Why does everyone think aspies aren't insightful?

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Why is it, everything I read talks about individuals with Asperger's lacking personal insight, or any insight for that matter? Like you can't be autistic/AS if you don't.
I'm often told how I am very insightful. I am believe I am too, very much so, but it's because my level of thinking just seems to go that much further than other people's. It's just the way my brain is wired. It does often seem to be as much of a pain as it is a gift because I over-think things, over-analyse the, get stuck and absorbed in what others seem to think are minor details, it can be really stressful and exhausting but I supposed part of the reason I can cope with certain situations as much as I do, is because of this exhaustive thinking and analytical dissection of every situation.

Clearly we can be insightful, you only have to look at publications and videos from the likes of Temple Grandin among others.

I think being autistic can make you the most insightful people of all. Although of course if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism but having that deficiency and/or aversion for things like "small talk" which is utterly meaningless a lot of the time allows your brain to have room for this complex way of thinking.
Of course NT's can be insightful but it seems less likely/prevalent.

I know what you mean about it being a burden. I too am an overthinker and for me the pain overshadows the benefit a lot of the time. While there is a benefit to being a complex thinker, it's hard to see it a lot of the time because the world doesn't usually allow for this. To be successful in life it seems you have to turn it off and be able to "small talk". Some people are able to achieve success without doing that. It's just a lot more difficult.

I think it depends on what someone is insightful about. I am insightful about things I've studied - biology, physics, IT , medical research and I do have a tendency to think very deeply about things. I can have insights at all sorts of times of the day and night about anything from neurotransmitters to primate behaviour to special relativity. However, in the social area I frequently lack insight at the most basic level. I get things wrong at least as much as I get it right. I constantly miss the point or fail to understand what someone is trying to tell me and when I try to sort out these errors I frequently make things worse because people think I'm arguing when I'm actually just trying to understand.

I sometimes imagine the social world like an overlay on top of the geographical world. In the social world there are all sorts of objects and rules and pathways which most people seem to see and understand without even thinking about it, but I am blind to this layer of knowing and I have to navigate from memory and learned procedures and dead-reckoning. Worse still there's no white stick I can carry like people who are blind to the world of vision so that others know that I have this issue so when things go wrong I get into trouble easily. (Not trouble with the law - I'm very clear on what I can and can't do legally and I'm someone who likes to follow rules. In fact following known rules is the only way I can manage. The difficulty with social rules is that they are contextual and I 'lack insight' into context.)

PS: I have high funcitoning autism rather than aspergers.

I'm not very insightful when I am within social situations.

I am pretty insightful once I am detached from social situations.

I don't mean about social situations. I don't have much insight about those, especially when I'm in them like you say Kraftie.

I mean, I have a very good insight into my difficulties and experiences (from my perspective and after I've had time to process them).

You're right...it is a myth to say that autistic people aren't insightful.

Like you and others have said, quite a few are QUITE insightful. They are able to see all the nuances of a situation, or (especially) of a physical object, and even see some nuances which neurotypical people don't often see.

Temple Grandin knew the EXACT, IDEAL angle by which a vaccination apparatus could be used so that the cow experiences the least amount of pain possible when being vaccinated. This is because she had an AUTISTIC viewpoint; she was able to discern very subtle angles in the passage from the vaccination apparatus to the cow, and through this she found the ideal angle. She thought about things, in other words, that a neurotypical person probably wouldn't have thought of, since she had a sort of "hyperfocus" which enabled her to detect the subtle angle nuances.

That's true but even her work around autism itself surely shows a great deal of insight.

I don't know but every shrink I've spoken to always tells me I'm "very insightful".

Like with anybody, autistic people benefit from living life and learning things. As a result, they gain more insight in general.

When I was a young child, I didn't really have insight into myself or others. All I really cared about was having fun. I had some altruistic moments. Most of the time, however, I was pretty selfish.

Insight, and affective empathy, didn't come naturally to me. I had to EXPERIENCE things before I made the transfer from cognitive to affective empathy.

It could be that, in some autistic people, insight comes less naturally than in non-autistic people.

However, as one proceeds through life, practices life skills, and uses his/her cognition, autistic people have the ability acquire features which don't really come naturally to them.

I am insightful, both in and out of social interactions.

They're referring to social situations, and I think they're often correct. That can be worked on, though.

For me, though; I spent a lot of time working on understanding other people's viewpoints and am pretty damn good at it by now. It does not come naturally, but I can usually grasp other perspectives more easily than many "NTs" if I remember to do so and work at it, case-by-case. It is in fact so intuitive for a lot of them that they've never had to think about it. I do have to think about it, which can come off as "insightful" I suppose. They could do it too, of course. Most just don't.

Basically, what kraftie said.

I'm often told how I am very insightful. I am believe I am too, very much so, but it's because my level of thinking just seems to go that much further than other people's. It's just the way my brain is wired. It does often seem to be as much of a pain as it is a gift because I over-think things, over-analyse the, get stuck and absorbed in what others seem to think are minor details, it can be really stressful and exhausting but I supposed part of the reason I can cope with certain situations as much as I do, is because of this exhaustive thinking and analytical dissection of every situation.

This is me too and I find that often NTs are much more oblivious to others than I am but I do get exhausted by it as you do.
By the way - is that your van in the picture because its awesome.

I've been told by a lot of NTs that I make very astute, insightful observations regarding people, human behavior, social rules, and societal norms. I think it is because social behavior is not natural for me, and it takes a lot of conscious analysis to get through any kind of social interaction. None of it is instinctual for me. As a result, I often feel like I am observing society from the outside and I don't take anything for granted or accept it as "the way things are." I often question the so-called "natural order" of things, such as our assumptions regarding gender, race, sexuality, and morality. In school, church, and now at work, I was always the person raising my hand and asking, "Why are we doing things this way? What would happen if we did it another way? How do you know that this is God's will?" I would also be the one in staff meetings pointing out what I thought might be a problem in the future. My bosses didn't like it at first, but I've gotten better at voicing my concerns in a diplomatic way, and they've gotten better at realizing that I'm saying what everybody else is too polite/chicken to say.

I think Aspies can have a positive role as the outsider-observer. I think it's why so many of us identified with outsider characters like Mr. Spock, puzzled by human customs, or excluded outsiders like Harry Potter, trying to prove our worth without becoming a conformist or coming to harm.

I agree with much of what I have read here. I think the principle operation at work here is perspective. We tend to have very unorthodox perspectives, and this leads us to "see through" assumptions that many people make. For example, consider a school. When looking to improve function, teachers and administrators probably will look at test scores, and devise various extremely effective methods to improve them. Conversely, my perspective in these meetings is always to ask, "Who cares?" because test scores do not produce capable adults, which is actually the goal. It is as much a source of frustration as it is useful, because most often one's insights fall on deaf ears, or at least ears attached to people powerless to change the monolithic forces we can see the errors in.

To be fair, most teachers and more than a few administrators seem to have an equally low opinion of such tests. Especially in the US; never met a teacher here who has good things to say about the prevalence of standardized tests now.

I get your point, though. Pretty simple observations can seem like deep insights if nobody's bothered to make them before.

Indeed, the example was to point out perspective differences, certainly not to bash teachers. I am one, and I work with good people. No insult intended at all: maybe I should have used a less potentially contraversial example...