Aspie Elitism

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I can see that point of view, although I wouldn't call it a ladder. It's a spectrum. You can curve it in the middle and put me at the top if you like but I see it as horizonal.

Of significance is the fact that we are aware. We've had to struggle all our lives to figure out the difference and what makes the NT tick. So, even if our symptoms are technically far apart, we are brought together by the fact that we're all outside their dismal little box.

Also, I'm so sick of all the lies, shallowness and insanity. I'd rather hang out with KingdomOfRats anyday.

As for the focus of this website, it is clear that alex included anything similar to autism. HEY, HE has AS! Maybe one reason he started this was to build a community.

As many here indicated, kanners can be very similar. NOBODY said AS is the most common. It is believed to be the rarest.

As for AS being a gift, I guess we tend to see the good parts. I, for one, ignore and/or avoid the bad parts. Being here, I see more of the bad parts now. Hey, I enjoy being the goto person everywhere. I get paid well for it. And why SHOULDN'T someone be happy with where they are? There are a LOT of other things I am NOT happy about.

I don't agree with everything. Yes to that there are very outspoken people with AS who think themselves miles better than those with any other PDD and discriminate against those other autistic people.

But it certainly doesn't just go against those with classical. An this kind of makes it appear so which I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Elsewhere I have been frequently undiagnosed with AS by others with AS on the basis of that the symptoms I describe are taken as atypical for what they consider AS to be like.

Though I can individually cope with my symptoms and traits exceptionally well these days because I'm atypical (not as in atypically autistic, but as in atypical abilities) and do better in some or many aspects than the people who try to undiagnose me even, they still got fanatic about not wanting to agree that I was said to have utmost hf AS because of the traits themselves.

That's all perfectly formal for hf AS to varying degrees where I'm from.

It's statements like that, claiming such or similar that those with very hf AS don't have a lack of TOM, a deficient TOM into adulthood, self-help skills issues with basic things, speech and language impairments, different visual (and other 4 senses) perception that can gravely impact them... and so on... that make some non-autistic people, some with AS and probably some with classical undiagnose and/or deny people like me.

I mean, even if I am more classically autistic or PDD-NOS even, I'm right now dxed with AS and said to be 'hf AS'. So my experiences are valid.

Maybe hf AS is very different elsewhere in the world. Can't know that.

But there are places where hf AS is all of what you wrote and all of what I wrote and more and their classification is as valid is that of the US.


Intelligence and functioning-level and being outgoing do not to do with each other. Seriously, aren't most with AS introverted, shy, quiet and anything but outgoing? I know an autistic boy who was outgoing and interactive though he was non-verbal.

And that bit about beautiful... beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

There was a picture of a good looking autistic and non-verbal young man in the news papers recently. I don't understand why those with another form of autism besides AS should not be as beautiful as everyone else on this planet.


How would you know how most with AS - or anybody for that matter - perceives the world?

One thing that AS who have been out in the real world learn is that there is no winning, if your objective is to go someplace and demand respect and sensitivity. Perhaps the greatest freedom that someone with social disabilities can learn for themselves is the skill of seeing oneself through your own eyes instead of getting your sense of self-worth from how you are seen through the eyes of others. Here or out IRL, that's a trap.

Maybe the AS who have learned to appreciate and value their "talents" and "uniqueness" and "traits' have simply learned to stop conditioning their self-worth through the eyes and definitions of NTs, who define AS has having "obsessions" and "quirks" and "deficits". The AS people who are fixated on how others see and define them, will never learn to appreciate their specialness and talents and gifts, so long as they define themselves through the eyes of others.

Whether those "others" are NTs or other AS on this message board that they perceive as being high functioning or high-I.Q. Aren't the AS who are fixated on how others perceive or treat them just projecting their problems with NTs rejecting them onto the AS here on this site, who they perceive as being most NT-like?

