Do We Have a Culture?

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Those AS groups seem more like peripheral movements to me than a culture per se, however culture can be defined in different ways I guess.

Within the confines of the above situation, a "culture" exists.

It doesn't really extend outside of these situations, though.

Therefore, a cohesive "autistic culture" is only in its beginning, flickering stages.

There is one but it is in it's toddler or even younger stages therefore unreconizable to many. The backlash against the Neurodiversity movement B19 referenced could mean the formation of an autistic culture advances no further or what is there disappears. Because if you view Autism as a bad thing you do not want advance it in any manner. Which in my opinion would be blown opportunity and ironically a tragedy.

Autism itself is not a "bad" thing. It's not a "defect," really, in many cases.

It could actually be a good thing, if harnessed properly.

Frankly it makes my brain hurt to try and fathom what we mean by a culture and what we mean by a community. I expect the terms have multiple definitions.

I think it's common purpose that unites people, and hopefully our common purpose is to fight against our social stigma and against the lame ideas that are propagated out there about who and what we are, to establish our proper status and to command respect, that sort of thing.

Two issues...being deaf is something that is socially accepted and "out there", not hidden. Deaf people can't pretend to hear and don't want to. Autism is not socially accepted and autistic people spend a large chunk of their energy pretending to be normal. That's how we differ from the deaf.

Secondly, autistic people generally have no interest in socialising, communities etc so the very idea of an autistic culture is an oxymoron.

"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."
- Groucho Marx

I think the danger with any culture comes people judging that culture by its stereotypes. For an example, I'm a lesbian but I'm not a fan of The L Word nor do I think Sarah and Tegan are the be all end all. However, I like flannel but, it's due to the softness of the fabric. (Sensory thing I feel like)

I've been apart of fandom culture and to be honest, there's a lot of in fighting and people becoming nasty to each other when a us vs them mentality starts to come in when people can't agree to disagree. (Ship wars being the example of this) I think there's already enough issues within the autism community without trying to make a culture.

However, I'd like to point out if we were to create a culture, we'd be have to tell a lot of NTs to f-off and actually realize we have a voice, and not try to manipulate it.

I agree we can not force a culture, it has to happen organically.

As far as telling NT's to "f**k off" we need to more of that in order to get basic rights and respect nevermind forming a culture.

Martin Luther King didn't tell white people to f**k off. He still got results.

I think there are little fragment cultures, but nothing broad and cohesive enough for the term proper. Of course, a large amount of the unity in the world is an illusion in the first place.

Really strong group identification can lead to some nasty sorts of tribalism, and if nothing else, we're the last people who should engage in that. It would be the worst of both worlds, and we'd end up losing anyway.

If we could establish something together that actually helped us, that would be nice, but I've been reading Internet arguments for the past five years, so I almost wish cultural identity (beyond the label of "human") didn't exist in the first place. It feels like nothing more than a source of arrogance and pain. But I know there are useful aspects too, so I'm not the most objective person.

Its interesting how so many people don't want their own autistic community/culture. I think there might be a lot of arguments if you tried to establish one.

^
Indeed. I suspect that unity in a culture is something of a myth - witness the UK main political parties and church of England, united by the skin of their teeth. I'm against joining an Aspie culture so far because all my life the only social solace I've found has been in counter-culture - anarchism and other outlying groups. If this culture thing requires a leader, forget it, for me leaders are always bad news, and I think an Aspie leader with no social imagination would likely be even worse.