Isha Sarah Snow
pandemicnova@gmail.com
February 12, 2025
Abstract
Autism, often framed as a disorder in Western psychiatric models, may instead be an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that serves both individual and cultural functions. Applying Edward Hagen’s evolutionary model of mental illness as a response to adversity (Hagen, 2011), along with Brown’s assertion that self-destructive behaviors function as cultural mechanisms (Brown, 1986), this paper proposes that autism serves as a regulatory counterbalance within societal structures. It emerges as an adaptive response to cultural complexity, group cohesion, and knowledge transmission, ensuring both social stability and innovation.
Introduction
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is traditionally diagnosed based on deficits in social communication, repetitive behaviors, and sensory processing differences (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). However, recent interdisciplinary research suggests that these traits may not be deficits, but evolutionary adaptations that serve distinct functions within society (Hagen & Barrett, 2007). This paper explores the hypothesis that autism is an essential cultural and evolutionary mechanism, playing a role in stabilizing societies, advancing innovation, and resisting coercive social norms. Furthermore, the increasing rates of autism diagnoses may be indicative of a broader societal failure to meet fundamental social and emotional needs, making autism a canary in the coalmine that signals urgent systemic dysfunction.
The prevailing biomedical model often categorizes autism as a disorder, but this perspective fails to account for its evolutionary persistence. If autism were purely disadvantageous, natural selection would likely have eliminated it from the human gene pool. Instead, autistic traits appear across all cultures and throughout history, often linked to major scientific, artistic, and philosophical advancements (Silberman, 2015). This suggests that autism serves an adaptive function that societies have failed to recognize fully.
Theoretical Framework
This paper synthesizes insights from multiple fields:
Hagen’s Evolutionary Theory of Mental Illness → Suggests that conditions labeled as mental illnesses may actually serve as adaptive responses to social adversity (Hagen, 2011).
Brown’s Functional-Conflict Analysis of Suicide → Self-destructive behaviors function as cultural mechanisms, reinforcing social cohesion and hierarchy (Brown, 1986).
Good’s Critique of Western Psychiatry → Psychiatric classifications often ignore sociocultural contexts, leading to the pathologization of natural variations (Good, 1997).
Leighton & Hughes on Cultural Pathology → Mental disorders are socially constructed, emerging from the specific pressures and norms of a given society (Leighton & Hughes, 2005).
These frameworks suggest that autism may not be a disorder but an integrated cultural function, shaping human progress while also exposing systemic failures in modern societies.
Autism as an Evolutionary Adaptation:
Rather than being a maladaptive condition, autism aligns with several evolutionary advantages (Hagen & Barrett, 2007).
Autistic Trait/Evolutionary Mechanism/Cultural Function:
Monotropic Focus (Deep Specialization in Interests)
Enhances knowledge retention and expertise in key survival areas (e.g., tool-making, pattern recognition, environmental tracking).
Contributes to technological and scientific advancement, ensuring societies have individuals focused on long-term problem-solving.
Sensory Sensitivity
Heightened perception of environmental dangers (e.g., detecting changes in weather, animal behavior, or food toxicity).
Provides early-warning systems in group survival, preventing risks others may not perceive.
Resistance to Social Conditioning
Reduced susceptibility to groupthink and blind conformity; greater ability to challenge social norms.
Acts as a counterbalance to excessive social conformity, preventing cultural stagnation and reinforcing logical rather than emotional decision-making.
Pattern Recognition & Systemizing Cognition
Exceptional ability to detect inconsistencies, optimize systems, and enhance long-term planning.
Drives innovation in mathematics, science, engineering, and cultural traditions, leading to technological and intellectual progress.
Emotional Dysregulation & Atypical Social Processing
Prioritization of direct perception over social politeness (e.g., truth-seeking behavior, refusal to engage in deception).
Functions as a moral compass in societies, preventing excessive exploitation, deception, and hierarchical abuses of power.
Sensory-Seeking & Stimming Behaviors
Regulation of nervous system arousal and emotional processing.
Serves as an adaptive self-regulation strategy, similar to meditation, dance, or ritual movements in early human cultures.
Autism as a Cultural Mechanism
Applying Brown’s model of suicide as a cultural mechanism, this paper hypothesizes that autistic traits also serve an essential cultural function. Unlike suicide, which reinforces hierarchical control, autism challenges and reshapes societal norms by fostering alternative perspectives, logical integrity, and knowledge accumulation.
