Historical Persons Who May Have Been on the Spectrum

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I agree about Michael Jackson, that thought had already crossed my mind. Not so sure about Hitler though.

Richard Nixon, absolutely guaranteed.

Notorious for social ineptness, couldn't make small talk, always had to have "context" (like me...), numerous mannerisms, etc etc etc.

I've thought for a long time that Henry Ford had AS. He was a genius in mechanical tinkering, but he had little use for anything else. Very angry, very autocratic, insisted on living and forcing those around him to live by irrational rules. He once made a rule that all of his workers, if they owned a car, had to own a Ford. He fired all those who didn't. He was once put on the stand when he sued the Chicago Tribune (a newspaper) for calling him ignorant, and it was established that he didn't know basic facts about American history that back then every schoolboy would have known.

Other than Ford, I think Nikola Tesla was most definitely aspie. As for Nazis, the likeliest candidate seems to be Heinrich Himmler, at least in the upper leadership. Before the 20th century, too little is known about famous people to say definitively. Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis have both been suggested, but I think that they lived so long ago, over 200 years ago, that it's impossible to say. I think that some of the medieval popes had AS, especially since for a while the pontiffs were taken from the ranks of Christian monks, and monastic life seems to inherently appeal to aspies. We know too little about most popes to finger a specific person, but there seems to have been periods of intense infighting among the Holy Court, and then suddenly it would quiet down and there'd be relative peace. I would guess that the popes who were peaceful had AS.

Also, some saints seem to be good candidates. St. Francis of Assisi, which the American city of San Francisco is named in honor of, seems to have gotten along with animals better than people. Depictions of him inevitably show him surrounded by animals, and some texts indicate that he could somehow communicate with them. Also, St. Benedict reportedly became so disgusted with the depravity of the crumbling Roman Empire around 470 AD that he fled into the Alps and lived as a hermit. That sounds very aspie to me. More recently, Leo Tolstoy gave up wealth and privilege to walk among beggars, which inspired Chris McCandless of Into The Wild to do the same, and McCandless seems to have definitely have been on the spectrum.

Henry Ford even had the AS-look in his eyes, if you ask me:

http://www.team-nybz.se/Henry_ford_1919.jpg

I do not know if the name Arthur Schopenhauer will be recognised by many people on this forum or not. He was an influential nineteenth century German philosopher famed for his misanthropy and neglect of basic "nomal" human desires, he lived the last three decades of his life as a hermit in frankfurt but he claimed that noise and the distraction it caused was his greatest tormentor.

"The superabundant display of vitality, which takes the form of knocking, hammering, and tumbling things about, has proved a daily torment to me all my life long. There are people, it is true -- nay, a great many people -- who smile at such things, because they are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the very people who are not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art, in a word, to any kind of intellectual influence. The reason of it is that the tissue of their brains is of a very rough and coarse quality"

Quote from On Noise by A Schopenhauer.

I can not speak for any other Aspergians but i agree with Schopenhauer on the torment of noise, not just because it distracts from the train of thought but the physical effects it has. The unexpected rustling of a bag of crisps or a plastic carrier bag can at tmes be enough to enduce a reflex responce in me where my head will go down and my right arm will be raised to cover my ear, i can't control this it just happens and i get that same feeling you get when someone is runnng there nails down a blackboard, horrible, it's worse when i am tired and need sleep.

Of all the historical people i know, and there are many, Schopenhauer is the first to come to mind as someone who i suspect to have been on the spectrum. Second would be Nikola Tesla.

I can't cite where but I have read that when Hitler wasn't on a platform his affect was very flat and that when he was on stage he was stoked on meth.

