A Case for Asperger's Supremacy

Post Reply New Topic

I truly believe that we are superior to neurotypicals. I believe this because when I take the criteria for Asperger's, and take the inverse of these criteria, I see traits that I find to be inferior. I will now go into more detail-

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.

Inverse: "Normal" social approach, shares interests and emotions more, initiates and responds to social interactions.

Opinion: So right off the bat they pull out that word they like to use- "social". In particular, they say we have a "abnormal" social approach. This is a codeword to say that we do not adhere to the same social rules that society puts on us, instead we would prefer to focus on our own hobbies and special interests rather than do what everybody else wants us to do and adhere to the collectivist neurotypical swarm. When it says reduced sharing of emotions, I actually think that's a good thing because some of the worst things people do to others occur in emotional states, and emotions in general just seem to dilute good decision making. A decision made on emotion is more often than not a bad decision, and so if we choose to not speak to people in an emotionally charged way, I see no issue. Really I don't see how not initiating social interactions makes me problematic, I just like to do my own thing, but this is per the course for NT's who are collectivists that want us to follow their rules.

2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

Inverse: Good at nonverbal communication, appears more animated when speaking.

Opinion: This isn't necessarily true all the time, I've met people with Aspergers who are very animated, especially when they talk about their interests. But these people who write this s**t, they don't want us to have interests, they don't care at all. They want us to act like everybody else and that's why they say we have a "disorder".



3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.

Inverse: Good at understanding social relationships, is well-behaved in social situations, good at imaginative play, makes a lot of friends, interested in peers.

Opinion:Once again they stress how much of an issue it is that we might not be as interested in the affairs of others as they are, we march to the beat of our own drum. That's called individualism, what's wrong with that? Why should I be required to act like somebody else in a social situation, if I wasn't myself I would be miserable. This is why if somebody does not allow me to be myself, I get rid of them fast.

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypies, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

Inverse: Sitting still.

Opinion: NT's just don't have as much neural activity going on up there because they think less than us.

2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat food every day).

Inverse: Does not adhere to routines, changes often, changes mind easily; chaotic.

Opinion: How is this even a criteria for a "disorder"? These seem to be things that should be values in life. Life is much easier when you have a set plan and stick to it. So we do not like deviating from the things we know works for us, there is nothing wrong with that. Better that than going around doing the "experimenting" NT's tend to do that f**k up their lives in the long run. "Rigid thinking patterns" just means that we are decisive and stick to our convictions. It's good to be true to your convictions and more often than not my mind can still be changed but unlike NT's, it takes actual convincing and thorough reasoning to change my mind. Also, people who change things up too much often live turbulent lives. If we have routines that work for us well- why fix what is not broke?

3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g, strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interest).

Inverse: Lack of passion in interests.

Opinion: This one irritates me that it's considered to be an issue, because I think if it wasn't for people having intense special interests like this, we would not have the technology we have today. It's highly suspected that both Newton and Einstien had Aspergers for their fixation on their studies, but imagine if they were told they have a "disorder" for their level of passion in their interests? The world would be missing some very important things if that were the case. Special interests are great and I think that us aspies have massive potential from our ability to focus in on things like that because one of us could create the next world changing invention as a result of it being our special interest.

4. Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g., apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

Inverse: Can tolerate a lot of sensory information.

Opinion: Well, we just like breaking things down and when there's too much going on it's hard to break down a situation (especially a social one) enough to address it, and can be very overwhelming. Now that isn't scientific but cognitively that's my experience with sensory overload.

One thing these criteria left out is our ability to over-analyze. I think that's a great asset from having Aspergers and really does give me a leg up in the stuff I am into. I think that if society spent more time encouraging our interests and letting us being ourselves instead of labeling us we'd do great things, but instead we're repeatedly told that there is something wrong with us for thinking in a particular way. They also oversimplify us in description, and it's because the NT's who write this BS couldn't possibly understand what it's like to be in my head- there's so much going on in here, so many vivid ideas and thoughts and a lot of it is derived and related to my special interest but also it's imaginative things, plans for the future. I think very deeply and I believe that my autism is the reason that I am able to think freely, independent of what other people think, and come to own conclusions about my world through rational observation rather than emotion and feelings.

