I see cognitive liberty as a core value of the Neurodiversity Movement.
The term cognitive liberty was coined by Wrye Sententia and Richard Glen Boire, the founders of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics. Cognitive liberty as an ethical value boils down to the idea that individuals have the right to absolute sovereignty over their own brains and their own cognitive processes. Advocates of cognitive liberty often break this idea down into two fundamental guiding ethical principles (originally inspired by the two “commandments” offered by Timothy Leary in The Politics of Ecstasy):
- Individuals have the right to not have their brains and cognitive processes tampered with non-consensually.
- Individuals have the right to tamper with their own brains and cognitive processes, or to voluntarily have them tampered with, in any way they choose.
Those of us who are deeply involved in transformative somatic practices or in the field of Somatic Psychology understand that the psyche is somatically organized, which means that each individual’s distinctive neurocognitive processes are intimately entwined with that individual’s style of movement and embodiment. Changes in movement and embodiment create changes in cognition.
This means that to tamper with a person’s unique individual style of movement and embodiment (for instance, through the behaviorist techniques that are frequently used to make autistic children suppress the outward signs of autism) is to tamper with that person’s cognition, and thus to violate their cognitive liberty.
In other words, freedom of embodiment—that is, the freedom to indulge, adopt, and/or experiment with any styles or quirks of movement and embodiment, whether they come naturally to one or whether one chooses them—is an essential element of cognitive liberty, and thus an essential area of focus for the Neurodiversity Movement. The freedom to be autistic necessarily includes the freedom to give bodily expression to one’s neurodivergence.
Walker, Nick. Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities (pp. 142-143). Autonomous Press.
Neuroqueering as somatic praxis has been central to my conception of neuroqueer from the start.
Walker, Nick. Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities (p. 165). Autonomous Press.
