AS superiority?

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I see here often a vindication of equality or superiority of AS over NT people. As far as I am concerned I certainly don’t feel superior for being autistic. I feel hampered or in many respects detached from humanity and I am not happy with that. Being a normal intercourse with human beings denied to me, I know that I lack in generosity and openness. My refuge has always been to mediate with humans by relying on cultural endeavors, sometime with some form of patronizing. I know the sterility of all this and I would prefer to touch and hug. I cannot consider this life as something superior.
But there is something where we can do some good. My experience, our experience, is an experience of deprivation. We may witness what loneliness and rejection really means for those who have to endure it. This can force us to look at normal life in its shortcomings. One of these shortcomings is the fact that others see deprived people often with an attitude of silly pride. People who are destitute may be called “bums”. People suffering emotionally may be calle “nuts”. And here we can fight the sterility and arrogance of the other side of the moon. Calling things with their name we can see professional warriors, salesmen, big and little managers, admen, erudites for what they really are. Perhaps the "hollow men".

The idea of autistics as superior sounds as silly to me as non-autistics being superior.

I don't like the "AS Superiority" beliefs either.

Neither do I.

Tim

AS people are people just like people who suffer from Muscular Dystrophy or some sort of joint ailment, like tenosynovitis, are people.

In fact, I'll go one better. AS people are people just like NTs are people.

We're all... people! Every one of us on this planet are people! In reality, most of us are rather similar in that we all have two arms, two legs, a body and a head (that's what my Mum says sometimes!).

At the bottom of the forum there's motto "Asperger's is not a disease". It implies we are just different, as for example left-handed people.

So, I also endorse the mirror image "Aspies are not superior". We are just different.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm going to make a more detailed post in my blog about it as soon as I can get my words together.
It seems to me that because AS people and NT people see each other from an outside viewpoint, they are more comfortable with noticing each others flaws, thus leading to a feeling of superiority. This is nowhere near the whole story, but I think it's part of it.

I'm different just like everyone else.

Whenever humans start labelling each other and claiming superiority it tends to be the forerunner of abuse and mistreatment. Slavery (by race or class), caste systems, sexism, Jocks vs Geeks in highschools, it's all the same. I'm better than you so I can mistreat you and not feel bad. I do not wish to join in and start doing so myself.


Asperger's comes with strengths and weaknesses. Because those people whose weaknesses are less pronounced tend to be left undiagnosed, the people diagnosed with AS may find their weaknesses are more pronounced. I believe that if we are looking for 'the new direction for human evolution' then the best place to look would be somewhere on the borderline between AS and not. That is, take on as many of the strengths that those of us with Aspergers rely on to survive in the world and discard some of the leftover traits that our species needed 10,000 years ago when we were running around naked in caves or up the trees. However, we do need fully functioning mirror neurons, in fact, as civilisation becomes even more complex the strain on our empathy skills will increase so this area of AS is not something that will be adaptive in the future.

Asperger's just means I'm different - it's like my epilepsy or my hayfever, in that it marks me out, like an unusual tattoo or a nutty haircut.

I feel ya. I get that feeling from alot of the posts here. I don't wear my AS as a badge. I'm not proud of it but I accept that I have some difficulties that other people don't have. I feel it more detrimental to us as whole for the people who do act that way, specifically the self-diagnosed.

I do not feel superior. I am better at some things than others, but I have some things that make me feel I am not as good as others. I don't believe in Autism/Asperger's supreriority. I am different from others, not better or worse.

Never in my life have I felt or thought I was superior to anyone, AS or NT. That almost offends me because I could probably use feeling a little more superior than what I do to some people. Makes me think of all the bullies I had to deal with growing up and even in adulthood and the people that take advantage of and use people. No, I'm not superior to anyone but nobody's better than me either.

I'll have to disagree with much of this. People living 10,000 years ago certainly didn't have all the "blessings" of modern civilization, but they certainly didn't live in caves or trees. They certainly weren't naked either (not the Europeans at least). If you think they were, try imagining *anybody* being naked outdoors during winter-time in Scandinavia. Not so. Quite likely, they would fit very well into our modern civilization if they had been born today. Its is pretty popular to think in terms of "inferior" ancients, especially since they cannot defend themselves either.

As for faulty mirror neurons, this is yet another totally flawed idea of researchers with no theory or real understanding of autism. What the mirror neuron theory does show is that certain basic nonverbal communication takes place subconsciously. What their study also shows is that (as usual) human NTs have the best developped mirror neurons of any species, which of course is pure BS. The reason why other primates only can interact in very basic ways with *NTs* expectations of mirrored functions is because they are species-typical. Humans have evolved away their mirror neurons from other primates, and thus only can interoperate with them on very basic levels. The same is actually true between NTs and Aspies as well, but we share many more ways we can interoperate.

IOW, mirror neurons are the basics for nonbverbal communication, and nonverbal communication cannot be faulty. It can only be different. It's species-typical.

The ancients were definitely not inferior - they invented the wheel, they invented tools, they made something out of an animal that they happened to catch in the woods, the first one they had caught in days after not eating anything but vegetables in that duration! If you or I caught an animal (well, that's if we could catch an animal!), would we know what do to with it, without a kitchen, with having to make our own utensils and being out in the blistering cold? Oh, and we must build a fire and an apparatus to hold the meat above the fire, oh, and we must not forget to stop the wind from blowing out the fire...!

We're not superior, but we are different. I feel the same way about race and gender.

When someone talks of inferiority or superiority among humans (modern or primitive) or among animals, we often intend that modern (that means humans in the last 150.000 years) are superior to primitive earlier humans and that humans are always superior to other animals and other forms of life, moreover he cannot survive without intestinal and dermal flora. I doubt that I can convince somebody about this, but I think that each species of animals or plants or fungi may be perfect in its adaptation to the ecological niche on which it relies for survival. This implies specialization in forms of life: the giraffe has a long neck in order to feed on trees, the whale has baleens to catch plancton and so on. Man is specialized in non specialization, has no niche strictly defined, via the accumulation of science and fabricated tools is no more tied to a specific environment. His specialization is in the complexity of the cortex cicuitries which has enabled him to exploit all different kind of environments. This is the reason of his recent success in multilplying its numbers and transforming the planet in a very short time. But is also the cause of many disequilibriums which may bring to the destruction of the species and of the living planet (at least for some time). The advantage of man may turn in the long run to be a disadvantage. So I don’t believe in this “superiority” business in general. At least in the perspective of the survival of life in general of which we are part.

Anyhow who can say that a man is superior to a turtle or a cat or a dog or a bee or a crane or a wolf? This “superiority complex” also bears on current definitions of intelligence which is constructed on logical abilities (se the ads here about taking IQs). We should have a definition of intelligence taking account of sensibility, emotional responsivness, and many other factors which constitute a working whole.