Limitations of Aspergers can be overcome!

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No, it's not.

Well what is the common cause? There is no cause that causes foreign people to learn the wrong social skills for the society they grow up in. Sure they can be wrong if they switch societies. But its very very different.



Then what is it? All your posts go on about how our skills aren't deficient and that its a myth. Its what started it all. What is it?

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think your point is purely based on perceiving something from a different angle, and I don't agree with that perception.

Now that I've pointed out to you that the common cause I was drawing attention to is not neurology, you replaced one red herring for another.

You've already said that you don't care about my point, so why you're making a superifcial effort to clarify things I don't know. You have gone so far down one route of what I possibly meant which you invented that nothing can be made clear to you. Reading that post again would be the obvious solution but I just don't think it will work.

Lol, not THAT post. You have to go back even earlier than that.

Now tell me that post doesn't look like you're making the point that I said.

I thought that the reason there were communication difficulties in autism is because our brains are wired up differently ie. we don't have as many connections. We have to work a lot harder to integrate all the information we get from the outside world and our inner world. It is like having a really old computer and trying to run the latest programmes on it.

Danlo, that make sit even less clear than before. I can't tell you if my post looks like it's making the point you say it did because you're never very clear about what that point supposedly is.

So you believe Deaf people have deficient social skills? I think I'm disagreeing that the Deaf have deficient social skills, I think there is nothing inherently wrong with their social skills. Trying to convey anything to you have been exasperating as you make up conversations as you go along and have contradicted yourself twice already and it's confusing. In this latest post you have once again replaced one incorrect inference with another.

The post you have quoted is me explaining how any person being viewed from the biases invented at the time will meet the low expectations of them, there is no accurate observation proving a deficeit in any core skills. Basically:

You will not find a study objectively proving a foriegn person is deficient, nor a Deaf person, or a woman, a child or an Autistic. In modern times all but one of these groups are no longer presumed to be defective or dysfunctional in the eyes of science, but there is no valid reason for this group to be singled out.

If this were true than it would be impossible for an Autistic person in any circumstances to perform well socially, but this is not the case; circumstances play a large part in one's ability to be heard clearly. In places where the rules of inter-personal contact is uniform this isn't a problem, Aspie children especially are credited with following rules to the letter in many places; play 'Simon Says' with them and you will lose and if there's more than one Aspie they will be at it for hours, so it's best to call draw after twenty minutes.

The whole subject of the brain's structure and how it impacts on skills is a bit of a chicken and the egg dilemma: does effective socialising make the relevant connections or does having the connections make socialising a breeze? I'd say that the evidence says it's a bit of the former and a lot of the latter; NTs do not in fact know how to socialise instinctively, they have to learn it and they do so at a suprisingly late age. Some people may be fooled into thinking a small child socialising lots with others has good social skills only to find out they are merely pushy and unpopular as a result, it often takes until their teens before anyone spots it. It has been noted that the way Aspies often develop one-to-one relationships is envied. People think if you have MORE friends then you must be a better socialiser, when all it means is that you're developing a group relationship where your actualy knowledge of individual members will be diluted. NTs do group relationships, we do one-to-one.

Some things to bare in mind:

What you wear is not considered a social skill in any western country. For someone to comment on how you are dressed is poor manners, even if it's out of your earshot. The problem here is that among the insecure and immature, it seems to be a big deal, but they are never going to make it into high society. You should be considerate and careful about your presentation, but even if you come in wearing something like Mila Jovovich's 'loo-roll' costume from the fifth element it is still very poor taste for anyone to comment unless their opinion is sought by you, in which case you should do it in a quiet corner. The one exception to this is if it is a hospital where you may present a hygience hazard or a religious building where you may be offensive with how you dress. The verdict is: Autistics have got it right.

It is inconsiderate for someone to publicly invite someone else to any function, but it is also bad manners for someone to refuse the invite publicly; both people would be guilty of building eveyone's hopes up and then disappointing. Should this ever happen to you, agree to the invite publicly but then tell the invitor that you will not be able to attent privately. It would be very crass for the invitor to then make a scene. In fact, it is poor taste to draw mass attention to one person for any reason as it is overwhelming(even for an NT), puts them on the spot and is alienating. The verdict is: The Autistics have got this right too.

