SJWs are ruining the Neurodiversity Movement

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When I first found out about my autism, I was 16 and it was about 14/15 years ago. There was a neurodiversity movement but it was really for those of us with Asperger's. People who were hurt by living in a society which doesn't tolerate difference well, and were hurt by physical things like sensory sensitivities. Those of us whose 'disability' added as much as it took away, it was really an Asperger's movement. Most of the time, we were talking about how although being autistic harmed us socially, it made us have things like: a better memory, a better eye for detail, a better imagination etc.

I think this is a productive sort of conversation. If NTs would listen to it, they might even be able to work around our deficits, use our strengths, accept high functioning autism and we could find work in areas which fit our expertise. In fact, in the STEM field especially, a lot of people do this. I do this myself except that poetry writing doesn't pay, I'm fairly well published and I use skills which were more easy for me to acquire with an Aspie brain - things like close attention to detail, good imagination and love of patterns.

Then it drifted into being other sorts of ways in which a brain can be different and still benefit the individual who has the brain, therefore needing the social model rather than the medical model to understand it. I have no problem with this. I don't really understand it all, except that I had a boyfriend at sixth form who had ADHD and struggled to concentrate but was an absolute genius on the piano because of how fast his brain worked.

Nowadays, neurodiversity seems to be a catch all term for every sort of way in which a brain can be different.

Here's the thing, though. Sometimes brains get ill, too. If your brain is actively working to harm you or to harm those around you, you need the medical model.

I'm speaking from experience as someone who takes medicine for my social anxiety. I was a recluse for years because I was afraid to go out. If something like this is going on, you need medical intervention, whether it's through counselling or though medicine or a mixture of both.

Sometimes an ill brain can even kill. Sometimes people kill themselves because their brain malfunctions into severe depression. This isn't something society ought to accept and work around, this is something which we need to find cures and solutions for.

This SJW way of calling every brain which is different 'neurodiverse' means that those of us who are high functioning autistic, whose brains are unusual but not unhealthy, whose brains might be put to good use in society, are still being listed amongst those people whose brains are malfunctioning and hurting them or others. Only at least under the medical model, something could be done about people who were suicidal or psychopaths or whatever.

So I'm still going to say NT and aspie rather than allistic and neurodiverse. Because my Asperger's wouldn't necessarily be a hindrance to me, outside of sensory sensitivity issues, in a society set up in another way. Whereas my social anxiety is a hindrance, isn't an innate part of me and is slowly getting cured.

What I'm not saying is that we ought to be bigots against people with a mental illness. I don't believe we ought to be. But we ought to recognise that brains can get ill just like other parts of the body can and that sometimes they need to be/can be cured.

I feel that the SJWs themselves have a perverse pathology of the psyche, which is environmentally acquired, rather than congenital. If that movement continues to grow, the World is headed for even more calamity. I wonder how many other aspies cannot tolerate political correctness - I certainly can't.

SJWs are very unpopular on here. There's an overarching post about it and you can make your own about specific things.

I don't want to derail my topic by talking about SJWs as a whole, though. There's a thread for that

Vaguely back on topic, they don't like it when people say things like 'nuts'. My dad's severely mentally ill, has been in hospital and can't cope without medication, yet if someone's acting like a psycho, he'll say it how it is. He's degree educated but not in English and he doesn't really have other, more PC, terms for it other than his own diagnosis.

In my opinion, those so-called "SJWs" seem more interested in making people believe that they are concerned than they are in actually doing something to prove their concern.

It is a misperception that the ND movement is just about Aspies or high functioning Autistics. For example Amy Sequenza a board member of ASAN would not fit the definition of Aspie for one thing she is nonverbal. The neurodiversity movement has lobbied against ABA a therapy used mostly on non-Aspies. This misperception IMHO is the major reason many Autistics despise the neurodiversity movement. It is viewed as elitists blind to the suffering of more "severe" autistics.

Neurodiversity has two distinct meanings the original meaning autistic, and the newer definition which is autism and a bunch of other condition such as dyslexia. I have not seen the term used to describe every mental illness under the sun. Not on wrong planet, not in any of the articles I have read about neurodiversity. Maybe on Tumblr, they do that.

To me Autism Justice Warriors would act like Social Justice Warriors for example language policing, hacking pro cure peoples computers, harassing them in restaurants. I have not read about anything like about that type of thing happening.



IMHO a lot of the high rate of social anxiety among autistics is due to us being a small minority leading to repeated social failures, exclusion, discrimination leading to mental illness rather than the mental illness being solely our deficit

For SJW, it's all about being right and anyone who disagrees with them and has a different perspective is a Nazi and a bigot. This is why I have grown to dislike them and starting to hate the far leftists. It's all black and white for them.

15 years ago it used to be you could disagree and they wouldn't be blocking you or judging you, they would just respectfully disagree after hearing your perspective but they still keep theirs.

I don't like SJWs either who rely on cancel culture. I get it, it's wrong to hate autism, but you can't hate the people who hate autism either.

I hear a lot of people talking about SJWs but I've never met one. Are they common?

On Twitter, yeah.

Most people who complain about SJWs would consider you an SJW.

According to Wikipedia...

... this description seems to fit a few people here.

I think political correctness does have its uses, in some contexts and situations its best to avoid wording things in the most offensive way possible. I don't see anything inherently wrong with that....but there certainly is a problem of people taking it too far which is annoying.

I find most whining about political correctness comes from conservatives and reactionaries who are offended that their standards of political correctness no longer match society's.

... this description seems to fit a few people here.[/quote]

Jeez, I wonder who.

As for the topic at hand, I am a little confused over what the OP is having a problem over. It sounds like a complaint over feeling that the term used to refer mainly to people with autism, but now is used to refer to people with other mental problems, such as illnesses, and apparently SJWs are the ones that are doing this. Firstly, neurodiversity never only referred to people with autism, it has always meant someone who is not neurotypical, a catch-all for things from autism, to Tourette's, schizophrenic, OCD, and apparently Dyslexia. You don't refer to those groups as NT. And apparently this is the fault of SJWs for some reason.

Not going to say that there are not people that take social issues too far, but to me it just seems like a bit of scapegoating, creating a bogeyman of scary SJWs that are causing all these problems by changing definitions or trying to solve problems that do not exist by getting angry. Outside of some really reactionary tweets, I think that it is a strawman to try and paint the left as illogical.

What sort of illness are you referring too?

You May Be a Social Justice Warrior If:

• A madman commits mass murder or serial rape, and you blame "Society" or the "Wealthy White Male Christian Patriarchy" for it instead of blaming the perpetrator.

• Instead of building a ramp to help handicapped people access a building, you will attack people using the stairs and make them feel guilty for having workable legs.

• Someone apologizes for what you feel is a bigoted remark, and you deem the apology as insufficient (i.e., too little, too late, insincere, et cetera).

• Someone is either with you or they are a bigoted, fascist, xenophobic hatemonger.

• Someone experiences an act of social injustice, and you take it upon yourself to vehemently speak against it instead of joining a collective effort to actually do something about it.

• Someone makes what you feel is a bigoted remark, and all you can think of is how they should be punished.

• You are eager to label others as bigots and oppressors, while ignoring or justifying your own bigotry and acts of oppression as 'righteous'.

• You are hyper-aware of social, sexual, and racial injustices, even where they don't exist.

• You are unable to earn a STEM degree because you believe mathematics is a patriarchal construct.

• You are unable to understand the difference in magnitude between a simple micro-aggressive act and an all-out personal assault.