Sora wrote:
Asperger's itself didn't make me critical, personally. Quite the contrary. I think I understand how it can make someone critical though, after all there is a lot of articles and stuff about how Asperger's can make you honest and pretty bold and strong against just going with the majority without considering things by yourself beforehand.
I think I am basically a critical person. But my autism was definitely in the way of being critical towards society. I didn't understand lots of what was going on, so I couldn't be critical or have another detailed opinion you know? Overcoming some of the social inability of my autism was the thing that actually improved my abilities to understand society in the past two to three years. It helped me lots being critical or accepting of social orders and developing opinions on which I would base my behaviour.
That about celebrities: I was very oblivious of this and didn't get when people would do this or why they would do it. Now that I'm a lot more involved in society I comprehend what's the big deal of celebrities for so many people. Which could not happen to me, because now I'm still autistic but also a lot more critical of these social relationships. By getting closer to society I figured out why I'm not into celebrities and why it really bores me when they talk about these people on the news.
I think how Asperger's make you react to society depends a lot on what's your Asperger's like. If you're really not in touch much with society, chance is you are not critical, you don't have too many opinions and maybe it really makes you blindly heading the same way as most people. But another Asperger's can strengthen your ability to consider social relationships more objectively from an early age on.
I agree with Sora to some extent.
In the first half of my life i had a deep sense of confusion about social relating and people and societal structure and "how things are."
The second half of my life, I have become more astute and understanding of the ways of humans. My knowledge has been belatedly developed. What has been interesting however, is that while i remain inuitively and socially naive, once I analyse a dynamic I can become VERY analytical and correct about my reading of a social dynamic. (Often this occurs later, and post-event.) I call this a kind of cognitive compensation that many of us can develop later in life. and our ability to systematise and see patterns can actually help if it is applied to social dynamics and the way people behave.
However, because of my early life confusion and social naivety back then, there is no way i could do it to the same extent I can now. About 12 years ago, the observation of humans relating became a kind of special interest. I watched. I learned on the peripheries. I am still not too good in the moment to moment exchanges although i can feign it a bit with some masking scripts, but i CAN post-event, break down a situation and often reach a conclusion that many others cannot fathom or see. And interestingly, this is built up from a consideration of the parts of the social dynamic. it's all done with the brain. It's an interesting skill.
and it does not necessarily mean I am any smoother or better at feeling connection with people.
12 Jan 2010, 12:56 pm
