An interesting historic Asperger case: Anton Bruckner

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Since first listening to Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony (for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvvzwbcSPo&feature=related) I've been in love with his music. It's very monumental and impressive, as well as often deeply moving.

Reading about his life (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Bruckner) I've come to the conclusion that he possibly had AS. Of course it's virtually impossible to get a reliable diagnosis for people who've been dead for such a long time, but his case seems far more convincing to me than Mozart's (which for some reason is quoted awfully many times). What do you think?

The only thing I would say at this point is we should be really cautious when diagnosing people from beyond the grave. I've seen the idea that anyone who ever did something cool must have had ASD or bipolar disorder becoming a lot more prevalent; not to say that your off base with this particular assumption.

Yes, I fully realize that this is very tricky. But if we're going to do it anway, and many people do, then Bruckner is a whole lot more convincing a case than is Mozart. I've never seen any solid evidence that Wolfgang was indeed an Aspie, or even remotely resembled one. While Bruckner's very bad record with the women, his "rustic" ways, and his obsession with counting everything (like leaves on trees, stones in the pavement) seem like at least Aspie-like behavior. I'm not saying that he was, just that he's a more likely candidate than Mozart.

That's a good point. Accepting that people are going to persistently label these people is probably best. I doubt it would help but it makes me somewhat interested in making a thread with a semi-official list of people that may have been aspies, based off more than a marginal amount of information; at least something to discuss why Bruckner was, and why George Washington and Ben Franklin most likely were not.

Yes, you're right. In addition, having a list of relatively reliable historic aspies serves two purposes: first, it may become an inspiration for aspie kids and adolescents that their lives can become successful and productive; second, it's just excellent propaganda for the outside world, to show that not only "losers" or ordinary people get AS, but that many architects of our culture had it as well. The main condition is of course that the cases be substantiated by carefully checking relevant details of the persons' lives against the diagnostic criteria.