I have been thinking a lot about autism, and what it means to be defined as “neurodivergent” in a “neurotypical” world.  Even those "politically correct" labels reflect the biases of those for whom autism is "other." Anyway, this week I was watching a video about octopuses, and it opened up a new lens on autism... and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

First, some facts about the octopus:  It's everywhere... all over the world--in the deep sea, in the kelp forests, in the coral reefs, along the rocky shorelines. It's massive, and it's tiny. It's been around for millions of years. And it's wicked smart, especially when you consider the other members of  the mollusk family: clams, oysters and snails.

The octopus can perform all kinds of learning tasks… including ones that involve object perception and short-term and long-term memory. It can make plans, which means it remembers past events, imagines future needs, and analyzes the ways that current actions can relate to both. It uses composite tools. It takes things apart. It invents games. It problem-solves. It explores the environment like a curious child.

What does this have to do with autism? Trust me, I'll get there. (I'm autistic.)

So, all the other species (dogs, cats, humans, dolphins) that are considered forms of "intelligent life" are vertebrates. In fact, most of them are mammals, and primates at that. These “intelligent life” vertebrates trace their common ancestors back 320 million years, probably to some kind of lizard. But when we go looking for the common ancestor that we share with the octopus, we have to go back more than twice as far... 600 million years, in fact. And the common ancestor was... wait for it... a flatworm.

What's my point?

My point is that, in the history of this planet, intelligent life actually evolved twice, in widely separated (vertebrate and invertebrate ) trunks of the family tree. And the point of this observation is to explain why the intelligence of the octopus is so insanely different from the intelligence of the vertebrates.

And HERE is where it relates to autism:  Our theories of intelligence have historically been derived from our studies of vertebrates, especially mammals, and especially primates. All these vertebrate forms of “intelligent life”  have been very social creatures that travel in pods, packs, herds, or tribes. Not surprisingly, our theories about intelligence have been shaped by this fact.  These theories have assumed that intelligence evolved in certain species in response to social needs for communication, for bonding, for collective action, for establishing and maintaining social hierarchies, and so on.
 
But… then there is the octopus, a form of intelligent life that is notoriously anti-social. The octopus does not bond with other octopuses, does not live or travel with them, and  does not observe any kind of social hierarchy. It is a real loner. According to our theories of intelligence, it should actually be quite stupid... dumb as a snail, in fact. But the octopus has 500,000 neurons and the snail has only 20,000.  The octopus is right up there with the pig, the dog, and the dolphin. Clearly there is a problem with our theories about the evolution of intelligence. Being social has no bearing on the development of intelligence.
 
And here we are.  Autism is "characterized by difficulty in social interaction and communication." We are wired for resistance to social pressure. We are said to lack empathy, to have difficulty reading social cues, are oblivious to social hierarchies. We don't travel in packs. Are we missing out on evolutionary forces that generate intelligence?  Or are we developing intelligence along a completely different axis, like the octopus?

How did the octopus come to be so much smarter than the snails and clams? If it wasn't social pressure, what was it? Apparently, it's all about the shell... or lack thereof.

One hundred and forty million years ago the lineage that produced the octopus lost its shell. This shell-less proto-octopus was way more nimble, way more mobile, and way more vulnerable than the other shell-encased members of the mollusk family. With all the predators in the ocean, one might have expected this new branch of the family tree to become extinct in a generation or two. But that’s not what happened.

The octopus got very smart very fast. It became a master/mistress of disguise. It developed the ability to  change not only color, but also texture in 200 milliseconds. That’s faster than the blink of an eye. It’s way faster than a lizard that takes 20 seconds to change color. And the octopus can change camouflage up to 177 times per hour. How can it do this? Because most of its 500,000 neurons are not in its brain, but in its eight arms. The stimulus/response thing bypasses the brain completely. It takes a shortcut that enables the arm to "read" the environment and send appropriate signals directly to the special camouflage cells i the arm. These camouflage cells are incredibly complex, with highly specific functions. Some control for red, black and yellow coloration. Some reflect blue and green light, others reflect white light. Another layer of specialized cells can change the texture from smooth to rough, and back again.
 
What does this have to do with autism? Well, so… let’s go back to losing that shell, that protection.  Kind of like losing one’s armor. Yes, it makes one vulnerable, but it also drives the evolution of a different kind of intelligence, an intelligence that is rooted in highly complex and subtle interactions with one's physical environment. If the octopus lacks the social intelligence that comes from belonging to a pack, it has evolved an exquisitely fine-tuned relationship to the natural world around it.

If an autistic person is lacking in social intelligence, have we evolved compensatory sensitivity to our surroundings? Without the kind of protective armor that non-autistic people develop in their social interactions, have we developed a different form of perceptual/conceptual mobility, a nimbleness of spirit? Could it be that our "special interests" are part of this protective disguise? Without the rigid shape associated with a social role, are we not able to slip ourselves into the secret nooks and crannies of a rich inner life that appear irrelevant or inconsequential to those who have never had to develop alternative resources?

