Here's what I find evil about socialization

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I think capitalism can be cruel, abusive and neglectful to a lot of people, including but not just those with disabilities. But I personally also like to look at individuals. I know people who are selfless and my husband and I have also done some very selfless acts as well with no other motive or reason other than to help the person who needed it and we genuinely wanted nor expected anything in return. I consider that societies are made up of individuals and when I think about society I also have to think about individuals. Some are really wonderful and others are evil and most have the ability to be both wonderful and evil in different ways. I know I can be like that. I just find it a bit difficult to make generalizations about everyone. Just my opinion.

I live in the suburbs of New York CIty and work in midtown Manhattan--one of the great centers of global capitalism. The city has a reputation, based in movies and television more than reality, for cruelty and alienation. But the 8 or so million people in the city and roughly 20 million in the metropolitan area are for the most part kind, decent and considerate. They help lost children and little old ladies. They donate to food banks and winter coat drives. They volunteer to build housing for the homeless and poor and are regularly polite in the tremendous crush of daily commerce.

Though the city has an enormous police force, there is simply no way they could maintain order if the majority of citizens did not restrain themselves out of some basic sense of decent behavior.

People like to concentrate on and mythologize a few negative incidents and come to believe that those incidents (or the distorted images of them) are representative of the whole, but it just is not so. The there are an estimated 90-100 thousand people in this area with autism. For the most part we are neither being stoned to death by neighbors, pushed out of boats or living solely on the kindness of government institutions. For the most part autistic people around here get by on their family and social networks, however limited those may be. There are many, many bullies in the area, too--but it's just False to claim that bullying is socially accepted, approved behavior and everyone who is different is willingly sacrificed by the herd.

I also believe that many people get bullied not just Autists. We may be easy targets but I have been bullied because of reasons that have nothing to do with Autism and I know people who have been bullied who are NTs as well.

True, but that doesn't mean there's not a problem that needs a solution.

I don't think it really has anything to do with evolution although I guess it could. It has to do with group think/herd mentality, but like i said, it's different in humans than other animals. Evolution is about survival of the species, but group think is about survival of the group against all else.

I think humans are also kind of weird in that we do so many things that at least to me seem to go against propagation of the species. But that's a whole other topic!

What if the Aspie was the only one who knew how to sail?

wozeree, I didn't think you were doing that. I was just commenting on my participation in the bits about evolution.

Don't worry, you didn't offend me or make me feel bad,

This is probably going to upset a few people, but being selfish is one of the negative traits of Autism / Aspergers. I hate having it pointed out to me so I can see how it might upset some people, but we do tend to be self centred. This tends to make us view the world as being selfish because it's human nature to project our own personalities onto other people. We see an act of kindness and automatically assume there is a selfish reason for it, instead of accepting it for what it is. This doesn't mean we are incapable of being kind and giving, just that we tend to put ourselves at the centre of our little universe and everyone one else at the periphery. And every Aspie is of course different and unique, but it is unfortunately a recognised trait of Autism to be ego-centric.

We also have a tendency to favour logic over emotion, and will have the tendency to look at human behaviour as a logical thing that can be explained by scientific theory. Most people don't see logic as having a place in human relationships the way we do - they see it as cold and unfeeling. This doesn't make them evil or bad, just different to us. But it can make them feel alienated from us because our point of view makes them feel uncomfortable. And their emotional personalities can seem aggressive and overpowering to us because there is no logic to it. But to hate NT's because they don't fit your logic is in itself illogical.

I will say and do things that make sense to me from a logistical point of view, my NT wife will complain that what I want to do is wrong because it is not the 'loving' thing to do. Neither approach is wrong, and we often meet in the middle to create a solution that has best of both worlds. Working on the assumption that NT interactions are automatically evil is a very poor way to go through life. Most workplaces are designed to be competitive, because that is the best way to achieve efficiency in a modern company. Judging people who are just trying to survive in an unnatural environment is a bit unfair really (and most workplaces are unnatural places for a human to be). Take those people out of the workplace and see them at home and you will often see a completely different side to the story, a much more loving and caring side.

So no, being like an NT is not equivalent to being evil, just not compatible with who we are.

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Autistic dad to an autistic boy and loving it - its always fun in our house

I have Autism. My communication difficulties mean that I sometimes get words wrong, that what I mean is not what comes out.