Asperger’s dual legacy need not be resolved into savior or Nazi

Evidence

The dual nature of Asperger’s character now haunts the autism literature: Was he Jekyll or Hyde? Savior or Nazi? Light or shadow? The scholars continue to debate the point, but there is no need to choose: he can be both that and this; they are not in conflict. The autistic scholar Anna de Hooge writes this of the two faces of Asperger, the man whose name branded many people like her, until “Asperger’s syndrome” was struck from the diagnostic manuals: “I am interested in the underlying ideology that made him decide which children were to be saved, and which were to be sent off to Spiegelgrund. What is more, I am interested in the way this ideology lives on.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 705

Categorization

• XREF: Shows Klein’s analytic device applied to a second historical figure after Roth/Demjanjuk — the doubling lens as method, refusing the Jekyll/Hyde forced choice.