You will never fit in and be valued and appreciated for your AS-ness, if you demand others fit you in, value you and appreciate you. The only real answer for AS freeing themselves from the negativity and social disrespect is to start defining yourself instead of letting others define you.

I.e. those AS who are so fixated on how everyone else on the board views AS or defines themselves, should get a life.

(Edited to clean up broken quotes)

Last edited by ephemerella on 13 Mar 2009, 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

garyww, it's certainly not easy to have such an insulting label attached to you if you're lower functioning... I feel bad for lower functioning Autistics who have to live with that level of cruel stupidity shown against them... if it's any help, I'm not with the masses on this one - I don't think people with low IQ's are necessarily stupid at all, for they themselves may be intelligent in very unconventional ways, and calling non threatening people in society stupid is an outrage anyway.

No, I don't think people who are in the lower functioning category are stupid.

It's not possible to measure the intelligence of AS people, high functioning or low functioning autistic people both have intelligence that is not in the same universe as NTs. High functioning AS are just less "different" in ways that are helpful for supporting some external functions. There is a concept in mathematics called "topology", which basically means the landscape in which all units of information and their behavior can be represented. The "topology" -- or mental landscape -- of AS people are so different than NTs that you can't measure intelligence using NT yardsticks or tests. NT IQ tests mean nothing for AS intelligence.

What is a problem on this site is how the lower-functioning and/or lower I.Q. AS keep attacking and criticizing the discussions and personal behavior of higher-functioning and higher I.Q. AS.

It's as if the higher functioning and higher I.Q. AS have become a proxy for NTs on this site, and the less functioning AS are projecting their resentments and sense of injustice against NTs onto the higher functioning AS. You are forgetting that even higher functioning/high I.Q. still lack theory of mind and can be as socially clueless and unempathetic as any other AS.

To me, you all just sound like my parents, who wasted much of my time with them trying to get me to behave socially more sensitive and insightful, when that is my disability. You don't seem to recognize that higher functioning/high I.Q. AS still have social deficits and lack empathy, and that all this nagging and criticism about how insensitive or "ignorant" they are about the experience of other AS, is just more stuff nagging about things we can't help -- our social deficit -- that we have little control over.

Demanding more insight and sensitivity from higher-functioning/higher I.Q. AS is a pointless activity. High functioning or high-I.Q. or not, AS have social deficits. Continuing to bash the higher functioning/high I.Q. AS for their insensitivity and/or "ignorance" about the experience of other AS, implies that they have a theory of mind that allows them to choose to be insensitive or ignorant about the experience of others.

Don't you all recognize that you're treating the higher functioning/high I.Q. AS the way NTs treat all AS? As if the social insensitivity is some moral, character or conscious choice? Higher functioning and higher I.Q. doesn't mean the AS has theory of mind.

Get a life and stop acting like NTs picking on AS for lacking social skills as if we choose to lack them.

How anyone sees you on the boards is not so important, but once the people you associate see you like that because the opinion of organisation and spokespersons has reached them, it become most important.

What I experienced once I became aware of that people actually think something about other people (though I've yet to find out why exactly) is that people's definition of others have a great impact.

You can be extremely smart in various forms, but if you are treated like somebody without that smartness (say, for example, street smartness or social intelligence or mathematical strengths...) then you may at worst be limited to achievements and actions well below your ability.

I know how some teachers treat children with LDs and MR like... wait, I think they said 'imbeciles'. They deny them that they answer correctly and can contribute the same their peers can because 'they're imbeciles'. Their achievements are treated as if they do not exist and dare they speak up, then they're thrown out of the room with the worst insults from people much older than them.

I cannot imagine anyone living and associating with hundreds of people a day successfully showing their true personality and abilities when they are not allowed to talk and act on basis of false believes. Hundreds of people everyday that try to stop you from expressing your opinion by not allowing your to talk fluently without being interrupted, by not allowing you to do what you are going to do because that's what you believe should be done.