Now, why did I name this thread the way I did? Because, by virtue of calling Aspergers a "disorder", they are implying that something is wrong with us. They are saying that they are superior to us without actually saying it. They are also claiming to have the authority to tell us that we are exactly how they describe when in fact I can vouch that the mind of the autistic has much more to it than these people could possibly imagine, and if these people could live inside my head for even a day they'd be eating their words. So they want to claim superiority by saying that we are the "disorder", but how about the radical notion that maybe neurotypicals are the ones with more issues? Because aside from the sensory overload and social stuff, I believe that Aspies actually tend to be easier to deal with, because we tend to be more honest about what we are thinking. I've never once met an Aspie who was maliciously manipulative, in fact I'd say we have a hard time dealing with subterfuge from NT's.

I don't buy that thinking in black and white is necessarily a bad thing either, because to me that's just being decisive. I mean what's so great about these "grey areas"? Every time I've entertained these "grey areas" all I saw was a lack of decision, it seemed to be half-baked. Perhaps my mind naturally gravitates to extremes because of my autism but moderation for the sake of moderation just feels like the NT's effort to please the most people other people as they possibly can because they are collectivist and cannot think for themselves. They change their mind when it's convenient to do so, aka when the group shifts an opinion. We change our minds when we've been truly convinced, we don't just drop our convictions over the groupthink because we do not care about the groupthink. We do what we enjoy doing, say f**k it to the petty little social rules that NT's require us to follow no matter how little sense they make, and overall have a stronger sense of self than NT's.

So, I think that these things make us better than them. Our special interests allow us to dive deep into something and have a complex understanding, and for me it's rooted in a tendency to think deeply about everything, and it's this deep thinking that makes me get so fixated on one thing for so long. I think aspies can even be more philosophical than NT's for this reason. And, in my opinion- I think that our way of doing things is better than theirs, and that we should embrace our autism as our superpower rather than listen to what the NT's who can't even relate to us tell us we should do and feel.

(I don't think this thread belongs in PPR as it's related to the autism/ Aspergers spectrum and how we differ from NTs, thus moving to the Autism politics sub forum.)

A good simple rule is this - they want to kill anything that doesn't, or can't, conform. It's something we've inherited from chimpanzees.

One of the questions I'd have for the proposition though - what makes you think that we'd be any better if the world were filled with us and we were setting the bar for what was allowed and what wasn't? There might be some evidence that we're less blindly limbic but if the world was filled with us what are the odds that within a few generations it would be the most limbic that would be the best replicators and we'd be right back to the same kind of culture?

I think we might be able to, if some of us find ourselves to be of high integrity and willing to do what we can to solve problems the right way, we could form think-tanks and try to solve problems that way but admittedly we have to work with what we've got and the best odds are that the way people are right now is probably pretty close to how they'll look in 500 years. The trick is just sorting out what's ultimately true, figuring out what rules/laws give the most support to an ethically collected and detribalized society for the least invasion of personal liberty, and then trying to fix the broken or rotted out support beams.

Maybe I have a sheeple brain. And you might have to correct me on this.

But your post is incredibly ironic. On one hand, you deride Neurotypicals as collectivist, yet you seem to believe in an us versus them dynamic, in which Autistics as a group are superior. And I find grouping us into categories based on rigid emotional traits incredibly distasteful.

I don't know what you mean by "collectivist." I am honestly worried it might be your buzzword for calling Neurotypicals idiots who don't think rationally. Because if I am, to be honest, I am not sure if you have any true sense of what the word means.

I am not saying this to strawman you. I seriously wonder if this is what you mean.

The short version:

I never realized that an Aspie could embrace Fascist idealism.

Oh well, learn something new every day...

You're in the US, and "Asperger Disorder" was removed from the DSM.

The new diagnostic criteria is *needs support*.

So, you have to admit you have a problem (disorder) and need help (are inferior in some respect).

These are weaknesses though. The issue with social interaction isn't that we can't do it, it's that it's harder. Harder to understand, harder to tolerate, and even if we are comfortable with understanding it and enjoying the interaction we're in, it's draining while NTs don't have that problem. People need to interact to move the World, progress would be much slower if we were all autistic.

