Is conflict inevitable in ASD communities?

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And by that I mean more conflict than there would be in strictly NT communities around similar topics. I've just been really disheartened by a lot of the discussion I've seen around the web lately in various autism/asperger's communities*. Whether the topic is Seinfeld, London McCabe, self diagnosis, ABA therapy, or any of about a dozen different "Autism Parents" vs "Autistic Adults" disputes, they all seem to deteriorate into especially angry or frustrating arguments.

It's gotten to the point where I'm starting to wonder if this kind of discourse is inevitable for our community. Put a bunch of us who have self professed limitations with things like empathy, perspective sharing, rigid and inflexible thinking, and communication limitations into a message board together and how long does it take before conflict arises, regardless of the topic?

Some other food for thought. If you take inevitable conflict based on our neurology as a given, are there particular steps that you could take to better encourage civil conversations within communities? And in communities that share both significant autistic and NT members, does one side share more of the burden than the other in going out of their way to have productive discussions?

*not just talking about WP here. I see it all the time on Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, FB, etc... as well.

Maybe not any more than any other social website that features (relatively) anonymous posts, but certainly less than most real-world venues (with the possible exceptions of sports arenas, religious centers, and places that normally serve alcohol).

I don't see it being more here. Actually less.

Conflict is inevitable among humans.

I don't think we're worse than any NT group when it comes to disagreements.

I'd like to think that we're logical / commonsensical enough to know that opinions can differ and that we should be open and accepting of different viewpoints - as opposed to being rigid. Narrow views of how things should be by the general populace has never served the autism community well, and one would hope as a result that we - the autism community - could set an example of being accomodating to others as a result.

I'm a glass half full kinda guy

I've seen much worse.

Join some left wing on-line forum when you're not left wing. Or a right wing forum when you're not right wing.

It happens, and it doesn't always have to be a bad thing. We're a group of black and white thinkers with various TOM deficits, so there's miscommunication in addition to various opinions and experiences.

Yeah, I understand that disagreement can be healthy sometimes. I think that it's discussions between autistic adults and "autism parents" that I get most depressed about. In theory that just seems like a situation where one group could be incredibly helpful to another group that is struggling with something they don't understand. But in practice it just seems to always result in some of the most bitter arguments that I've witnessed on the internet. To be fair, the NT parents shoulder some burden of the blame there, hence my question about who should bear the majority of the responsibility for ensuring the discussion remains civil. But just as often I see people on the spectrum just excoriating these clueless parents for doing nothing worse than following the advice of their therapists and other professionals they've put their trust in. It's just really disheartening to see that happening and have no clue what to do to make things better.

I think conflict is likely to happen in any community, but it's not inevitable. It's probably more likely the bigger and more diverse the community is.

Actually I think this forum is far more civilized than most. For the most part people here not prone to creating conflict just to be doing it. I think most if not all of the conflict that arises here is actually triggered by pressures that come from beyond this community.

I don't believe those traits necessarily generate conflict in and of themselves. They may make it more difficult to resolve though.

The most severe conflict I have seen on WP has arisen from the (poorly understood it seems) process of "Othering". There have been a number of recent examples of it.

For all minorities, particularly, othering is an important concept to understand. A simple example is the "othering" most of us experienced in the playground at school. We were designated as "the other" by others who used that as justification for socially excluding and bullying us. (However I don't want this thread to go off on the bullying tangent, please).

Minorities are othered - if you haven't been othered at some time in your life, then no, you probably aren't on the spectrum (though you may have been othered and not realised it at the time).

Unfortunately, because of the psychological dynamics of oppression, some othered people sometimes feel compelled to inflict othering on other people within their own minority. This "horizontal oppression" has been extensively studied. There are plenty of discourses on the net about "Othering" "Hoizontal Oppression" and "Internalised Oppression" if you are interested in these issues and how they relate to othering that happens here and elsewhere.

Yes. Exactly.

Among ways to minimize, I'd suggest assume good faith when someone writes something that could be interpreted in multiple ways. At the same time, if what you say gets interpreted offensively, own up and apologize.

Disagreement is bad, y'all.

The autistic adults vs. autism parents thing is disturbing and all-around bad situation.
Personally, I had great eggsperience working with autistic kids and parents of autistic kids.
I got along well with them and didn't have the kind of conflicts that I have read others having online.
I and they were focused on helping the kids in practical ways.

That sounds really good. It makes me happy to think of this good work and care happening out there.

Yeah, this was a nice post to read.

Conflict is inevitable in ALL communities--especially those in the Kingdom Animalia.