1. Social Cohesion vs. Social Innovation
Neurotypical individuals drive cohesion by reinforcing existing cultural norms and promoting emotional reciprocity.
Autistic individuals drive innovation by resisting social conditioning, ensuring cultural traditions are examined critically rather than blindly followed.
2. Adaptive Resistance to Cultural Pathology
Neurotypical mechanisms often prioritize social harmony over truth (e.g., groupthink, propaganda, compliance with authority).
Autism naturally resists coercive social scripts, acting as a stabilizer against systemic dysfunction (e.g., detecting institutional abuses, resisting manipulative social structures).
3. Evolutionary Need for Outliers
Every adaptive system requires variation—autistic individuals function as “divergent nodes” within cultural systems, ensuring alternative strategies exist in case dominant models fail.
This is why autistic individuals appear across all cultures and have persisted in evolutionary history despite social difficulties.
Autism spectrum disorder is a biologically based neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that there are underdeveloped areas of the brain. This results in deficits in the Theory of Mind. Study findings support Theory of Mind as the cognitive domain responsible for hierarchical processing. Which means that top down thinking is dependent on ToM. The hierarchical social contract is also dependent on ToM, and deficits in ToM typically result in oppositional or defiant and demand avoidance. It’s also why kids can innately sense a social difference and often bully autistic children. There is likely a link between theory of mind and executive functioning, which is likely due to theory of mind being responsible for hierarchical processing, and which is what allows typical brains to think in terms of “big picture” instead of being so detail-oriented. Because autistic people lack ToM they struggle to process information in cohesive wholes, which results in bottom-up processing, breaking down data into smaller units, identifying patterns, and applying rule based reasoning methods to collect data, distinguished traits and then generate a master list arriving at a schematic description. These deficits in global processing result in underdeveloped social cognitive skills, because complex processing is needed to understand the thoughts and infer mental states from others behaviors. The vagus nerve might overlap with the language parts of the brain, specifically Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas, which are responsible for the acquisition of sociocultural and behavioral conditioning in childhood and which may be fragmented due to nervous system dysregulating. Most traditional therapy is based on a top down model of cognitive processing and an intact ToM; for instance, one of the lost widely used therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) operates from a thought-feeling-behavior top down process,.which renders it virtually ineffective for neurodivergent and autistic people. I hope to use this information and the social model of disability to create new holistic non invasive treatments for the neurodivergent community in the future. (The term neurodivergent itself alludes to lacking a ToM; a neurotypical brain is defined ToM being a cohesive whole, hence the DSM and Western psychiatric institutions taking a deficit model for their pathology.)
The Canary in the Coalmine Hypothesis posits that autism serves as an early warning system for societal dysfunction, much like the canaries once used in coal mines to detect toxic gases before they reached lethal levels. The increasing diagnosis and visibility of autism may not indicate a biological epidemic but rather a cultural and environmental crisis in which social structures fail to meet fundamental human needs. Autistic individuals, with their heightened sensitivity to sensory, emotional, and ethical inconsistencies, are disproportionately affected by the demands of hypercapitalist productivity, rigid social norms, and overstimulating environments. Their distress signals the broader consequences of a world designed for rapid social processing and coerced conformity rather than deep focus, ethical reasoning, and genuine emotional connection. Instead of pathologizing autism, society should recognize that the struggles of autistic individuals reveal structural failures in modern institutions, from education to labor systems. Addressing these failures would not only benefit neurodivergent individuals but also create a more humane and sustainable society for all.
Autism’s increasing visibility in modern society may be directly connected to a cultural landscape that is severely lacking in social and emotional intelligence. In environments where emotional repression, performative socialization, and hierarchical dominance are the norm, autistic individuals—who often prioritize authenticity, direct communication, and logic over social conformity—struggle to navigate a system that values compliance over connection. Many autistic traits, such as difficulty with small talk, discomfort with social masking, and a preference for deep, meaningful relationships, stand in stark contrast to a culture that rewards superficial charm, manipulative social strategies, and emotional suppression in the name of professionalism and efficiency. In this way, autism serves as both a mirror and a critique of a society that fails to teach emotional literacy, relies on transactional relationships, and punishes those who do not conform to arbitrary social norms. The very traits that make autistic individuals struggle in such a system—honesty, moral clarity, and sensitivity to inconsistency—are not dysfunctions but indicators of a broken social fabric. If society valued genuine emotional intelligence over social performance, many of the challenges autistic individuals face would not be framed as disabilities, but as essential contributions to a healthier, more connected world.