Sure, the alternative is to never see those people again or to stop trying to do what you believe in - but that may go against what that person wants, believes and thinks and thus is ultimately a loss of identity.

It also goes against what I want. I mean, who knows - some other people might like to be denied to be themselves?

I for example had it that people denied me to talk on more than one occasion. Not that I heeded their attempts to force me, but it seriously limited my ability to say what I wanted to say.

They achieves so just by suddenly shouting when I said something, by starting to make loud noise while I was answering a question school so that I could not be understood by a teacher and would also not be called upon again (because 'the noise from the other students is disruptive').

And is it fair to receive bad grades for 'pretending and trying to be ridiculous though one should speak perfectly due to having AS' when you're actually truly unable to speak or form a coherent sentence with right grammar and correct semantics? I think not.

Then there were those who interrupted every few words when I had an issue with language because I'm not supposed to have one. And then there are people who started to interrupt or at worst stormed off because I got the languages mixed up. (I think this happens to bilingual speakers frequently.)

I even have experienced that some people are so idiotic that they hold their hands over the ears and starting to sing to just show me I 'should not be doing that'. It sure showed their helplessness and insanity, but what I said didn't reach them in that moment so in a twisted way they still won.

And then there's that bit about people ignoring your deliberately although you stand right opposite of them and can smell them. Yet they pretend as if you don't talk, don't disturb their working in an attempt to get their attention because you do something you should not and they say that they won't stop ignoring you until you 'drop the ridiculous act and behave as you should'.

I doubt that the Asper-Nazis would even care.

Wow. That is such a long and meaningful post. Thank you for writing so much useful stuff in response to a comment I just tossed out there.

Yes, my comment about not defining yourself through other people's eyes is a shallow and not universally useful tactic. The power of social positioning and status in getting anything in the real world is pretty inescapable. But the tactic of denying other people's definitions of me, and embracing my own frame of reference for defining myself, is healing and helpful.

Your post is meaningful and full of stuff that I need to eventually come to terms with and work through right now, if I want to go back to work as a white collar professional. You are right, in most ways.

I'll bookmark your post and think about this some more.

Oh No, it's the Asper-Nazis.....

Who are these Aspie Supremacists people keep referring to... is there really a hard-nosed group of "Aspies Uber Alles" holding stealth rallies around here?

Well all I know is I happen to be one....I guess. That is, I'm a HFA as opposed to LFA, but I don't think I've ever compared my diagnosis or life to those on the low functioning spectrum.

LOL Gary, personally I think you're one of the most "elitist" regular posters. you frequently stress differences and divisions between groups of people, you call normals idiots, and you keep on seeing aspie fakers everywhere, trying to prove their existence with your strange theories.

I find it amusing that you should be the one to start a thread against aspie elitism

Ok, me too. In my beginning at this site, I also got in an argue with Gary on the topic, how many here is autistic, or AS, or whatever.
I've been away for a while, and what do I see? Gary in a flame war with a neewbie. Why didn't LAU go in and lock that tread? He was very fast when I had a comment on climate change and the Vikings, wich are my ancessors. Was closed, or moved, immediatly.
Something is rotten here, so I came back just to leave for good.
In my first argue with Gary, I said that he want this site to be about him, or anyone that got the exact same traits that he's got.
That's what it takes to qualify, in his mind.
So, bye, bye to this waste of time s**thole.

I say we start a petition for the Aspies Elite and start a cult.....you know like scientology. We'll use dianetics to decide who is worthy of being on the autistic spectrum and who is not. Then we start the peking order of who is better than who based on the spectrum of their diagnosis. We then harry away those good for nothing NTs and then keep a watch out for those who haven't been officially diagnosed....they're probably spies anyway.

They can take away our lives but they can't take away our boards!!

Last edited by MissConstrue on 13 Mar 2009, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It does seem a little weird that there's still "who's the real AS and who are the pretenders" flaming going on.

Don't go. You could maybe lurk and jump in only when you like a thread.

I see you're using that cute pic, again...