littlebee wrote:
Kicker, don't know who you are, but ever since reading the above message (without the p.s which you added in an edit and I saw just now) I have been thinking about you and admiring how smart you were not to get into it with these folks.
So earlier in this thread you asked why I disagree with you when you agree with everything I wrote in one particular post.
Here's an example: You're praising an individual who set out to mock me for posting factual information that clashes with his preferred worldview. Generally speaking, mockery isn't really praiseworthy. Neither are lies - and Kicker's claim that this thread is about self-serving bias is basically a lie. He may believe it himself, but it is a complete falsehood and denial of reality.
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To me you are much smarter than I am. It comes across that you are able to process data very quickly with a clear mind. In my case I have some serious problems but I learned see my own difficulties and accept responsibility for my own brain function (or lack of function:-) It is me, after all. but in order to be able to do this I had to learn to think. To get into an argument with certain people is counter-productive, I agree, as there is not much of a payoff---I mean, who want to win over someone who is......? No satisfaction in that, plus I prefer a win-win situation. To me that is extremely joyful...
There's no value in a win-win situation that requireses denial of facts and empiricism.
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....but to understand WHY can be important. Imo it is a common device for people who are hurting to band together and form a social system around a perceived enemy.
Note that understanding of ableism, neurotypical privilege, and the stigma applied against disabled people (and in this case the kind of stigma used against autistic people) is something that has been discussed among autistic people for three decades, not something that was invented on this forum so people could "form a social system around a perceived enemy." Identifying privilege is not about declaring (or finding) enemies. It's about coming to an understanding of how and why certain kinds of things happen, and developing both understanding and the ability to talk about these things honestly as a matter of institutionalized power and marginalization.
Your understanding of this is superficial, false, and in your case, self serving. The last because you constantly attempt to use passive-aggressive bullying and emotional manipulation to try to push people away from discussing certain topics - specifically, any topic that identifies mistreatment of disabled people. Anyone who is not aware of your history of interaction and pattern of behavior might confuse your post for something sincere.
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I have mentioned this topic when referring to the work of Bion regarding group organization and will go into it further in some of my writings about autistic encapsulation.
You can't even describe what autistic encapsulation is. Your descriptions so far have been inconsistent and generally focused on discrediting any attempts to discuss institutionalized marginalization and stigmatization and mistreatment of autistic people in specific and disabled people in general. In this regard it goes well with your "sorting and grading" criticism which is so selectively applied that it is utterly meaningless, and another example of a concept you repeatedly appeal to, but cannot actually explain.
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The thing that makes it difficult is that there are real enemies in this world that do need to be fought, but if people are fighting these enemies and even looking for new enemies and making enemies so as to feel warm and cozy in a group by fighting them, then there is a limited perspective.
This bolded bit (bolded by littlebee) needs to be taken in context: She speaks of "real enemies" but in the thread about Judge Rotenberg Center she pushes back and fights back against the idea that using extremely painful electric shocks on children is a form of torture, and uses their own promotional materials to insist that they must necessarily be doing good. It leaves me wondering - given that littlebee pushes back against any and every discussion of this sort of thing that autistic people face, who the "real enemies" are, because apparently none of the people who actually are harming autistic people, discriminating against autistic people, misrepresenting autistic people, or stigmatizing autistic people count as "enemies." This is completely meaningless, and the "real enemies" and is just an effigy littlebee presents to silence people.
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True activists choose their particular battles and are very cut and dried. Yes, certain unjust behavior of other people rightfully makes them feel bad, and they target a particular aspect and act to change it, but if you look again at the link at the beginning of this thread to the long and growing list of so called privileges, which I just did, it is very fascinating to see the extent of subjective psychological negative emotions and gripes mixed in with various facts of some actual injustices that are happening in reality around other people's distorted perception of autistics.
To go with "real enemies" littlebee invokes "true activists" as a group that clearly no one in this discussion or on this forum could be described as. Having been involved with activism for much of my adult life, I find littlebee's attempts to cordon off basically anything people discuss on WP as contrary to "real activism" to be at best laughable and at worst manipulative. This is again a way to push people into not talking about actual injustices, discrimination, etc., because any such discussion is a discussion littlebee attempts to shut down.