In fact, I have always had trouble working out just what it is Autistics are doing wrong when NTs repeatedly break significant rules of being a gentleman/lady. I have since discovered that the lack of social skills in many Autistics is because they are trying to learn them from NTs that don't really know how to behave either. NT interactions appears to be degenerative: they form groups and establish a hiarchy(which is also bad manners) and agree on rules that are made as they go. When differences within the group become irreconcilable the group splits into two even smaller rival groups and it keeps going until they are all left individually. To get round this degeneration problem they devised this means of selective memory where they forgot who said what about who(not knowing that this is poor social skills) and pretend it never happened. This in no way addresses the difficult issues, so they are bound to crop up again and again.

Three terrible social fallacies of NTs:

1. Agree to disagree: If two doctors disagree with each other on what to do about an allergic reaction and one of them is obviously insane and thinks amputating both legs is the answer, agreeing to disagree doesn't make things any better. The same goes in social interaction, the agree to disagree fallacy blocks all reason and logic that could be put forth to solve a problem. You can agree to disagree with just about anything, so you don't have to actually put any effort in to resolving anything. A couple can not agree to disagree over what car to buy or what to name an expected baby. One of the biggest problems comes in the science VS religion arguement where a broad range of practical decisions will be made depending one someone's own beliefs, you can agree to disagree in theory, but not when the core values are the deciding factor in a real decision(abortion, education, medicine, etc). The agree to disagree fallacy assumes that the subject matter is entirely theoretical, it causes people to stop arguing over something, which means they will never understand how the other person thinks or feels and they will develop develop the skill to discuss anything sensibly.

2. A person who says/does/promotes X is Y: The civil partnerships bill in the UK will allow for gay couples to be married and I'm glad for it as it will give them rights which recognise they are allowed to be gay and there is nothing wrong with it. Why do I get so angry then when someone who disagree with this is called homophobic? People disagree with homosexuality wholeheartedly, believing it to be a cardinal sin, immoral and harmful and they are called homophobic. Since when did you have to be a slavering gay-hating thug to have an objection to homosexuality? I had trouble listening to Radio 4 with the Archibishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams sounding so apoligetic for the 'rife homophobia' in the Christian faith. I'm Secular Agnostic but it still amazes me when someone can kick themselves repeatedly in the testicles(metaphorically and literally). I have to admit even I fall for this one when I rant on about them Behaviourists with their behavioural this and their operant conditioning that.

3. Is that a plank in your eye?: Tony Blair is really great! He came to power promising to put an end to sleaze and make government more open. So open that you could walk right into the House of Commons and pelt him with a condom filled with purple dye, and people did that. He even introduced Prime Minister's Question Time every wednesday(it's on right now as I write) so that weekly(or weakly) be grilled by parliament over his policies. It was alright for a while, but then some fella named Peter Mandelson was caught being, er, sleazy and the opposition Conservative Party let rip! Didn't Blair say he would end the sleaze which dogged the last Conservative government? Blair had only one response; to point out that the opposition shouldn't laugh at the splinter in his eye when there was a plank in their own. It was a socially effective response which earned him a few cheers from his own benches, except that the Conservatives were not the ones governing the country, he was and he had not answered any questions, just scored pot-shots. It looked like the Conservatives were the ones with the splinter and the PM didn't just have a plank but a whole tree sticking out of his optical receivers. The Conservatives have always had a fear of self-ridicule which has made them appear bland, so it was only in private some MPs said "We were sleazy and we were booted out of power, so what's Blair's excuse?" . All this in the first year of his first term? Oh dear. Ever since, Prime Minister Blair has defended his failures by pointing out the past faults of the opposition, without answering any questions in the forum which he set up for that purpose.

The headmaster that taught me to be a gentleman(sometimes) also told me to not bother with learning from the best; they are the best because they are over-hyped. You can not learn appropriately from NTs what they are not experts in. So instead learn from the worst; that way you know what mistakes are and how to avoid them.

Really? I'd have never thought it wrong to do either one of those things. And I would never say "Yes I can come to this" in public and "No I can't" in private, and can't imagine very many autistic people who would do that or even know to do it even if they wanted to.



The rules of being a gentleman/lady are actually based more on social class (and are in that way often used to be exclusionary while looking utterly polite about it) more than they're based on actually being nice to people.

I must warn strongly against criticising a caricature of the nature of ettiquete.

