DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW? Uncovering Dialogue and Performance in ADHD Conspiracy Theories Master Thesis Comparative Cultural Analysis Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam Winnie Hänschen Amsterdam, 15 June 2016 Supervisor: Dr. Boris Noordenbos Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Theories of Advanced Exegetical Dubiety ...................................................................................... 12 Sedgwick's scepticism and Birchall's academic ................................................................................ 17 Towards a Bakhtinian dialogue ...................................................................................................... 23 Performing the Narrative, Narrating the Rupture ........................................................................... 26 2. ADHD is everywhere, aided by the fact that it doesn't exist ........................................................... 32 The empowering conspiracy ........................................................................................................... 34 Articulating incommensurability ..................................................................................................... 37 Dialogic Strategies ........................................................................................................................... 42 Revising the pedagogical: colliding empowerment .......................................................................... 47 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 55 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 59 Hänschen 2 Introduction I often fidget with my pen during meetings. I doodle during class. As a kid, I loved to run through Ikea, the library or any other large unknown space. I was on the go. I have difficulty waiting for my turn. I get restless in the supermarket standing in queues. I also talk to others during my job. Excessively. I demand all eyes be put on me at the start of everyone's day; it’s a part of my work. When I think about it, I fit the minimum of 5 criteria of hyperactivity according to the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 60). I have never been diagnosed with ADHD. I am not an expert in diagnosing ADHD, nor am I demonstrating how I fit in the first list of criteria on inattention. Personally, I like to think I am rather good at focusing my attention somewhere, but then again, in writing this introduction I have already diverted attention to several readings I want to refer to in the thesis and got engaged in an intense search for a quote I am certain I highlighted earlier. Then I realised I forgot the point I was trying to make with the reference and returned to my writing here. The question is not whether or not I have ADHD, nor do I concern it to be relevant to the reader. However, I was prompted to self-analysis by a remark in an article by Burton Norman Seitler, who proposes ADHD is not a neurological condition, but a collection of psychosocial symptomatic behaviours instead. He states “[…] most of us have exhibited one or more of the previous [referring to the DSM symptoms of ADHD he lists earlier] in our lives. Therefore, the terminology and description add nothing definitive that distinguishes ADHD from other behaviours” (116-17). Richard Saul, who describes himself as a “professor, clinician, and radio personality” (Saul n.p.) claims another truth about ADHD: it does not exist, but can instead be explained fully by other conditions that vary from bipolar disorders to vision problems (11). Hänschen 3 These examples are relatively recently published and written by medical professionals working in the field where ADHD is mostly diagnosed: pediatrics. In the same manner there are many more professionals who insist that ADHD is real and make cases to prove it. Russell Barkley for instance says in an interview with PBS: “there is no controversy among scientists who have devoted their careers to this disorder. No scientific meetings mention any controversies about the disorder, about its validity as a disorder, about the usefulness of using stimulant medications like Ritalin for it. There simply is no controversy.” (n.p.) Controversy or not, there is a lively discussion going on at the very least. This discussion about ADHD does not exist within solely the medical field itself. Outside of it discussions are vibrantly alive as well, albeit in different forms. For instance, Michael Voris of Church Militant TV says in a video that ADHD is a conspiracy of feminist extremism, as a campaign of “authentic masculinity,” and says that “older boys and younger men dance to the music of feminist rage.” According to him ADHD is part of a “feminazi education system”, diagnosing ADHD and medicating boys simply for being boys (Church Militant n.p.). In terms of content, ADHD conspiracy theories are plenty and diverse in their narratives. Characteristically, almost all of them find agency outside of the medical realm to which blame is assigned for the existence or (over)diagnosis of the disorder. What they contest is always another element, besides the medical, that relates to ADHD or the medicalisation of behaviour. Broadly speaking, they refer to capitalism, ethics, normativity and diagnostics (and name giving) and speaking for those outside the law, or more specifically: speaking for children. Some of these are easier to pinpoint than others; particularly the conflict of interest of the pharmaceutical industry and the normalisation of behaviour stand out. In relation to psychiatric disorders the past has already proven to us Hänschen 4 that ‘normal’ behaviour is subject to change over time. One can think of the abolishment of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder as an example, but also of the names ADHD has been given over the years, from hyperkinetic impulse disorder to ADD with hyperactivity, to ADHD. The fact that history has been proven 'wrong' before may prove why one would find more than comfort in positing a conspiracy theory on ADHD. That same normativity might be the reason for the so-called 'ADHD epidemic', that according to some is due to overdiagnosis of the disorder: you act different, you have a disorder. Normativity is also what prompts parents, teachers and caregivers of someone who is not yet legally competent to consult a specialist for analysis of behaviour. This specialist then gets to choose whether or not the child, without a voice of their own in the matter, needs medication for their behaviour. Besides the choice of the expert, it also pertains the difficulty of parents in having their child stigmatised and pressured to medicalise. ADHD conspiracy theories that are based on accusations of 'Big Pharma' drugging the masses clarify the difficulty of thinking only in right and wrongs: although pharmaceutical industries have a profit based business model, the product they offer is designed to make people better. Then again, when people are better, they would no longer need the product the pharmaceuticals designed for them. Viewed from a healthcare perspective the pharmaceuticals would eventually make themselves redundant and go bankrupt as a result. Read through a capitalistic lens, they would make no one better, make a disease out of every form of non-normative behaviour or physicality and design medication for it. Needless to say, conspiracy theories lean to the latter reading, arguing that the profit based business model creates a discrepancy that leads to overdiagnosing and medicalisation of behaviours that have more to do with money than with health, and that Hänschen 5 someone is using this to their own advantage by victimising others. The conspiracy theory is an explanation as to who that someone is. Thus, the conspiracy theory is based upon the idea that there is a form of agency in control over for instance the unfolding of an event or a part of everyday life, but that this agency remains hidden. What the conspiracy theorist claims is that she knows the truth about these hidden conducts or intentions, and about who is really benefitting. Facts are re- arranged, placed in a new context that incorporate other facts or pseudo-facts that enable the theorist to relate the event to an agent that operates behind the scenes, invisible to most of us, but at the very heart of what is actually going on. Of particular importance for my research here is that one of the specific characteristics of this unproven theory is that it is not the most dominant explanation of the facts. It is a reinterpretation of the facts that deliberately differs from that dominant interpretation. There are many different names you could give to the debates surrounding ADHD. I shall adhere to calling them all conspiracy theories here, in a very broad interpretation of the term, that includes both more outrageous theories of governments using Ritalin to control the population and more moderate challenges of medical experts that question the established pathology called ADHD. The elements they share are this recontextualising of the facts and deliberately looking for agency outside of the dominant mode of explanation. Recontextualising allows conspirational thinking about ADHD to move between a medical discourse and the outside