Implications and Future Directions
This hypothesis challenges dominant psychiatric models by proposing that autistic traits were evolutionarily selected for their ability to stabilize and advance society. If true, this perspective requires a shift in how autism is understood and accommodated in modern culture.
Education & Workforce → Autistic individuals should be integrated into roles that maximize their strengths in deep specialization, systems optimization, and ethical reasoning.
Cultural Psychiatry → Mental health models must incorporate cultural and evolutionary perspectives rather than assuming pathology.
Social Policy → Societal structures should be redesigned to reduce coercive pressures and better integrate neurodivergent cognition as a vital component of cultural evolution.
Conclusion
Autism is not a disorder; it is an adaptive safeguard against the social and cultural pathologies of hierarchical societies. This perspective reframes autism as a biological necessity for human survival, ensuring technological progress, moral stability, and resistance to oppressive social forces. Recognizing this role could lead to significant changes in how neurodivergence is integrated into modern society.
Future research should explore cross-cultural differences in autism perception and investigate historical trends in autistic contributions to major intellectual and social movements.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). APA.
Brown, M. (1986). Power, gender, and the social meaning of Aguaruna suicide. Man, 21(2), 311-328.
Good, B. (1997). Studying mental illness in context: Local, global, or universal? Ethos, 25(2), 230–248.
Hagen, E. H. (2011). Evolutionary theories of depression: A critical review. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56(12), 716–726.
Hagen, E. H., & Barrett, H. C. (2007). Perinatal sadness among Shuar women: Support for an evolutionary theory of psychic pain. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(1), 22–40.
Leighton, A. H., & Hughes, J. M. (2005). Cultures as causative of mental disorder. The Milbank Quarterly, 83(4), 1-22.
Silberman, S. (2015). NeuroTribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. Avery Publishing.
Functional-Conflict Analysis: Integrating Theories into a Unified System
Using a Functional-Conflict Perspective (FC), we will analyze each of these theories as “parts” of a larger system, identifying shared burdens and systemic functions. This approach treats societal struggles—such as suicide, poverty, mental illness, coercive control, and cultural ideologies—not as isolated issues, but as interdependent mechanisms that reinforce systemic stability and social cohesion.
By cross-referencing Michael F. Brown’s analysis of Aguaruna suicide with the additional perspectives on mental health, cultural pathology, coercion, and adaptive distress responses, we can synthesize a single unifying category that encapsulates them all.
Step 1: Identifying Common Functions Across All Theories
By analyzing each theory through a Functional-Conflict lens, we can identify the following shared functions:
Theory/Identified Function within the System
Brown’s Aguaruna Suicide Analysis
Suicide as a gendered mechanism of resistance and reinforcement of hierarchy. Suicide occurs where power is least available.
Rizzo (Gendered Burdens & Sexuality)
Gendered burdens function as hidden cultural scripts that regulate identity and suppress personal agency.
Whippman (America’s Anxiety & Toxic Happiness)
The social construct of happiness enforces a coercive emotional script, creating anxiety and ensuring labor productivity.
Leighton & Hughes (Cultural Causation of Mental Illness)
Culture actively creates and enforces definitions of mental disorder through social sanctions and control mechanisms.
Hagen (PPD as an Evolutionary Response)
Depression and sadness function as social signals for unmet needs, demanding collective attention and support.
Good (Western Psychiatry’s Oversight of Cultural Contexts)
Mental illness models ignore systemic factors and instead individualize pathology rather than addressing societal dysfunction.
Snow, I. S.
Western Parenting Impacts on Human Development and Behavior: America’s Hidden Health Crisis
ODD & conduct disorder function as natural responses to coercive control, rather than inherent pathology.
Hagen & Barrett (Perinatal Sadness as Adaptive Distress Signal)
Emotional distress during childbirth serves as an adaptive mechanism to elicit social support.
Cassaniti (Mindlessness as Thai Idiom of Distress)
Mental distress is socially encoded and culturally relative, not a universal biological disorder.
