Emanuele Franz
Volcanic philosopher, publisher (is the founder of the Audax publishing editor), craftsman, promoter of cultural competitions and restorer of ancient books: Emanuele Franz, 43 years old from Moggio Udinese, in Friuli, is a unique character in the Italian cultural panorama. As proof of this uniqueness, there is also the way in which, recently, he has faced a diagnosis of autism: by writing a book (“The autistic ego“It is the title), through which he wanted to tell the journey that led him to discover his neurodactiveness and, at the same time, to read it not as a limit but as an engine of creative and spiritual potential. We take advantage of his courtesy to ask him to tell us this experience.
You have received a diagnosis of autism only recently. How did you find out?
“The official diagnosis came in 2025, but the journey was very long. Since childhood I had ‘different’: I could not be with others, I spoke with my language, I lived in an inner world. This led me to years of consultations with psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, each with a different diagnosis: who spoke of mental retardation, who of depression. Children like me, if not trying to be ‘normal’.
What are the main misunderstandings about autism, in your opinion?
“There is still a lot of confusion. There is above all serious and school cases, while the wide range of autistici is ignored which, with difficulty, find a balance. There is a dominant stereotype that sees us as silent beings, demented, isolated beings. Instead the autism has intelligence and also social intentionality, but has difficulty negotiating the information between the internal and external world. This is not caused by trauma, vaccines or cultural factors: intrinsic operation of the nervous system.
You support that autism is not only a neurological, but also spiritual divergence. In what sense?
“In my book ‘The autistic self’, written with the neuroscientists Sergio Zanini and Franco Fabbro, and with the epistemologist Silvano Tagliagambe, explores the link between autism and synaesthesia: the ability to perceive sounds or images such as physical sensations. It is a typical perceptual method of autistic, which breaks the barriers between imagination and reality and promotes a type of radical creativity. To collaborate with Susanna Tamaro, who discovered that he is autistic after 40 years of age. by the Municipality “.
Propose, it seems to understand, a revolutionary vision: autism as a resource and not as disadvantage. Why is this perspective still so difficult to accept?
“Because the autism is not predictable. And this disturbs. Marketing, politics, the educational system are based on cause-effect patterns. But the autistic does not react as ‘expected’: it is not persuadable with the tools of mass consensus. It is a creator, non-compliant. And therefore, in a society that measures the value on adaptability and on collective performance, it is only in this way. of society – one that recognizes the value of individuality, of the unique contribution – the autistic not only would be skilled, but even essential.
What do you propose, then, for a more harmonious coexistence with neurodactiveness?
“A new social model. Not a uniform community, but a real community, where each individual retains his indivisibility. A small nucleus in which everyone offers its own contribution remaining himself. Autism must be recognized as a different way – not less – to process the world. It requires adaptations, of course, but returns to the society an extraordinary wealth. After all, many great thinkers – from Nietzsche to Hölderlin – have not been able More to return to a ‘normal life’.