The Beginning of Freedom
When last I wrote I discussed ideas about Freedom and Liberation from a philosophical point of view. While a philosophical discussion is worthwhile to have, I have since been moved to go farther down into the more basic areas of our existence, where the mere possibility of Freedom and Liberation lies. What moved me in that direction was a reading of a book by one of Der Nister’s community members, Portia Iversen, Strange Son: Two Mothers, Two Sons and the Quest to Unlock the Hidden World of Autism.
Portia’s son Dov started to manifest the signs of Autism at two years old (he is now an adult). Seeing your child slowly moving away from the patterns of normal development is a difficult experience. We love our children regardless of the way that they develop. However, it is a common experience of the parents of Autistic children that as their autism manifests, a sadness comes over them, a sadness based in feelings of loss. The greatest fear is the fear that their child will be unknown to them, that they will never be able to speak to them, never be able to have a normal conversation with them.
I know this anxiety because I experienced it myself with my son Reuben. When he was young, he didn’t speak and exhibited some of the other signs of autism. We spent years trying to figure out what was going on with him. While Reuben was finally diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum in his teens, we found that there were some other issues with his hearing that brought him into the world of speech. It was many years before I was really able to have a normal conversation with him, but the difficulties that Portia faced with Dov were something that I no longer experience with Reuben.
Portia and her then-husband Jon Shestack didn’t give in to that sadness. Joe Hill’s last words were “Don’t waste time mourning, organize!” The two of them founded the Cure Autism Now Foundation (CAN). At the time, very little money was being spent on Autism research. Portia took upon herself the task of gathering the research that had been done and making sense of it for herself. All of that work had to coexist with the demands of taking care of Dov and their other children. In their efforts we see a struggle to live more freely than the circumscribed life that had overtaken them. They were also seeking to free Dov from the constraints that his development had placed upon him. Portia’s account of this time is far more detailed.
The big before and after moment was her discovery of the existence of Tito Mukhopadhyay and his mother Soma. With great difficulty she got a copy of a book that Tito had written, Beyond the Silence: My Life, the World and Autism. Some had taught Tito how to use a letter board to point out letters so that he could communicate out of his non-verbal state. What was revealed in that communication was a self-aware intelligence struggling to get out. It took a great deal of effort for Portia to locate Tito and Soma and even more to bring them to the US so that she could see them together. CAN funded their time in the US. While they were in Los Angeles, Portia struggled to understand how Soma had taught Tito and to find doctors and scientists who were willing to work with Tito to try to understand how his mind worked. As unique a personality as Tito was, Portia was hoping that his experience might one day become common for non-verbal autistic people.
What we learn from Tito’s experience is that Freedom is built on our ability to understand and to be understood by the world. Libertarians believe that we have inherent rights as individuals and that those rights should be respected in almost all cases. Libertarianism is a movement that ignores many simple truths of life, but most foolishly, the role of communication, understanding and cooperation in the creation of an environment where Freedom and Liberty can become possibilities.
For those with severe autistic symptoms, the inability to communicate prevents them from having their preferences understood. Even those who seek to help them face almost insurmountable obstacles in serving their needs and facilitating their desires. Portia tells a story about Dov on an occasion where he was asked to show his communications abilities in a public situation. She had high hopes that he would do well showing his abilities. Instead he was sullen and resistant to communicating anything. When he finally relented ,he spelled out the word “rock.” When asked, he was able to name the three different kinds of rocks. I only remember Igneous and Sedimentary, so he was ahead of me. After leaving the stage someone hands Portia Dov’s favorite rock that he had lost on the floor. Even though Dov had learned how to reach out from his non-verbal state he still struggled to be understood.
When I was supervising the B'nai Mitzvah program at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco, I found that almost every word I ever said had a way of being misunderstood, and yet many people consider my communications skills to be quite good. I struggled with a sense of constriction in my work, because it seemed that there was nothing I could do to guarantee that I would be understood.
Another factor that undergirds our ability to be free is our awareness, understanding and control over our bodies. Through dialogue with Tito, Portia, the scientists and the doctors who studied were able to understand Tito we now understand that some of the actions of non-verbal autistic people are involuntary. However, many of their odd actions, like their “stimming,” are purposeful and adaptive. It is meant to help them feel more in their body and more in control of their levels of excitement. These actions improve their ability to concentrate and be attentive. It was only through dialogue that Tito was able to learn how he appeared to others. He was not able to understand what normative physicality was.
Freedom demands that we understand how the world around us works. We don’t need to be autistic to have trouble getting an accurate picture. The ways that popular culture miseducates us about what a normal body is has caused a epidemic of body dysmorphia in many perfectly typical minds. For those who are affected, their freedom to choose how they eat and exercise, how they dress and how they use their time is restricted. Popular culture has made them less free.
Tito was obsessed from a young age that his poetry be published. He wanted to be known and understood and to feel meaning in his life. We often think that this kind of self-actualization is a luxury. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, having meaning in our lives is the top of the pyramid. This makes sense from a material point of view. The more that we are able to resolve our practical needs like the needs for food and shelter the more time and resources we will be able to devote to meaning.
In this way of thinking about things, Freedom and Liberation are at the end of the struggle. Tito’s experience shows us that that struggle need not be connected to those material struggles at all. It exists early on in the development of our self-awareness, perhaps as early as the moment that we realize that we are separate from the rest of reality and that we are only part of something larger.
All of these needs, that we can see more clearly when we are able to hear and understand autistic voices, show us that Freedom begins with our ability to satisfy these needs, the needs that we consider practical from a materialistic point of view. We don’t need to be satisfied with gourmet food and opulent mansions. Simple food and basic secure shelter are enough to allow us to be free; however, the needs that I have discussed demand more thorough attention.
If we look at those around us we will find that those needs explain most of the behaviors that we see in each other. It can be harder to see how this works when dealing with adults, but with children we can see the rawer expression of those needs. (Our desire to be seen as mature adults, rather than children, motivates us to obscure our intentions.)
In Pirkei Avot, we are told to educate our children Ke-Darkho (or Ke-Darkha), according to their way. A less than perfect illustration of this is given to us in the story of the four sons (children) in the Haggadah that we will have before shortly. While it is a good start, we need to look deeper into the souls of our children and each other to fathom what it is to treat other Ke-Darkho. We can live in a world where some of us are free and some are not. In the cards that nature deals us, some will always start with more potential to live lives of Freedom. But, if those of us who are free, or close enough to see what our freedom could be, would take it upon ourselves as an obligation to use our freedom to increase the freedom of others, we could make a freer, happier world. This is Liberation, becoming free through the struggle to increase freedom for us all.