Step 2: Identifying Common Themes Across All Theories
Each of these theories describes a social burden that has been pathologized, suppressed, or institutionalized within society. The common themes include:
Systemic Coercion and Control – Structures enforce compliance through coercive emotional, social, and economic scripts.
Marginalization of Resistance – Groups that resist or cannot conform are labeled as “dysfunctional” (e.g., ODD, suicide, mental illness).
Suffering as a Functional Mechanism – Distress, pathology, and even self-destruction (e.g., suicide, depression, defiance) serve to reinforce social stability.
Weaponization of Social Scripts – Cultural constructs (e.g., gender, happiness, mental health, economic productivity) are used to discipline individuals and enforce hierarchy.
Step 3: Defining the Unifying System
All of these “parts” fit within a single overarching system:
The System of Coercive Social Stability
This system maintains hierarchical stability through a balance of induced suffering, internalized oppression, and controlled resistance. It functions by:
Assigning Burdens to Marginalized Groups → Gendered oppression, pathologization of behavior, economic precarity.
Using Pathology as a Form of Social Control → Mental illness, suicidality, and emotional distress are framed as individual defects rather than systemic failures.
Enforcing Social Scripts that Reinforce Productivity → Coercive happiness, emotional suppression, and gender norms ensure compliance.
Creating Self-Perpetuating Mechanisms of Oppression → Those who resist are seen as deviant (ODD, mental illness, suicide) or are forced into reinforcing their own oppression.
This self-replicating cycle ensures that power structures remain intact while appearing to be natural.
Step 4: Naming the Category that Unifies All Parts
If we consider all of these issues as interconnected “parts” of a single system, we can categorize them under a unifying term:
“The Burdened Self: How Systems Enforce Stability through Coercion and Suffering”
This unifying category encapsulates how individual distress is co-opted into maintaining systemic control by:
Assigning suffering as a natural consequence of social organization (e.g., gender burdens, poverty, suicide).
Framing expressions of resistance as pathological disorders (e.g., ODD, perinatal sadness, defiance).
Suppressing alternative frameworks that could challenge systemic coercion (e.g., ignoring cultural interpretations of distress).
Maintaining social stability through suffering – society does not eliminate inequality, because inequality ensures hierarchical function.
Final Synthesis: The Unified Functional-Conflict Model
The System of Coercive Stability
This system is structured by four interlocking mechanisms:
Hierarchical Role Assignment: Gendered burdens, economic precarity, and mental distress are assigned unequally to maintain control.
Pathologization of Dissent: Those who resist social structures (e.g., defiant children, suicidal individuals, depressed mothers) are seen as flawed rather than as indicators of systemic dysfunction.
Coercive Emotional Control: Cultural scripts (e.g., happiness as labor, gender expectations, psychiatric definitions of distress) dictate acceptable emotions and behaviors.
Self-Perpetuation through Suffering: Distress, while appearing to be a problem, reinforces stability by preventing deeper social transformation.
This model explains why society does not address poverty, gender oppression, mental illness, or coercion at their roots—because these very forms of suffering are what keep the system stable.
Conclusion: Moving from Identification to Transformation
Now that we have defined the System of Coercive Stability, the next steps in Functional-Conflict analysis would be:
* Reintegrating the Exiled Parts – Addressing burdens instead of pathologizing them.
* Changing the Narrative of Suffering – Recognizing oppression as systemic, not individual.
* Transforming Coercion into Collaboration – Creating social structures based on equity rather than control.
Key Points and Summaries:
1. Gendered Burdens and Societal Disowning of Sexuality (Rizzo, 2021)
Alessio Rizzo’s work explores how gendered burdens function within society, particularly in shaping the ways individuals and cultures suppress or disown aspects of their sexuality. Rizzo applies Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory to examine how societal expectations and norms act as psychological burdens, influencing collective behavior and individual identity formation. Through this lens, societal issues such as gender inequality and repression of sexuality can be understood as legacy burdens that require acknowledgment and reintegration for collective healing.
