How can someone with Aspergers be left-wing?

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some Asperger traits:

-Perseveration and difficulties with change
-low agreeability
-logical thinking

now a leftists is someone who WANT change,who want to live in a COLLECTIVE over INDIVIDUALISTIC world where everyone help everyone and about logical thinking...LOL

not all aspies are logical. i am not logical in the least, yet i am as aspie as the summer day is long. let us not stoop to yet more aspie purity pissing contention.

In personal circumstances, not in the broader sense. I am quite comfortable, for example, with the constant improvements in Information Technology or the passing of seasons - the latter being a fairly accurate description of politics in the west.



This point doesn't make much sense to me. I think you need to explain why you think it is relevant.



Logical thinking incorporates morality, personal experience and personal ideals.



Usually when somebody requests 'change' in political terms, what they mean is 'improvement', or 'something better' - which we all want. This is why most political campaigns run by the challenging party/parties focus on the mistakes of the previous regime and suggest they can do a better job.

Libertarianism is about individual identity as much as it is about a social collective. And besides, I would argue that a large number of people with Asperger's actually wish to belong to some form of collective - that we congregate here is proof enough - yet lack the skills necessary to do so. We are often solitary out of necessity, not out of choice.

It actually seems less logical for people with Asperger's to support a political ideology that prominently supports capitalism (many of us have a hard time holding down jobs), religion (faith without evidience: is this logical?) and inequality.

N.B. I'm aware that not all Republicans fall exactly into those three categories, but these are common views or agendas I have encountered or witnessed from the political right in the US.

One of the aspie trait you forgot is the love/need to control.

One can make a very compelling case that the stable labour market certain centre-leftists (particularly those who favour Saxon Model social democracy) advocate is A LOT more conducive to people with Asperger's then the very insecure one that Anglo-American New Right policies have brought about.



While many leftists advocate a cooperative society, leftism generally has a morally individualist streak to it. The ideal cooperativist society of the left tends to involve a lot less conformism then present society (take, for instance, the common stereotype that the radical left hates sports).



Extreme conservatives generally tend to hate facts, numbers, and rational arguments the most (just look at the Con Artists's in Canada's attempts to destroy the Long-Form Census). In the 1960s certain "actionist" segments of the ultra-radical grassroots left did harbour a distrust of the technocracy, so you might have a (depreciating) point, perhaps renewable if you look at the woolly thinking of the "sandel-wearing segments of the Green movement", to quote Richard Dawkins. John Kenneth Galbraith, a centre-left economist, is one of the few figures with any philosophically ideological bend to defend technocrats, to provide a rather stark counter-example.

Last edited by Master_Pedant on 05 Nov 2010, 10:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm always amazed at how 'logic' gets conflated issues of values or worldview. Logic is easy; it's usually easy to get that right. What is harder is thinking about initial assumptions, especially the ones the don't realize you're making at first.

With one set values as a starting point the logical thing to do is move toward totalitarian communism. With another, the logical thing to do is kill the elderly and disabled.

When I was a kid I was very rule-bound, but I kept running into situations where a system of logic, with simple, fixed assumptions, would keep leading to horrible conclusions (like killing the elderly, or forced sterilization). So, I'd try to prop up the ideology with some clever argument, but eventually it would become mass of 'patches' made up of increasingly convoluted arguments.

Eventually, I realized that there isn't a simple set of assumptions that, with logic, will tell you what the best kind of world/society is like. The fact that an ideology adheres very logically to it's assumptions is not a measure of how desirable the world it would create is.

That feeling of elegance and symmetry is great -- when writing computer code, or doing math or physics or whatnot. But IMO it's no good when it comes to designing societies; you have to keep your eye on the reality, not the abstract theory, in order to do that right. It's always going to be a messy, inelegant affair.

I think that's why pure ideologies always seem to fail, i.e. pure communism, laisse-fair capitalism, etc.

Sounds like an analog to Gödel's incompleteness theorems, but for politics.

You can't have a complete and consistent set of axioms that logically lead to your desired political views. And for any finite set of core beliefs/values, there will be policy positions you support but cannot defend in terms of those core beliefs.

That's about as liberal as you can get.

Capitalism isn't exactly individualistic. Nor are right-wingers overly logical.

That can be said for any large group of people.


Particularly if they've been ingesting much American media.

You've overlooked a few things. As an Aspie who also trends to the left (we do exist, believe it or not), I can tell you some things connected to AS that probably have influenced my political leanings.

First of all, you argue that logical thinking, as an Aspie trait, is one reason Aspies would be dissuaded from adopting a liberal view. However, my logical nature is precisely one of the reasons I do consider myself a liberal. My worldview is informed by empiricism, science, and reason rather than a religious framework. To me, the conservatives who say that global climate change is a hoax when glaciers are visibly melting and the scientific community has a consensus opinion on the issue are the ones who aren't being logical. To me, the conservatives who claim that the jury is still out on evolution are the ones being irrational. There is observable evidence that contradicts these claims. To discard observable evidence just because it doesn't conveniently support your presuppositions is illogical.

Secondly, liberals tend to put a high priority on the protection of the equal rights of people who by one metric or another are in a misunderstood minority. This appeals to me, because, as an Aspie, I fall into that criterion of being part of a misunderstood minority. Where I grew up, I was persecuted for who I was everyday-- I wasn't aware of my diagnosis at that point, but there was much about me that got me labeled an outsider, and I'm sure my AS (whether I knew I had it or not) was part of that. I know how it feels to be constantly persecuted by people who outnumbered me. Early on, I grew intolerant of that sort of treatment, and I vowed to myself if I ever got out of the situation, I would fight to make things better for others who were also maligned for being minorities or outsiders. How, then, could I ever in good conscience turn a blind eye to the gay community's fight for equal acceptance, or women, or ethnic minorities?

I am an artist. None value individuality more than I do. But just because my social skills are lacking and I am cynical of most people's motives, it does not mean I am blind to the realization that, for better or for worse, to some degree, every person is interconnected. I would have killed myself out of despair long ago if I had not had a moral support structure of friends and family, and I would not be the person I am today without the education (some publicly funded, some privately) and public services from which I have benefited. I feel I am obliged to the people who have gotten me this far, to not squander the opportunities I've been given.

I whole-heatedly support your right to help a misunderstood minority, but am I contractually obligated to do so by my mere existence? Why do you support the use of violence against me if I choose not to support your personal political goals?

But it's a strong characteristic of the conservative mind to conflate being a philistine with being logical. They have this weird notion that having a soul and having a highly logical mental faculty are mutually exclusive.

i agree with this.

and this:

I don't, and I never said I did. I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in violence as a means of solving problems or settling differences, except as an absolute last resort. You may have your own perspective and your own priorities. You may have your own beliefs. That is fine. I think it's perfectly possible to coexist. I think our differences are what make each of us essential to a healthy and vibrant society. I respect you for your beliefs so long as you extend me the same courtesy. The only time I really don't condone ideological differences is when the ideology endorses the forcible intrusion on others' rights of personal security, free expression, privacy, and free will.

The Right does not believe really in individualism. They want the corporate boss deciding all. Right wing courts decided for instance that Fox News reporters must tell lies for their bosses because the owners' free speech rights demand it. The Right demands a very unstable world - Asperger people would have quite a bit more trouble in such a world. So Asperger people should be left wing if they have their self-interest at heart. The only exceptions I can see are those who are so utterly brilliant in something and to the point where the world is at their feet completely and of course social deficits don't somehow spoil things.