ADD and the Native Brain

One thing I learned how to do in my turbulent involvement in public health academia was how to read studies. And one thing that I have concluded by looking at the research in indigenous ADD is that there is very very little to conclude.

The reason for this is that native people are rarely studied, and when we are, we are often studied from the "sympathetic" point of view wherein we are presumed to "have" a terrible disorder, among so many other problems. There are exceptions*, but basically, that's the word.

The reason I was so interested in looking for this research in the first place is that I believe that the "attention deficit" in this picture is really in the attention lacking in the shoddy societal interface between a brain "design" that works well in particular environments, and a society that is in some ways the antithesis of those environments.

Of course, I started this hypothesis with myself. For example, I am personally at my best at land occupations, especially far away from civilization. When there's a lot of activity, a constant need for creative solutions, a constant connection to the 'aina, and a lot of focus on both ideas and basic human needs...I rock! I can cook for throngs of people, write press releases, compose songs, harvest foods nobody knew existed, organize supplies, do first aid, construct shelter, and hold meetings without even thinking. But in the rest of the world, it's another story. Ask me to do something simple like show up on time for work or turn in a rebate form, and it's like you asked me to run a marathon on one foot. I'll try and try, only to stumble over one obstacle after another in the obscene number of convoluted steps it takes to make these things happen. And usually, despite my best efforts, I fail miserably in the end.

Being a native person, I can't help but feel that my brain is better designed for native ways. Sometimes I get involved in events that require me to go gathering for days on end, and I'm better than fine. I'm in my element. Sure, I might forget to eat, but so what? The food will taste that much better when I finally get there! But do NOT send me on a Costco shopping run. I will stand there with that humungous shopping cart in the middle of the store, completely forgetting what I was supposed to buy and where I put my list, tripping out on the size of everything and the aggressive consumer manner of the people, hearing the tones of harmonic dissonance created by the collective sum of loud noises in the store, and panicking. Then I'll see something -- a package of towels, a new tent, or a set of tools -- that will spark an idea. And then...well, you know...it's all over!!!

There's been quite a bit of controversy about a concept, originally developed by Thomas Hartmann in the 1970's, that ADD is basically a "hunter" prototype, and that the rest of society fits better into a "farmer" type of brain. The idea is that "hunter" characteristics -- hyperfocusing, impulsivity, noticing "trivial" stimuli, etc. -- fit better into the hunting/gathering lifestyle than they do into the farming (and subsequently industrial) lifestyle that basically replaced it. Of course, large sections of the ADD community were offended by the implication that we are somehow less evolved; this offense was worsened by the fact that some serious (and seriously lolo) "social Darwinist" weirdos jumped on the idea, some apparently even saying that ADD people were so backward that we should not have children. Some native people were also offended that their traditions were being compared with ADHD. The whole thing turned into kinda a mess.

For myself, I've read Dr. Hartmann's original work and his commentary afterward, and I have to say that, while I think he could have been a lot more careful with his words in the beginning, he's pretty much on it. I somewhat disagree with the "farmer" part -- it's too broad. The industrialized farming we know of today fits the theory, and Euoropean feudal farming may have, too, but native farming such as -- generally -- that of my Kanaka Maoli culture is not so far from our ADD brain type (though, well, you might not know it by looking at my garden right now!). Anyway, I think the real point is that there is something to the relationship of person and environment, and ADD people are definitely ones for making decisions based on which way the wind is blowing.

I feel that, setting the hunter/farmer thing aside for a moment, there is something very indigenous about ADD. This is not to say in any way that native people who are not ADD are in any way less indigenous; it's just that I strongly believe that the ADD brain type has always been one important part of native cultures, probably fulfilling a role that is largely missing, at this moment in history, from our colonized worlds. I believe that the rebirth of this role -- in a functional, integrative paradigm -- will be a key to creating strong, spiritually grounded, truly self-sufficient native communities (you know, the kind that scare the shit out of the government, who then has to figure out ways to make life hard for us again), who will in turn be a key -- along with the other ADD folks, native or not -- to helping the world as a whole out of the disaster we're all in.

Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds kinda tan-taran, and all that -- are the orchestral synths gonna start playing now or what? But, well, lemme ask you this: Anybody got a better plan?

So, anyway, I think the hunting thing is partly true. Partly. What I think might be more accurate (and relevant to the present tense) is that we are the "niche" people -- whether hunters, healers, farmers, messengers, artisans, shamans, storytellers, navigators or computer-tweaking native cyber-geeks, who hold a particular kuleana in a craft or practice, which "normal" training alone cannot provide. As such, we are crucial to the function and evolution of societies -- especially those that are enmeshed with nature.

The problem is that the globalized, assembly-line society that is now colonizing us doesn't like niches much. Niches are bumpy in texture and they tend to jam up the conveyor belts and shopping lines. You don't need to train factory workers to be niche people. You don't need to train anyone to be a niche person if all you want them to do is follow orders. Just give them the damn drugs!!!

I believe that just as we need to make serious changes in our collective perception of what ADD is -- starting with the self-perceptions of ADD people ourselves -- serious changes are also needed in the understanding of what it is to be indigenous -- again, starting with native people, ourselves. Both paradigms need a helluva lot of expansion, and through this expansion I believe that they will come together. Indigenous cultures are far too often referred to in the past tense, even by native people. When we start to internalize our own self-understanding as that of the people who not only have been part of the land we stand on since time immemorial, but also the people who will continue that chain far far into time unforseeable, responsible for the integration of others into our paradigm, then I think we'll get a better grasp of the here-and-now, and I think that ADD -- as a dimensional design, not as a deficit or a disorder -- needs to be part of that picture.

But I'm biased, okay?