Citation: Rizzo, A. (2021). Gendered burdens: How IFS (Internal Family Systems) sees burdens related to our biological gender. Retrieved from http://www.therapywithalessio.com
2. America’s Anxiety and the “Happiness Rat Race” (Whippman, 2012)
Ruth Whippman’s article, America the Anxious, critiques the American pursuit of happiness, arguing that the cultural obsession with achieving happiness paradoxically contributes to heightened anxiety. She describes this phenomenon as an “exhausting daily application of the Declaration of Independence,” where individuals are conditioned to see happiness as an active project rather than a natural state. The relentless drive for self-optimization and personal fulfillment creates societal pressure that undermines genuine well-being.
Citation: Whippman, R. (2012, September 22). America the Anxious. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
3. Social Sanctioning and Cultural Influences on Mental Disorders (Leighton & Hughes, 2005)
Leighton and Hughes explore the role of cultural determinants in shaping mental disorders. They argue that culture is not merely an interacting factor but an active force that dictates social norms and expectations, leading to the manifestation and maintenance of behavioral transgressions. Their research suggests that mental disorders are not purely biological but are significantly influenced by cultural contexts, social sanctions, and societal control mechanisms.
Citation: Leighton, A. H., & Hughes, J. M. (2005). Cultures as causative of mental disorder. The Milbank Quarterly, 83(4), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2005.00424.x
4. Postpartum Depression as an Evolutionary Adaptation (Hagen, 1999)
Edward Hagen challenges the Western psychiatric classification of postpartum depression (PPD) as a dysfunction. Instead, he argues that PPD serves as an evolutionary mechanism designed to elicit social support from kin and community members. According to his hypothesis, postpartum sadness or distress signals a mother’s need for additional assistance, improving her and her offspring’s survival chances. This perspective reframes PPD from a pathological condition to an adaptive social strategy.
Citation: Hagen, E. H. (1999). The functions of postpartum depression. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(5), 325-359. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(99)00016-1
5. Western Psychiatry’s Overlooked Sociocultural Factors (Good, 1997)
Byron Good critiques Western psychiatric models for their failure to account for sociocultural dynamics in the classification and treatment of mental illness. He argues that psychiatric frameworks such as the DSM-5 impose a universalist perspective that often disregards cultural idioms of distress. Good’s work highlights the necessity of incorporating anthropological insights into mental health research to better understand how different societies conceptualize and experience psychological distress.
Citation: Good, B. (1997). Studying mental illness in context: Local, global, or universal? Ethos, 25(2), 230–248. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1997.25.2.230
6. Western Parenting Impacts on Human Development and Behavior: America’s Hidden Health Crisis {Snow, I. S.)
My previous work suggests that Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder should not be viewed purely as pathological conditions but as natural adaptations to authoritarian and coercive control structures. In this framework, behaviors classified as disobedience or defiance may be expressions of resistance against oppressive social norms rather than inherent dysfunctions. This perspective aligns with broader critiques of psychiatric pathologization and reinforces the argument that behavior must be understood within its sociocultural context.
7. Evolutionary Perspective on Perinatal Sadness (Hagen & Barrett, 2007)
Hagen and Barrett extend Hagen’s evolutionary theories on postpartum depression to perinatal sadness. They argue that maternal distress and sadness during pregnancy and postpartum periods may serve a functional purpose in signaling unmet social or resource needs. Their findings among the Shuar people suggest that these emotions are not inherently pathological but rather evolved mechanisms for securing social support in times of increased vulnerability.
Citation: Hagen, E. H., & Barrett, H. C. (2007). Perinatal sadness among Shuar women: Support for an evolutionary theory of psychic pain. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(1), 22-40. https://doi.org/10.1525/MAQ.2007.21.1.22
8. Thai Buddhist Mindlessness as an Idiom of Distress (Cassaniti, 2019)
Julia Cassaniti examines the concept of mai mii sati (mindlessness) in Thai Buddhist culture, contrasting it with the Western emphasis on mindfulness as a marker of well-being. Her research reveals that mindlessness is locally understood as both an everyday lapse in attention and a deeper state of distress, sometimes linked to mental instability. Cassaniti critiques the Western adoption of mindfulness, arguing that it often strips the concept of its cultural and religious roots, leading to tensions in how it is applied in global mental health discourse.
Citation: Cassaniti, J. (2019). Keeping it together: Idioms of resilience and distress in Thai Buddhist mindlessness. Transcultural Psychiatry, 56(4), 697-722. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461519847050
Spirolateral 