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There are real injustices occurring, and, as you pointed out, other people, meaning so called nts are thinking wrong, too, but the way these particular autistic people are framing things makes it difficult to sort out, and I think it is because the hidden intent is not to sort out their own psychological disorder within themselves because it is too painful. It is not real activism, but using activism as an excuse and an escape, so a diversion from actual work and actual doing.
This is internet psychiatry, and should never be attempted unironically by anyone - including actual psychiatrists. Yet she constantly appeals to this notion of psychological disorders as a way to dismiss valid concerns and arguments. And again trying to create a fake notion of "real activism." This thread isn't even an activist thread, it's a discussion. It's people trying to understand their circumstances, yet somehow littlebee twists this into people trying to
hide from their circumstances through the invocation of "psychological disorder" but not an actually real thing.
You will never see littlebee talk about the real enemies or the true activists that deal with them because these things do not exist outside of her wibbly wobbly highly nonspecific rhetoric intended to shut down any discussion that might actually lead anyone to investigating or participating in activism/
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Again, a true hardcore activist, by my observation, is very cut and dried. He sets his goal based on a standard of perceived ethical fairness and sets out to achieve fairness, one particular instance at a time. He does not sit around as a pastime getting warm and cozy bonding with others like himself by talking about unfairness and how he feels about being treated unfairly.
You are making a common error in assuming that what you see of people online is everything they do. You are also making an error in assuming that everyone who participates in these discussions is doing so in lieu of activism. You are judging people by false standards, by setting up this fake ideal and complaining that not everyone involved is meeting said ideal.
In my case, you do not know how I have spent my time over the years. You do not know all of the things I have done. And yet you constantly cast aspersions on my efforts on this forum by presenting falsehoods about what those efforts represent.
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Yes, to compare black people and some or all of the other groups mentioned (I forget what they were) to autistic people makes little sense. Black people are in general capable of doing the same things that people of other races are in general capable of doing, but in the case of autistic people, the situation is in many instances quite different. Because of an immature theory of mind thing many autistic people have a bigger difficulty sorting things out (and I include myself here....), so the idea of banding together to fight a society that doesn't understand and cater to them is very appealing and furthers their own tendency toward autistic encapsulation which closes them off from the rest of people into a little box (and you can count me out from this angle).
I didn't compare any of those groups to any other. I wasn't comparing black people to autistic people. My intended point (which apparently was lost, at least to those who are hostile to what I was saying - that is littlebee and kicker) was to demonstrate that it is actually fairly easy to find documentation of discrimination, prejudice, hatred, stigmatization, and oppression. Someone made a general comment about privilege not being real (at least I recall interpreting a post that way) so I made a post about
privilege. I pointed out that being a member of particular demographic groups means being privileged, and I pointed to known, real world examples of how that exists for black people (redlining, racial profiling).
That post was not specifically about autistic people, so claiming that I was comparing black people to autistic people is false, and criticizing my post on the basis that it is incorrect to compare autistic people to black people is false. It is in fact
true that it's a bad idea to compare oppressions, and if I had been doing that, I would have been wrong to do so. But I wasn't. That is a fiction developed between kicker and yourself.
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I think this can be worked on by and with those who want to work. There is this saying---the rich get richer and the poor get poorer--but some people do not want to work, which is their personal prerogative. I say try to include them into the process, but if they do not want to be included, then be respectful and kind of communicate around them by using their understanding (or perceived lack of it) as a pivot to understand things better about oneself and to communicate with those who do want to to work. The key point is that not everybody wants to work. people are on the internet and participating on various forums for different reasons.
I would advise that anyone who wants to achieve anything avoid you, your commentary, and your advice. I would advise anyone who thinks it sounds constructive to be hamstrung into oblivion by sophistry, half-truths, and arbitrary standards based on falsehood to flock to your banner.
Whatever it is you're promoting, it's not "work." It's "shut up and stop complaining."
14 Feb 2014, 2:30 pm