The part where Autistics get it right is where they don't like having mass attention drawn to them and don't like doing it to others, the same thing happens to NTs but most have no articulation of the 'stage fright' effect of it. In a situation where one is invited and a reply is expected, you don't have to be contradictory to save grace; you can publicly say that you will see what you can do to make it and the privately tell the invitor that you most likely won't be able to(and they will be EXTREMELY rude if they ask why; it is none of their business).



This is where you make the caricature and it's in error, possibly one of the worst stereotypes of modern times and it finds it root in the Frankfurt school of Marxism(encouraging class warfare). I got out the most recent edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary off my shelf and was suprised to learn that sometime in the last few years the definition has gone from: 1; a man (of polite or formal use) 2; a man who is gentle 3; a man who puts the comfort of others first.

To: 1; a man(of polite or formal use) 2; a man who is well-bred or upper class 3; a man of high social standing or related to a Royal or important figure 4; a member of an audience.

No wonder my grandparents always complained about the lack of honesty, manners and respect in the younger generations; the definitions of those words seem to have been slowly changed over time so that they are no longer 'cool' or even accurate.

I think this should highlight something: NTs really do not know what is going on with the thing they are supposed to be better than us at. A gentleman and a lady are people who place the comfort of others first, by the twist of some bloody conspiracy this definition has changed so that the masses think 'gentleman=rich prat' and 'lady=snobbish cow'.

I've been pretty confused by this whole thread Lucas, but I think I see what you're getting at now.

Hmm. I learned that definition from rich people, and not particularly Marxist ones. That basically it had something to do with a manners code that many of them learn automatically, that then separates them from people with different forms of manners (even if the other people were being just as unselfish).

I hope those rich people didn't pay for their education; they've been conned. You may be confusing manners with mannerisms, which are different, but I don't know.

What you refer to is the the Aristocratic social method which alienates the lower classes and worked for some centuries in Europe until the French grew angry at the idea(the French have long been known as a beacon of civilised behaviour, but this view isn't popular these days) and the model of the French parliament came along which distinguishes between Left and Right on the political spectrum. It worked because the working class would be represented by middle class land owners who were in the majority from poor backgrounds themselves and had worked hard to become a middle class and became more educated than their 'betters'. This was when the middle class first came into being and put the frighteners on the Aristocracy and the elite(France even abolished it's monarchy and executed most of the nobles some time later). The middle class landowners would represent the masses on the king's Left, the Aristocracy and nobles would represent themselves on the king's Right. The idea of a real politeness came about in those times for the purpose of civilness; European Aristocrats were not in fact very good with manners and only perverted the new idea that you have to treat EVERYONE with respect into the condescending behaviour it's now blanketly characterised as.

One of the problems with NTs trying to teach Autistics manners is that they don't make it clear from the very beginning(or do they even know?) that the rules are flexible. That doesn't mean there are times when they can be broken or reinterpreted, that means that the remit of the rules themselves are so wide that they are a guide for every kind of person to act reasonably without compromising individuality. If manners were so rigid, the point of them would be defeated.

When taught about manners, I was told that manners are not a set of rules telling you what to do. They should also explain why and why must be the most important thing to consider. It is good manners in many countries to not leave a dining table because it spoils the atmosphere for everyone, but if your nose starts bleeding spontaneously it is reasonable to assume that the scene is a worse alternative and you may leave while someone else explains that you will be right back(it is bad manners to discuss an ailment, so that is left out).

NTs are good at giving Dos and Don'ts that often contradict, but Whys are beyond them sometimes. Do not accept the assumption that NTs are socially aware and Autistics are not. Only listen to an expert on social skills and manners on the subjects(they can be either NT or Autistic), don't even listen to me; I only think I'm an expert. No one ever gave me a medal for being right, they just apoligise when an expert tells them I'm right.

Oh, don't worry, I don't think NTs are experts at social skills at all. At least any more than we are.

Yeah, but they understand each other, and theres more of them than there are of us autistics

Exactly.

I figured out it's not as straightforward as "autistics have social skills deficiencies and NTs don't" when I noticed:

1. NTs have their own set of social deficiencies that is rarely discussed, but very prominent.
2. NTs often have much less of the ability to communicate with people of differing neurologies, than people with differing neurologies have in communicating with NTs.
3. There are some autistic people I can read exactly as well as NTs can read each other if not better, and they can read me too, so something's going on beyond generalized "lack of the ability to read people".

Thats an intresting thought,,,they say that we can't read other people's feelings...but are those "other people" NTs? And do we have the same problem reading each-other's feelings?