About the Asperger Entitlement Syndrome

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No, sorry, that is not true. You write:



Assume everyone can expect help from others. This means you can expect help from everybody else. But everybody else can also expect help from you, otherwise you would take a privileged position.

When you expect help from others you are in a debt in the sense of other people expecting you to help them back (i,.e. return the favour).

This gives a hierarchy, because some people need more help than others. Those who need a lot of help have to be submissive to those who do not need help, otherwise the latter have no incentive to keep helping!! I know it is harsh, but that is the truth of the matter!

However, small everyday favours are on such a tiny scale that the hierarchy is not obvious/visible at all. But it is still a hierarchy, just a more flat one (because the small everyday favours are not large enough for a visible hierarchy).

Exactly! One of the manifestations of ablist prejudice is that disabled people are seen as unable to help others, always the ones receiving help. They don't acknowledge our skills and abilities as being something that someone else would need. But, in fact, we are perfectly capable of offering help to others, whether other disabled people or non-disabled people.

One of the more intriguing aspects of volunteering, if you are disabled, is the change in perspective. You are the one offering help. I worked at a local food pantry for some time, and I remember how people's voices changed when they talked to volunteers. They bent their bodies down and forward, as though bowing to us. They spoke softly and pitched their voices up just a little, as though pleading. They were sending these submission signals. Not everyone did this, but it was common among those who were newly unemployed, or had recently lost a source of income, who were ashamed at having to ask for help. It seemed obvious that they had been taught for a long time that if you asked for help, you were socially inferior. The ironic part was that at the time I was a volunteer at the food pantry, I had also been a client for several months.

Sometimes when people thanked me so profusely, often asking what they could do, I would answer them literally, replying, "Well, we can always use volunteers," and explaining that they could arrange volunteer hours by calling our phone line. It was a way of saying that my own position was something that was open to them too; that they were powerful enough to help simply for having two hands and the will to do so. And it's not just an encouraging lie; it's true. A society works best when people both help and are helped. It's the low-income people who know this best, because we know what it is like to need help, and we understand that others who need help may not get it if we don't step in to do something.

One of the most empowering things you can do is to help someone else. And one of the best ways to do it is to help that person become more powerful themselves. If you are disabled, you are in a unique position to know just how it feels to be powerless, and just how stigmatized people are for seeking help. To give help yourself, and then to make it very clear that you are giving help as a neighbor helping a neighbor and not as a potential overlord, you are shattering many ideas that have probably been thrown at you for a long time.

I think you've confused basic respect with something negative. Plus, you've confused behavior that harms no one with "bad behavior." Plus I think that you've basically lost the plot.

This is much more nearly accurate.

To discuss this properly, I think it is important to distinguish between the 2 different basic social strategies:


A DOG'S SOCIAL STRATEGY (NT-strategy)

Basic problem: The need to survive.

Survival strategy: Social.

Hunting-style: Group/pack-hunter.

Advantage: You can get help from group members.

Disadvantage: You have leaders (i.e. a social hierarchy). This means you have to accept punishment from higher ranking members for unwanted behaviour on your side.

Basic fear: To be excluded from the group (and then no longer have a group to be excluded from, hence no motivation). This means no more group-hunting, which means death!

Basic motivation: To perform well enough in life to be accepted by the group (i.e. avoid the basic fear). This means ongoing group-hunting, which means survival!

Negative response to cat-strategy: Now that there is nobody to help and nobody to help me, I do not see a reason to keep going!

Source of good self-esteem: The knowledge of having someone in your group with lower social status than you (i.e. you can be dominant over somebody).

Source of bad self-esteem: The knowledge of having someone in your group with higher social status than you (i.e. you have to be submissive to somebody).

Love for others: Love is based on how well people perform. Those who perform the best are loved/liked the most.




A CAT'S SOCIAL STRATEGY (AS-strategy)

Basic problem: The need to survive.

Survival strategy: Solitary.

Hunting-style: Solo-hunter.

Advantage: You do not have leaders, so you do not have to obey commands from anybody!

Disadvantage: You cannot get help from group members - you are all on your own!

Basic fear: Needing a group (help/leaders) (i.e. being forced to join a group and attain a submissive position in order to receive help). This means no more solo-hunting, which means death!

