Do you think that Elitism is a problem in the WP community?

Post Reply New Topic

Don't understand this.

ephemerella:

Hear, hear!

I started a topic once about how this question of whether AS and other forms of autism are a disorder or not. That was a couple of months ago perhaps? Currently AS is defined as a disorder which allows one to receive up to full disability services which is necessary for quite a lot of people (depending on the country one resides in). But there's the people who do not want to officially labelled as having a clinical impairment.

So when AS is considered a disorder half the people are unhappy about it and if changed and made a 'normal state' half the other people have a hell of a time and become unhappy too.

How to solve? I wondered about how it would be like if there was an additional category or something for those who don't need AS to be a disorder because they don't need services for autism.

Sadly, next to nobody contributed anything to that question about how to improve the disorder vs. no-disorder discussions and arguments.

I seriously don't know if that means people don't care enough to think about a solution that's fair to more than them or if it means that people actually have an idea on how to improve the situation.

Sora:

Right, this is a problem. Some do need services, after all. But I think the problem lies in the public perception of anything called a "disorder" as necessarily entailing dependence, low intelligence, etc. Whatever ASDs are called, there should be options open to both camps; the onus I think is on NTs to understand what psychological conditions like ASDs actually are. Right now, I hope you'll agree, they really don't, and that's the difficulty of our situation--the black-and-white value judgements (taking a page from ephemerella here, if I may) and over-simplifications of the ignorant.

I've made a single post on this thread, excluding this one, and you throw accusations at me. Yes, I am clearly OBSESSED with proving that we are all complete failures.

You're doing the exact same thing you're accusing me of doing. I haven't said AS makes us complete failures, nor have I even posted any of these ''theories'' you're berating me for.

Quite frankly, I've never seen people who wish to be cured actually try to force their view on anyone else. They just state how they don't really think it's of any great benefit, that they feel it impairs rather than helps them, and you come along to scream words of hatred at them.

Fine, have it your way. I'm a self-loathing NT worshipper who believes we are all worthless failures from the start and that we are not worthy of living. That is CLEARLY the message I've been trying to get across.

You use so much emotional and exaggerated language. When did I "berate" you? Do I "scream words of hatred"?

You're heading into dangerously personal territory, with too many bad feelings. Gotta go.

Yes, I agree with that mostly because I really want to change people perceptions of such words as 'disorder' and 'disability'. While it may have to do with various things such as dependence, less ability in some areas, low IQ, it has nothing to do with 'deficiency' or similar.

But I know that not everyone is ready or able to separate the meaning of such words as 'disorder', 'dysfunction' or 'disability' with the standard cultural meaning they have learnt from being raised in this society who equates 'disability' to 'defective'. It's as hard for those with the disorders themselves sometimes as it is for those who have no personal experience of what disability means.

Various people my age also worked for months with kids and teens with various disabilities from AD(H)D to multiple disabilities (physically, mentally, 'seelisch' (=German classification of several mental disorders including PDDs). Many were fair and nice and didn't think the kids and teens were 'defective'.

But in a discussion about there mere word 'disability' and 'syndrome' and 'impairment' they could only ever think of the disabled people as 'defective', 'less than normal people', 'damaged', 'lowly', 'genetic defect' and 'deficient'.

To sit and talk to them about how to define 'disability' (that was the assignment) felt ridiculous after some time.

I could not understand their thinking at all because of my own ASD. I don't have any negative feelings towards words like normal people.

But they and most other people didn't comprehend because their parents, teachers, the society has (metaphorically) hammered the cultural meaning of that disability means 'less than other people' in their heads.

And though quite a lot treat of the kids and teens as largely normal, they can't understand that disability is exactly that kind of normal.

Calling me self-hating and accusing me of believing that I am an inevitable failure seethes hatred to me. Besides, changing the subject won't work. You've still thrown accusation after accusation at me after one short post.

Sorry, but your ''victimised'' persona is not going to work. You're doing the very thing that you call out others for. Apparently this is personal territory which I should not head into? Yup...because accusing me of being self hating and believing myself to be a mentally ill failure is not personal at all.

I think that anyone affected by science has the right to comment on it and be listened to with respect, even if they can't follow detailed technical arguments. I think scientists have an obligation to present their work in a manner that the people who are affected by it can understand. It seems only fair. So I don't think intelligence is grounds for including/excluding people from debates relevant to our lives. (Rhetoric about esoteric subjects I leave to those who care.)

When it comes to IQ itself, IQ is always an issue when it comes to functioning in the real world, because of the expectations society has. So people have to talk about it and figure out what's going on. It can be a very stressful subject for some people, especially with the gap between IQ and "g factor" in people who don't do well on the WAIS, for example. But it's going to keep coming up. Might as well get used to it. We don't set the terms of the debate out there in the real world. We just have to deal with it.

Epehemerella, since you like to debate I will offer some feedback. I don't believe in two types of AS- low IQ and high IQ. I believe there are two behaviours associated with AS- stereotyped and atypical and everyone with AS are capable of both, especially us adults because we have years of trial and error experience to draw upon.
What I notice from you is an attachment to the AS stereotype. Your posts are very long, for one thing. I appreciate that you can create such long, indepth analysis. However, people who are interested in your pov and what you have to say must read the posts to participate. Think about those people. Wouldn't it be easier on them to make the posts a bit shorter?
Shorter posts don't mean you have Low IQ AS, it just means you are being considerate of others...

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo:

This is a complex issue, tied to an intricate system of cultural and personal values; it makes sense then that she would make a complex argument.

You calling Hermits spineless? If so, let us both exchange locations, and settle that. (Houston, Texas. West side. United states. Hershey park or parking lot, your choice.) Bere with me. I'd be rusty with hand to hand combat after 16 years.

If you meant just your dad, it's fine with me.

Last edited by LiendaBalla on 14 Mar 2009, 1:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Well, that's debatable...It didn't appear complex to me. Just looked like she was confusing shorter posts with shorter IQs? LOL. You get my drift.

@ DeanFoley,

The trouble with our main protagonist is that she makes an incredibly quick value judgement of people and then cannot read any further post without that bias colouring everything. It matters not how many times you try to disavow her of her mistakes she will never listen (after all how can she be wrong, she is such a wonderful and complete person as demonstrated by her self aggrandisement)

She is also a master in the art of exaggeration for example my central reason for joining this post is to protest at the possibly damaging and certainly unhelpful belief that neurotypicals to be inferior to Aspergers, during this I suggested that she would do well to listen to the experiences of neurotypicals who work with aspergers kids. This in her mind is transformed into the wonderful line "you have such reverance for NT's it is laughable" as well as "You can suggest all you want. But I have more life experience than most NTs ever had"

On the issue of Aspergers she is virulently opposed to the merest suggestion that it may be a disorder, so once again if you dare to suggest this out comes the highly exagerrated and emotionally charged attack ...". But you and the OP, who are fixated on trying to prove that AS is a brain damage and illness, are doing so because you are trying to project the negative value judgments of your own low-self-esteem self-hate onto all of AS. "

But the line I love best is the one that really gives the game away and shows her to be the elitist bigot that she is

"If you have difficulty debating due to particular cognitive issues, you shouldn't interfere with the debates of those AS who have higher ability to debate"

So basically if you want to debate with her go ahead but do not expect an answer that shows she has read and understood your perspective.

Last edited by DentArthurDent on 14 Mar 2009, 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do not think they were referring to you. In the post they only mentioned there dad.

Any ways I think being spineless and being a hermit are two entirely different things.
And they were referring to a person who is both of them.

So I wouldn't be so upset, I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about you.

well said