The Devil Is in the Detail
This article explores neurodivergence through a systems lens, examining the psychology behind the pathologisation of difference and how misinterpretation and fragmentation can perpetuate broader harm
SYSTEMSCONSCIOUSNESSPSYCHOLOGY
Alexandra Chambers
8/14/20263 min read
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell (c. 1490–1510). Museo del Prado, Madrid. Public domain.
The more independently verifiable mechanisms that converge on the same functional architecture, the less adequate coincidence becomes as an explanation. Large-scale harm could emerge through networks of institutions, organisations and individuals, each responsible for only one part of a much larger system. It is shocking to think that so many people actively participate in harmful systems without fully recognising what they are part of. We would need to consider how this could happen, and who would be most likely to question the narrative in this instance.
A major factor lies in fragmentation. Read between the lines. Fragments lie.
Modern systems divide knowledge into departments, disciplines, professions and chains of authority. Each person may possess a fragment of the picture without ever becoming conscious of the whole. Consciousness is not exposure to information, that information has to be integrated. A person can encounter ten separate anomalies and experience them as ten unrelated events. Another may connect those same observations and suddenly recognise a pattern. The information has not necessarily changed. What has changed is the level at which it has been integrated into conscious understanding. Fragmented systems therefore make recognition inherently more difficult.
Information environments can intensify this. Propaganda does not require crude lies. It can operate through framing, repetition, omission, selective emphasis, emotional association and control of language. These processes influence which connections people are encouraged to make, which explanations appear reasonable and which questions become socially uncomfortable. Even when someone does connect the dots, recognition does not automatically produce disclosure. Institutions contain mechanisms that regulate information: confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure clauses, hierarchical approval systems, professional expectations, reputational pressures and employment consequences. Many have legitimate purposes, but collectively they can also make speaking against an institution materially costly.
Then there is horizontal policing. People do not need to be silenced exclusively from above. Colleagues, communities and members of the public can enforce prevailing assumptions themselves through ridicule, exclusion, reputational punishment or the dismissal of dissent as irrational, difficult or dangerous. This is where the issue of neurodivergence becomes particularly important.
Human cognition does not divide cleanly into two homogeneous categories called neurodivergent and neurotypical. Neurological development exists across enormous multidimensional genomic variation. Even within a single diagnosis, people differ profoundly in perception, communication, cognition, sensory processing, behaviour, support requirements and ability. Yet societies inevitably construct normative expectations around how people should learn, communicate, work, respond to authority, tolerate environments and interpret social situations. Once those expectations are treated as the standard, people who diverge from them can easily become framed as the problem.
The question often asked is "Why can’t this person adapt?" rather than "Why does this system require such a narrow range of people to adapt successfully to it?"
Difference can then be labelled as deficit.
A person questions an arbitrary rule and is described as rigid. They ask for an explanation rather than accepting convention and are described as difficult. They reject an incoherent hierarchy and are described as oppositional. They notice contradictions others have accepted and their interpretation is treated as abnormal. This does not mean neurodevelopmental diagnoses are socially invented. Some people experience significant disability and require substantial lifelong support. However, impairment, difference and environmental incompatibility are not interchangeable concepts. A person may experience disability in one domain, heightened capability in another and unnecessary limitation produced by an inflexible environment in a third.
The point is that cognitive diversity increases the number of ways from which a system can be perceived. Systems organised around a narrow conception of acceptable cognition may struggle with people who do not automatically reproduce their assumptions. When the surrounding system is presumed correct, disagreement can become individualised. Instead of asking whether the criticism reveals something about the institution, attention turns toward the characteristics of the person making it. At its most extreme, this creates a self-protecting logic whereby the act of questioning the normative becomes evidence that there is something wrong with the person questioning it. No central conspiracy is required. Once institutions establish definitions of normality, professionalism, functionality, reasonableness and appropriate behaviour, those definitions can reproduce themselves through schools, healthcare, workplaces, media, families and communities.
Eventually, people police one another, and sometimes even themselves.
People may notice individual pieces throughout the entire process, but they may not connect them. Some who do connect them may remain silent. Some who speak may find that attention diverts from the substance of what they are saying to whether they are the kind of person whose perception should be trusted. Large structures are rarely revealed by one spectacular piece of evidence. They become visible through accumulated patterns: language, incentives, omissions, procedures, contradictions, conflicts, silences and recurring outcomes. Seen separately, each detail may appear insignificant. Seen together, they can produce an entirely different level of consciousness.
The deeper challenge is to build systems capable of tolerating human variation, genuine scrutiny and disagreement without automatically translating difference into dysfunction. Sometimes the person struggling within the system requires support. Sometimes the environment requires adjustment. Sometimes the person questioning the system has noticed something the system itself has failed to see. Or all three simultaneously.
The devil is in the detail - because ultimately the detail is what makes the bigger picture visible.