the rise in people identifying as autistic and diagnoses could be connected the fact that we created a non functioning society that only values extraverted people who are willing to lie and hurt others
Or it could be the strict formalization of psychiatric studies, combined with the more broad based diagnosis and categorization of the school aged working class. We've invested more labor and professional expertise in analyzing public education and its consequences, so we're picking up on a wider variety of psychological variants and aptitudes.
That neurodivergence is pathologized primarily because it runs counter to functioning in a capitalist society
Capitalists are more than happy to profiteer off of neurodivergence both coming - via commodification of prodigy and other unusual pools of talent - and going - via medical marketing and "normalization" therapies. I wouldn't say it runs counter to capitalist social agendas, because nothing runs strictly against an agenda that is fixated exclusively on maximizing future profit. We're continuing to invent exciting new ways to exploit people's psychological differences, always with an eye towards alienation, segregation, and surplus extraction. Identifying and capturing neurodivegent individuals and squeezing them for their productive value has been a big part of the modern Finance Sector and Silicon Valley projects.
in a world where struggling to make eye contact doesn’t get you disqualified in job interviews…
We're creating a world in which everyone interfaces through computers, where individuals are encouraged to self-segregate and alienate one another, and where information is constantly mediated through attention-grabbing infographic spectacles that reward the users for engagement.
This is not a system designed to exclude individuals with autism. This is a system designed to feed on them.