Synaesthesia Stuff

Why I don't like the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2065205/Disorder-makes-people-smell-colours-seven-times-common-artists--evolved-ideas.html

I don't know how to get this link to work, but basically, if you type 'smelling colours' into Google, this delightful article comes up. It is offensive, misguided and inaccurate in a number of ways.

First off, synaesthesia is not classified as a disorder, as the writer clearly knows, since they later use the word in inverted commas. This implies that they are using the word for - I dunno, dramatic effect? Anyway, it reeks of using medical terms as an insult, when there is nothing wrong with the many neurodiversties that are classified as disorders.

On a similar note, the article likes to call synaesthesia a 'syndrome', 'condition' and 'phenomenon'. Basically anything except its actual name. Do not use the term syndrome as if it means nothing. And don't use patronising labels such as condition either, it makes me so mad.

You can read the article yourself to decide if I'm overreacting, but here are some of the other highlights for anyone who can't be bothered or doesn't want to give the Daily Mail more reads than necessary.

Synesthetes are apparently 'sufferers' now, we can have 'episodes' of synaesthesia, and we also have a 'mutant gene'.

I don't know about you, but the only suffering I do is when crazy (or, in their terms, normal) people write in random colours. Yes, synaesthesia can be inconvenient sometimes, but this is taking it too far.

I also don't appreciate the writer's lackadaisical attitude to the definition of synaesthesia, and 'mutant' has undertones of 'superior' or 'alien' that kind-of make me want to roll my eyes. Yes, genes mutate, but the is the Daily Mail, so you know they're doing it for effect. Also, research into synaesthesia does not focus on genes, it focuses on neural pathways so... (Yes, I know it all links back to genes eventually, but still.)

All in all, their language choices smack of trying to medicalise synaesthesia and turn it into the sort of 'condition' people (generally wrongly) assume is bad.

This writer also clearly doesn't see the distinction between drug-induced synaesthesia and permanent synaesthesia. There is little evidence that they are caused by the same thing, and, considering the supposed point of the article, I don't think creative ideas coming out of drugs are quite the sort of thing society was looking for.

I'm aware that I'm rambling here, so I will try to wrap up, but there was just one more point I wanted to make. The article seems rather obsessed with the idea that synaesthesia evolved with the 'purpose' of giving us out-there ideas. The 'hidden agenda' of synaesthesia, as they put it. While this seems rather over-dramatic, it also has worrying similarities to the principle applied to many neurodiversties. Namely, they are only good as long as they benefit the majority.

In fact, difference in general we tend to value in terms of how it benefits us. I think we all need to stop being so self-centred and just take a step back to marvel at the sheer wonderful uniqueness that is humanity.

(Also, unrelated to synaesthesia, Marilyn Monroe is much more than someone's wife. Please update your sexist views, writer.)