olympiadis wrote:
CyclopsSummers wrote:
No, that's cruelty and callousness, but it's not necessarily outside of the boundaries of 'normal' behaviour.
Every year, people throw their dogs, cats, and rabbits out of their house because suddenly the pet doesn't fit into their household anymore for whatever reason. That's egotistical and self-serving. They are, to all intents and purposes, operating within the bounds of psychological 'normalcy'.
I didn't say it wasn't considered normal. I said it was psychopathic, because it is.
One of my main points I was trying to make was that psychopathic behaviors have been normalized, and more continue to be so every day.
And yes many folks want to be careful about labeling it as what it is, because they are not comfortable about their own behaviors being labeled as such. That's your identity working to protect you.
Going back to an old post...
Slavery is a horrible thing, yet there was a time when it was a widely-held, acceptable practice (it still thrives in many places today). I think it's safe to say that practicing/accepting slavery as somewhat psychopathic doesn't take much of a stretch (emotional/cultural indifference towards the suffering of others (practice of lack of empathy)), though perhaps it would be better to assign this label to culture at large rather than to individuals (though again, the culture-wide phenomenon couldn't exist without the individuals there to carry it out).
Just to be clear, I'm in no way suggesting that ASD-related oppression is comparable in severity or horribleness to slavery. I am suggesting, however, that they are similar in type of oppression, mainly that they are both cultural constructed phenomenons. Some people blindly accept the world they are born into without questioning it while others might fight to change it. One reason for this difference is based on what kind of luck you're born with; ie, you get way more life opportunities and preferential treatment if you are male as opposed to non-male, you have a penis, you are white, you come from money, you don't have any physical limitations/disabilities, and you don't have any mental/emotional/social disabilities. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's the way it is anyways (just like slavery doesn't play any necessary role, yet it exists, and it puts people in huge life disadvantages (an understatement)). When slavery is something you grew up learning to accept as normal, your rationale will reflect this pre-existing reality since you've never encountered a reality where slavery is a horrible thing. Yes, there's some psychopathy involved, namely, a major lack of empathy. But again, not quite the same thing as medically defined psychopathy. I think areolympiadas was getting at this (please correct me if I'm misrepresenting you) when he was talking about oppressive NT behavior. Of course there are always exceptions. There are undoubtedly whole cultures where ASD symptomology would not be cause for the kind of cultural disturbance the West experiences with ASD behavior (I'm thinking specifically of cultures found in East Africa, possibly native American as well, though the latter's based limited speculation). However, beyond the cultural differences, there does seem to be a biological difference NTs and ASD folk that affects how one processes and assimilates cultural customs and norms, a skill that is undoubtedly linked to social awareness. Thus NTs have a higher chance of picking up culturally-implicit oppressive tendencies than ASD folk. Such as how the teacher in the OP's story treated started treating her like an infant after finding out "the news". She probably doesn't realize how/that it is demeaning, yet she picked up (and practiced) these messages anyways (ie, relaying how one is supposed to treat such a context). Our culture is not a very non-NT friendly environment. It's frustrating, It doesn't have to be that way any more than racism has to exist. The frustration is real and understandable.
However, I think there are also minefields that accompany the ASD "way of being" in the the world. For instance, I've found it way too easy to be rude, abusive, and neglectful on accident (without being aware that I'm being so) because I do not have the interpersonal social decoder/translator in my brain that allows me to understand interpersonal dynamics intuitively. I don't enjoy being at high risk of accidental being-a-shitty-personness, but it comes with the territory. I worry much less about being insensitive towards cultural/gender/religious/racial/sexual/physical/intellectual differences because I have an easier task at spoting when someone is treated like s**t because I'm not as tied up with my cultural entourage as many NTs are.
PS: I really like the hive-mind metaphor and the algorithmic semi-metaphor.
02 Sep 2014, 6:26 pm
