My first degree was botany, back in the 1980s. We learned classification. Most of the time, we looked for particular features to say 'is this'; sometimes we looked for absence of features to say 'not this'.
Fast forward to my first art class since school, a one-off taster to celebrate the new millenium. I learned you can draw by looking what is inside the lines; but it can be more effective to get the shape by looking at what is outside the lines.
I am autistic. I know that because I looked for the features that say 'is this'. To be autistic is to possess a variety of features, traits, ways of seeing the world that are sufficiently distinctive to allow classification as 'autistic'.
I have autism. I know that because the NHS looked for features that say 'not this'. The clinical diagnositc process starts with a presumption of what 'normal' means and then looks for features and traits that are considered 'not normal'. My diagnostic process was for autism, so the process looked for ways that autistic people are typically 'not normal'. If it had been the diagnostic process for ADHD, the process would have looked for other ways in which I was typically 'not normal'. [I opted not to repeat the diagnostic process with a different team with a different ethos, given all that is on offer locally for adults with ADHD that isn't available from the autism service for those with AuDHD = both autistic and ADHDer - is medication]
I find this difference between being autistic and having autism is easiest to understand through the lens of neurodiversity.
When I say I am autistic, I am saying that variation in ways of perceiving, making sense of and interacting within the world is naturally occuring. I am an orange in the fruitbowl of life where variation in types of fruit is naturally occuring.
When I am told I have autism, they are saying that there is a normal (neurotypical) and that's not me. I am neurodivergent. I do not fit their model of normal. I am an orange in a fruitbowl where apples are the only permitted fruit.
One day, when societies recognise the naturally occuring variety of neurotypes, to say someone is neurodivergent will be meaningless because there will be no neurotypical and therefore no divergence from the typical.
In the meantime, I am proudly neurodivergent. I believe society needs people who see social issues from multiple perspectives and can co-create solutions. This means society needs a diversity of people with the full diversity of neurotypes working together on these social issues. In some places, this is called thought-diversity (as opposed to group-think) or having different cognitive maps (as opposed to sharing a team cognitive map).
The bottom line is that if society keeps thinking using a limited set of perspectives, society will keep getting the same old results. Problems that have defied solution will continue to defy solution.
Perhaps the first step towards this future would be switching to a 'is this' form of classification that values each person for who they are, rather than a 'not this' that defines people by what they are not.
Who knew that a 1980s botany course, drawing on 17th century botanical principles, could be so relevant to policy design in 2022?
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