EVERYBODY in Nazi Germany was hammered on meth, they gave it to the soldiers mixed in with chocolate and the soldiers would fight even if you blew their limbs off. They likely gave it to the citizens, that's why the German people tolerated what they did. Have you ever seen a meth den? Looks similar to a WAR ZONE, doesn't it? They gave it to practically everybody but the Jews in the camps. The leadership took it constantly. The soldiers took so much meth that in the end the crash was so bad that most died, either from the crash itself or by killing themselves. Ever wonder what happened to Nazi soldiers who survived the war? They died when they came down from the speed. By the way, if you see a meth freak in between binges, their affect will indeed be flat, because meth blows out the pleasure receptors in the brain and an addict can only experience joy while high. Some of the real loony stuff the Nazis did, such as putting transporting prisoners to the death camps ahead of feeding the soldiers in the field, probably was due to all the crank they were on.

I think they were right about Benjamin Franklin in the one list - look at that kite experiment! It was brilliant to realize that lightning was elctricity, but flying a kite with a key attached into the clouds during a thunderstorm was a pretty crazy thing to do.

Okay, Goring had a methadone addiction because of injuries suffered in the first world war (I think) and I know Hitler had his 'special doctor' which he claimed he couldn't do without (can't remember the drug though) but I'd be seriously intrigued if you have any sources to back up your claims? Even if you translate EVERYBODY to 10% of the population, I'd still be interested if you could back it up.

Speaking of Schopenhauer, I would also posit Nietzsche (based on his philosophy, particularly 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra').

Also:

- Kant
- Thoreau
- Syd Barrett
- Janis Joplin (It's creapy how much I can relate to her biography, 'Buried Alive' by Myra Friedman)
- Chris McCandless (of 'into the wild' fame... I relate to this guy too much, and he even looked like an aspie)

I've also heard Kafka mentioned... he certainly had the look, as well as obsessions and executive disfunction.

God. She has Profound Autism, and she's locked away in an institute away from the eyes of the general population.

Personally, I think people like Einstein probably had Schizoid PD rather than AS. They weren't impaired enough in the ways outlined. For example, look up Fritz V, who's a very smart boy and subsequently, man, and compare him to Einstein in the ways Autistic Psychopathy are defined.

huh?
do you know the distinction between meth and methadone?

evidence please. your post seems a little extreme.....

MattShizzle, I've heard a great deal of various historical people being within the spectrum yet, some of the people have come under a greater amount of scrutiny due to lack of evidence providing an accurate assesment of AS.Still, I like the idea of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, even Nikla Tesla and many more out there..


ProfessorX

Nikolai Tesla had the ability to conceive of a new invention, then create the plan to construct it in his mind (the first instance of this described in his autobiography was when, while a young man in Prague, he came up with the concept of the brushless alternator, which made AC power practical). Almost always, his prototype was also the finished product. This has made some of his later inventions difficult to duplicate, which is why some still give credence to Tesla's claim late in his life that he was working on a beam weapon that "could score the surface of Mars". He did not do well with people in general; if once slighted, he would remember forever (he never did forgive Edison for shorting him on royalties for some of the items Tesla developed while working for Edison's company). He was much more comfortable with animals; some feel that Tesla's greatest eccentricity was his great and abiding love for pigeons.

I would also nominate the second US President, John Adams, whose intellect was undeniable, but who often grated against his peers on a personal level. Many doubted his devotion to his wife, Abigail; he seemed unable to demonstrate affection if there were anyone else around. (Apparently he could demonstrate it in private, as they had several children.)

His son John Quincy Adams may have been among our number as well. They happen to both be direct ancestors of mine; given the heritability of AS, that may be the major branch of the family that contributed to who I am today (although my maternal uncles show many of the same traits).

What is "the look?" Is there a look?

To add to the Heinrich Himmler debate, I'm unconvinced about him but his wife seemed a real candidate. Very low social skill, difficulty expressing emotion and strangely obsessed with homeopathy, gardening and particularly obsessive about puzzle magazines. Perhaps this suggests an autistic might attract another autistic but suggests to me that he must have had particular similarities to autistic traits to connect with her while perhaps not being what you might phrase non-NT himself.