With the fidgity stuff, it's harmless to us personally, but an annoyance to everyone else, and that includes other autistics. Again, if we had to accommodate all this stuff, it would just slow everything down.

Having habits and routines is great when everything's going smoothly. But when something breaks the routine it can stop us in our tracks or even put us in hysterics while NTs deal with breaks in their routines much more easily, while still being able to take advantage of the benefits of them.

Fixated, narrow interests. These come to the detriment of everything else. This doesn't matter if it's something useful to society, but if it isn't, then you're behind a lot of NTs. Even if it does, you're still lacking that jack of all trades NT ability. It's also a strawman that NTs can't be obsessively passionate about things and excel in things, lots of them are and do.

The sensory stuff, much more often than not it's a weakness than a strength.

Over analysis is a weakness that's actually causing me trouble with an rl issue right now. Though I'd say it's less of an issue than under analysis.

Overall, autism causes more weaknesses than strengths. And I know it's possible to get wrapped up in yourself when your strengths are to the fore and everything's going well. Then reality comes along and slaps you hard in the face and slaps you off your pedestal and back down to Earth.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to that problem - ie. it's not always a failing on the part of a person who feels that way, ie. a lot of highly intelligent people get treated terribly, apparently because they seem like anomalous talent and thus threats to social order, and its quite often a matter of sheer grace if a person doesn't end up in conflict with both society and themselves over the experience and their inability to right the problem themselves.

The trick for those people is understanding what happened, also considering the frailty of the human condition (especially representative/liberal democracy), and then trying to plan a way forward in which their conclusions (or at least how they'd act on them) aren't of the sort that lead them to make the world a worse place.

I don't go along with this definition, but then I'm not American.

It's part of the spectrum, has its pros and cons but we don't need to subscribe to some sudden whim on the part of the mental health fraternity. It's like when they said Pluto's not a planet. It'll always be a planet to me.

such collective identities are not possible with humans as there are too many variables from which external stimuli is internalised. If you have complete control over your environment you may in theory calculate the best possible outcome in all circumstances and that will make you better than everyone. I guess I sound like a trans humanist - i'm not too hopeful in that respect as machines' "goals" and "purpose" are not necessarily to make the best decision for everyone and rather it is coded into them... including bias.

The thing is, these are not my definitions. I did not group anybody by rigid emotional traits because I did not make the criteria for aspergers as defined in this post- I pulled it straight from the DSMV. I do not believe we are emotionally rigid, I believe that we feel them very much but choose not to wear them on our sleeves. I don't think we "misunderstand" our emotions, I think we genuinely feel them differently than NT's and it's more or less their "misunderstanding" of OUR emotions that makes them say that our emotions are rigid.

Now as for collectivism, one of the criteria here is that we struggle socially, another is that we are intensely focused on one interest, which probably supersedes the interests of others. What is collectivism? "The practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it". Would you disagree that NT's do NOT follow this mantra more than use, when one of their very criteria for labeling us is the fact that we may not be the same as them socially? And yes it could be more autonomic things such as facial recognition, but it also could be our opinions on things and BECAUSE we have this tendency to over-analyze and not follow social conventions if we deem them to not make sense, our opinions are more likely to be outside the norm. NT's would rather us follow the norm and express our way of thinking less because if we do not, we apparently have something wrong with us.

I'm sorry if this is hair-splitting but this sort of thing bothers me: humans didn't inherit anything from chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are not our evolutionary ancestors; we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees (and bonobos), but we (humans) branched off from that ancestor millions of years ago. This chart shows where we (H. sapiens, top left) branched of from the genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos, shown as P. troglodytes and P. paniscus, top middle).

Quite frankly, I don't believe anyone is superior to anyone else.

But everybody else says they are superior to us, that's why they call autism a "disorder" despite the advantages people get from it. Yes, I'm aware there is a social trade off as well as some nervous system trade off, but people with autism have a way of thinking that can be different in a good way. They make it out to be all negative and problematic and the more mean spirited people will mercilessly mock and insult you if you let them know that you are autistic. Even if you have displayed that you are competent they will still look down on you, because you are autistic, and it's because the reason they even created the label is because they misunderstood people like us and think they are better. So since they clearly aren't going to at least admit we are equal, why not highball it and force them to meet in the middle?