I can't claim to have anything like the brilliant adaptations of the octopus. But I do feel that centering the intelligence of the octopus calls into question many of our human assumptions and theories. I have the intelligence to know that we humans have very limited understanding of intelligence, and that we may well have reached a period in our evolution as a social species, where the concomitants of our bonding, i.e. our love of  conformity, our lack of authenticity, our prioritizing of congeniality,  our staggering disregard for our natural environment, and our ongoing massacres of our fellow creatures are going to destroy  life on the planet in less than two generations. Is it possible that autism marks an acceleration in human evolution--that our intelligence is moving in the direction of the octopus--and not a moment too soon?

“Cancel culture (or call-out culture) is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles - either online on social media, in the real world, or both.” –Wikipedia
 
Cancel culture is nothing new. In the 1950’s, it was called blacklisting, or Communist witchhunting. It was a political tool for consolidating support and silencing dissent, and it was especially effective in stifling writers… at least until it got to Broadway. And what happened when "cancel culture" attempted to invade Broadway is an example today for a world that is rapidly becoming more and more polarized and censorious.

It was June 22, 1950.  The names of prominent Broadway playwrights Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman had just been published in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. The brainchild of three FBI agents, this official blacklist named 130 organizations and 151 individuals—actors, musicians, writers, and broadcast journalists, and it was intended to flush out subversives in the media and, in contemporary parlance, to “no-platform” them. The question on everyone’s minds, “Would Miller and Hellman now face the same fate as the ‘Hollywood Ten?’ Would their careers be destroyed? Would they also go to prison?”

Broadway was another story.  Stage actors formed families, rehearsing with each other for weeks and then facing their audiences together night after night, and maybe even for years if the show was a hit. Holding hands at the final curtain, the actors shared an awareness of the work as a whole and an appreciation for everyone’s part in it. Sometimes these shows would be sent out on tour, but for the most part, after a show closed, the Broadway family would scatter and then regroup at the next round of auditions for plays.  There was a centuries-old history and a tradition among Broadway actors that simply did not and could not exist in Hollywood.

The prison-bound Hollywood Ten all saw their careers terminated for a decade, but the Broadway artists had an entirely different experience.  The production of Death of a Salesman continued its Broadway run into the fall of 1950, five months after the publication of Red Channels. That same year producers Kermit Bloomgarten and Walter Fried sent the play out on national tour. In spite of the fact that one of the authors of Red Channels attempted to organize local boycotts of the play at every stop, the tour was a success. One month after Salesman closed on Broadway, Miller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People opened. And in 1953, one of the most enduring artifacts of the McCarthy era premiered at the Martin Beck Theatre. The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s play about the Salem witch trials, is often interpreted as a commentary on the McCarthy witchhunts. Called to testify before HUAC in 1956, Miller was asked about this, and his response was sardonic: “The comparison is inevitable, sir.” In 1955, A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays both opened on Broadway.

And what about Hellman? In 1951, her play The Autumn Garden opened at the Coronet Theatre, and in 1956, the musical Candide, featuring Hellman’s libretto, won a Tony Award for Best Musical.

In other words, Broadway continued to support Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman. Let's look at how and why this happened:

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) would take a similar  position to SAG. Even as they fought on progressive fronts to become the first industry union to win employer-funded health and retirement plans, AFTRA voted to suspend any member who failed to cooperate with HUAC. The Writers Guild of America (WGA), representing the screenwriters, and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) also supported HUAC and turned against their blacklisted members.

Workers in the film and television industries were frightened into silence, or worse, frightened into naming names in order to protect themselves. But three thousand miles away, on another coast and in an alternative universe, Actors Equity Association, the actors' union,  took a very different course of action. They rejected the blacklist and supported their members who had been named.

To understand their decision, it’s important to look at how Actors Equity worked. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, it was a union centered in New York, but with branches in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco… but—and this is important—regional decisions had to approved by the New York council. In other words, Broadway actors ran the show.  Actors Equity already had taken a progressive stand against segregation of audiences in 1947, effectively causing the closure of the National Theatre in Washington.

In September 1951, at a quarterly meeting of Equity in New York, the members passed a strongly worded resolution against the practice of blacklisting. Because it was passed by members, it had to go before the Equity Council, where it was hotly debated for two weeks before being rejected. A committee was formed to redraft the resolution. This time, the resolution passed, but with more diplomatic wording and unfortunately omitting a clause that drew attention the fact that Black actors faced a kind of double jeopardy “as they have always been discriminated against in terms of employment.”

 The final resolution was, however, unequivocal in its repudiation of the Communist witch hunts:  

“Whereas the aforementioned practice of “blacklisting” is by its very nature, based on secrecy and prejudiced judgement and results in conviction by accusation without an opportunity given to the accused person to be heard and to defend himself… now therefore be it resolved: That this Association again condemns the practice of “blacklisting” in all its forms, and that this Association will act to aid its members in their rights to obtain a fair and impartial hearing of any charges that may be brought against them.”

The union stood by the blacklisted actors and offered them support, and they were the first and the only performing arts organization to do so.  Following their lead, the Broadway producers joined with Equity in their condemnation of the practice. A paragraph regarding blacklisting became standard in Equity’s basic agreement:

“The Manager and Actor admit notice of the anti-blacklisting provision contained in the basic agreement between Equity and the League of New York Theatres…”