Basic motivation: To perform well enough in life to not need a group, that is being independent (i.e. avoid the basic fear). This means ongoing solo-hunting, which means survival!

Negative response to dog-strategy: Now that I have somebody to help me, I do not see a reason to do anything myself, I will get help anyway!

Source of good self-esteem: The knowledge that nobody is better than you in the sense that nobody can give you commands you have to obey.

Source of bad self-esteem: The knowledge that someone is better than you in the sense that they can give you commands you have to follow (i.e. that you are forced to people-please/be submissive).

Love for others: Love is based on how well people are treated. People love/like those who treat them well, and hate/dislike those who do not. Solo-hunters have no incentive to love/like people, but to actually love/like them.



Of course, dogs and cats are not completely extreme in the above sense, but they do tend to pull heavily in those different directions.

I think it is important to be respectful of those helping you instead of being a total unappreciative a**hole...and help others when you can but I disagree with the notion of being 'submissive' people who need lots of help should have the same rights as people who don't. Also I think most people need help at some time or another it shouldn't be something shameful that causes one to view themselves as being 'below' those in a position to help.

So basically, all of this is wrong about dogs:

http://io9.com/why-everything-you-know- ... -502754629

http://academyfordogtrainers.com/blog/2 ... k-animals/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15857815

http://www.leecharleskelley.com/top10my ... eader.html

http://www.caninemind.co.uk/pack.html

They are not pack animals in the sense that you describe. The notion of "alphas" is completely wrong, and both of these are based on observing wolf behavior in captivity. Wolves form family groups much like humans do and do not have this dominance/submission BS as a typical thing. And it's not like dogs have evolved into such creatures.

I also do not really think that NTs work like this.



I don't have any links to counter this, but these generalizations are rather useless. You're not talking about real people (or cats, or dogs) but about a list of generalizations that conveniently falls into your stated assumptions. Your argument is a circular just so story*.



Dogs definitely don't pull heavily in those directions, no. Cats aren't like that either.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

Not to mention not all cats are solitary, lions and domestic cats living in the same house and getting along come to mind. I've seen two of my cats hunt mice in the garage together in cooperation not competition. Also cats expect help without becoming submissive, they want you to feed them, change their water, change their litter box, give them treats, let them outside the people door even though they have a cat door ect. And yet they still maintain independence.

Yep. Lions are very social. And housecats are solitary by preference, but socialize relatively easily. I've seen two cats who had litters at the same time take care of them as if they were one big litter with two mothers (which, really, they were). Cats are capable of cooperative behavior and interactions, and if they were truly solitary, wouldn't even hang around people.

Really, though, I am just tired of all these threads that turn autistic people into a gigantic stereotype and then complain about the stereotype. There is no one true theory of being autistic or one true theory of what autistic people are like and if qawer is talking about himself that's great and I'm all for it, but I wish he'd stop trying to turn his personal introspection into sweeping principles about all autistic people.

I'm still scratching my head on this one.

Don't understand how not liking to be led makes one think he/she is better than others. Does not compute.

We are all made of the same stuff - atoms, molecules, electricity. No one is better than anyone else. No one has the right to impose upon or order another around, independent or not.

At some point someone DOES have the right to order you around, if you don't believe me go act sloppy drunk in a very public place. Tell the cop responding that she has no right to order you around, post back when out on bail. Government ultimately works because someone has the power to enforce law by force.

qawer's cat and dog theory is a metaphor, I don't think there is any point in factually attacking it because it has no factual basis.

It's a terrible metaphor partly because it lacks any factual basis and party because he's basically cherry picking traits to make his point.

I mean the fact that it is factually wrong in every possible way including his application to people strikes me as quite relevant.

Many AS people behave better drunk than many NT high school/college students behave sober lol. As far as the police's job to protect society is concerned, anyway.

That is why I said ACT sloppy drunk You know the stereotypical kind.

It sounds to me a lot like women are from Mars and men are from Venus, you can disagree with it and think it is rubbish but it is basically opinion and nothing more.

I agree with the basic premise (first post).

I see it as (for myself):

If the government helps me, I'll play by their rules.