he can't calculate them easily--in computer terms, he is a massive hard drive but a slow processor.  It's not hard to see why: numbers, after all, are metaphors, and you must use your imagination to imagine that they represent something!

What does x or n mean?  What do these Greek letters or Arabic numerals signify?  What are the rules by which they interact?  It was from my brother that I finally, begrudgingly acknowledged that mathematicians, far from being dull, soul-less number-crunchers, are actually minds of profound imagination!  Math is not cold and concrete, no, math is deeply abstract!

In fact, you know what my brother doesn't struggle with?  Words.  That's right, the words on the page that we so often idealize as drenched in imagination and abstraction, are actually the most concrete of all!  Example: my brother studied Spanish in High School, so my parents got him a children's Lion King book in Spanish...and he found two grammatical errors in it.

Once when I was driving him somewhere, he said casually: "Since karoke means 'empty symphony, and karate means 'empty hand,' then in Japanese, kara must mean empty, and ke mean symphony, and te mean hand."  I absently said, "Oh," but then snapped my head and said, "Wait, did you just decipher Japanese etymology?!"  Despite all of what the Post-Structuralists may argue, words are not abstract, but concrete representations, so he excels at deciphering them.  I say this to both my fellow English majors and to our critics: perhaps the problem isn't our discipline's abstraction, but its lack of it!

My brother loves puns, wordplay, and syntax--the very same things that abstract poets and English professors love, such that I now suspect that these poets and professor aren't so abstract after all!  Now when I read Finnegans Wake, I'm less impressed by Joyce's endlessly inventive wordplay, and wonder instead why Joyce has abandoned abstraction in his story telling; and when a Professor focuses solely on a text's wordplay, I now wonder why the Professor is so fixated on the concrete at the expense of any abstract thought.

Not that there is no abstraction in English; for in order to tell a story, you must be able to imagine--that is, you must abstract--a mental model of a story that doesn't exist.  Likewise, to analyze a story, you must psycho-analyze, historicize, and otherwise infer implicit meanings that are not concretely obvious in the text. My field of English is thus not so far away from Math as might appear, for both require profound abstract thought--as does life itself!

For what I've learned most from my brother, is the great importance of not only abstraction, but of imagination: you need imagination for empathy, sympathy, social cues, math, problem-solving, anticipation, and innovation.  Thus, whenever I hear folks denigrate Fiction, Literary Studies, or other disciplines necessary for stimulating and strengthening imagination, dismissing it all as "too abstract" to be "relevant," I fear these folks do not understand the grave importance of abstraction itself!

To disparage the abstract and the imagination is to impair our society's ability to function properly, to think clearly, to empathize compassionately, to problem-solve correctly, to understand the unspoken, all of which in effect is to give our society Aspergers, just like my brother.  So, read more fiction, improve your imagination, let your abstract thought soar!  (There are even scientific studies to prove that reading novels improve your empathy, i.e. your abstract thought!  The humanities really do make us more humane.)  My brother, bless his pure heart and good humor, didn't get to choose his condition, so let us be wary of voluntarily inflicting his same condition upon ourselves.

Update:  As if to reinforce all of my points, my brother gave me the following facebook feedback on my blogpost!

"I read your blog about me. I noticed some things wrong: the primary one is that it's spelled As[p]erger's Syndrome, not Asbergers Syndrome. Second is that I don't have an WNBA Seattle Storm cap; only an NBA SuperSonics visor, an NFL Seahawks visor, an MLB Mariners visor, an MLB Mariners cap with the former logo and a Western Hockey League Thunderbirds cap. Third regarding the Spanish book on "The Lion King", I don't recall having one; I recall getting the Spanish dub VHS, but never a book. Finally, I don't know if it's wrong, but the "S" key chain is actually on my missionary rain coat."