Belonging to society, privilege and handycap.

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Is the social bond a decent thing? Is there some society where no one is unduly sacrificed to some presumed common goal or interest? In a society of hunters gatherers there is certainly some hierarchy. But this hierarchy is the result of a biological logic, the logic of evolution. Survival of life on the planet wants some kind of fight to maintain the living world against the disorder of the inorganic and against the decline of life. This requires some losers. But what happens in an organized society founded on the division of labor? Is social weakness comparable to biological weakness? The have not are cut out from any chance to acquire training and cultural tools and are for this reason (besides the lack of social connections, and not belonging to privileged strata) excluded from most opportunities.

Behind this line of reasoning there is my experience. I am not sure that my survival, is of some value to anybody (included myself). But I am quite sure that without my belonging to a culturally and socially privileged environment, and given my strong autistic handicap, I would not have survived if not in a bedlam, or some charity or a monastery.

I survived by keeping well away from psychiatrists their institutions, until such time as I had the language skills to protect myself from them. Also the culture changed in the 60's and they no longer 'warehoused' all the odd people. I think you meet peers in bedlams and monasteries though, perhaps it's lonelier outside of those places.

In terms of a caste system, disabiltiy is BLACKness in a white world, and you get everything that goes with a lower caste existence.

It is incredibly hard but I think I've found a lot of peace in realizing that its not a very white world at all. It seems like almost everyone is damaged in one way or another, many times having things that interrupt their lives more than even AS could, and the whole game seems to be putting on a good front, acting like everything's ok, and people do that just out of knowing that its a world that steals from the poor and gives to the rich (particularly in the genetic and social sense) - therefor it seems like its the only thing they can really do. Its misery, but at the same time its a surprisingly common place one.

I have been attracted in my youth by monasteries. It has been only a fantasy, because I have never been practicing a religion. There are also these chores of prayers that rather repel me at least superficially. I wonder what do they really think while they pray (verbally, but their non verbal thinking may be occupied by all sorts of things).

My point anyhow was that civilization (culture and technique in different interconnections) is a multiplier of exclusion and inequality. Though unavoidable in any kind of society, social inequality is very disturbing for me. There is a woman who has kept my flat in order in the last three years. How to communicate with her without falsities, given that there is an abyss in our life experiences, and given that this abyss is in part a result of my acculturation and of my class extraction, an abyss which I cannot suppress and which gives me inevitably an upper hand in many matters? And in any case increases my insulation? These kinds of relationships are always asymmetrical in some disagreeable way.

That reminds me of a British film but I can't remember the name. It's about a man that has a maid and he tries to bridge that abyss with her. It's considered an excellent film.