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ASPartOfMe
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01 Jul 2017, 8:06 am

friedmacguffins wrote:
Politically-incorrect (!) language, used to make a valid point -- no shame.

He's using some handicapped kind-of terms, if you can bear that.

In comfortable company, all of these people use the same expressions as a Kentucky Colonel, with God as my witness. If you sjw's were their friends, you would know that.

Autism is only a word. It describes a way of thinking or a personality trait. Some deadpan literal person, not prone to virtue signaling, not prone to self-pity, would be hearing it like stereo-instructions.

I find Carlin's attitude towered the use of words very autistic.


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friedmacguffins
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01 Jul 2017, 3:21 pm

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Agreed. Whilst it is annoying, all I can suggest is to ignore it. To some, you're only going to prompt them more to use such words.

You're talking about ignoring something, with literal meaning, on the grounds of poor taste. Is it objectively true, or not.

In Moby Dick, an overzealous sort-of Christian hires a strange savage, because of his skill. And, some rich people are very eccentric. Everyone calls that what it is. They see the weirdness, and they deal with the person, anyways, based on their individual merit or usefulness. Most every workplace and neighborhood is a ship of fools -- real, honest-to-god rejects, all with sob stories -- and it still doesn't have to keep people from getting along.

Actually prioritizing the externals, instead of discussing them, flippantly, is the real cause of division. In a family, people are allowed to do that. If it was a pack of dogs, or an aquarium of a fish, you could single them out. You could describe them, based on their habits, looks, or personalities, without the eternal victimhood narrative.



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15 Jul 2017, 9:38 pm

I think we just need to tell the bullies that we are proud to be autistic, and we must make a list of all the good parts of autism and make speeches about it and movies and books and TV shows about how we aren't any better or worse than others, and act like autism is cool and we're proud of ourselves. We just need skills in self-esteem and in SHOWING self-esteem. That's all we need.



stripyrhino
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18 Jul 2017, 12:07 pm

In my school autism is used as an insult and I can barely stop myself from crying...whyyyyy do they think our disability is something to laugh at and use like a synonym for 'idiot'. It's so sad. Every time i say its offensive to them they say I'm a triggered sjw. (Which is also offensive to people with ptsd). And thats one of the reasons i have no friends :cry:



Jesus Sperg
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20 Jul 2017, 6:33 pm

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27 Jul 2017, 9:46 pm

I am autistic and love how Autism is used. My favorite comedies regularly make autism joke and joke about people being autistic. I ldon't be when groups I belong to are insulted. I think letting the term go mainstream is great.



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30 Jul 2017, 8:57 pm

Lintar wrote:
Ganondox wrote:
If you want to join the fight, simplest thing you can do is wait for someone to use ableist language, and then encourage them not to use it.


No, I would rather just punch them in the face. It's far more emotionally satisfying.


Can't punch people across the internet.


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Ganondox
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30 Jul 2017, 9:00 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Ganondox wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
What is disturbing to me is that over the years there have been so many words that were legitimate descriptors or medical diagnosis and went through the following process.

1. They became pejoritives and insults

2. Because of that the became "politically incorrect" to use

3. Another word was used as a replacement. They new word is so wishy washy as to be meaningless (see differently abled) or the new word itself becomes an insult then becomes politically incorrect to use and the cycle goes on and on.

"Moron" and "imbecile" were medical diagnosis at one time until they became insults so "ret*d" replaced those words as the name of the diagnosis. The ret*d and its cousin "ret*d" became and insult and now people get all offended if you use those words so now autistic is replacing ret*d as the go to insult. At one time there was a diagnosis called "manic depression". It is now known as "bi-polar". "Bi-Polar" sounds like something the TV weatherperson should say. "Manic Depression" actually describes the condition. If we keep on running the bullies will get us with the replacement word for autistic and it will never end.

There is a better way that has been used that to combat this successfully called reapproriation. The most successful example of that in my lifetime has been the word "freak" . At first it was a pejoritive to describe anybody very different. In the 1960's it became a popular insulting thing to call hippies. The hippies started calling themselves that affectionately. Now "freak flag fly" is a complimetry term used to describe any non conforming person who is not afraid to be themselves. When I was growing up "Queer" was a popular homophobic insult. Now that negative association is largely gone.

Public shaming and confronting is not a bad thing but has been used so much that not only has it lost its effectiveness but there is very large backlash against those techniques going on now. That technique will likely backfire these days. Even if one is successful in forcefully shaming a word out of use you did not change peoples minds but just caused more hate and resentment for you.

We can only use the word Autistic often and fearlessly for ourselves. If by we change perceptions of others by our example as other groups have in the past that would be a nice benifit.


It's called the euphemism treadmill, and the reason for it because the words are made dirty and replaced with euphisms for non-dysphemic speech rather than addressing the actual problem of ableism. The point is to shame people for using autistic as an insult because it shows they are uneducated bigots, not when they appropriately use the word autistic. With autistic, there is no value in reappropriating it because it is an actual medical term, not merely an ableist insult.

Yes, there is a large backlash to it nowadays, and that's actually a GOOD thing, because it brings the issue higher up in the public sphere, which allows more people to realize for themselves that ableist language simply isn't okay. Most people use ableist simply because it never crossed their mind that they are belittling people with disabilities, so just making them aware is enough to start the change. If you're goal is solely to hurt specific bigots then it would backfire as it tends to give them exposure, but that's not the goal, and in the long-term it makes bigotry unacceptable and the bigots look even more disgusting for inciting backlash.


This is more of a general observation than about ableism in particular. The overuse of language shaming and policing is a bad thing and the backlash is a part of it. When seemingly every word is offensive concurrent and bad things happen. People fear saying anything, People learn to use the non offensive language so you do not know who is on your side, and then you have what is going on now people saying offensive things just for the sake of saying offensive things to protest the feeling of bieng restrained. Maybe the people hurt verbally and psychically is worth it in the long term but my thinking is be careful what you wish for.

Language policers fundamentally misunderstand humans. The world is never going to be perfect, people are always going to fear what they do not know and there are different levels of bad things including offense. The treating of microagressions like cross burnings just makes a moral mush. Confronting every offense is in that way treating all offensive as equally bad and all offenses are not equally bad.

I am not advocating lay down and take it. I am advocating pick you battles and confront the ableist ideas instead of the language caused by those ideas. This is what I did recently. In a comment section a poster said it is worth it to try high risk experimental treatments on "low functioning" "real autistics". I could have gone on a tangent about functioning language and how offended I was and I was pretty offended by her insinuation that somebody like me not a real autistic. Instead I said your idea will probably make low functioning autistics life worse or kill them. I told her that we are making judgements about the quality of life of low functioning Autistics based on assumptions etc.


It's really not that hard to avoid discriminatory words as insults. People lash out because they are bigots and they want to be free to be bigots without being judged. I'm not talking about unintentionally ableist things low-functioning, I'm talking about deliberate insults, there is no excuse.


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30 Jul 2017, 9:03 pm

johnnyh wrote:
Hmmm, I wonder why it has become an insult, and why youtube videos with autistic people are flooded with troll comments. Now, if it was always that way, I wouldn't have any leads to why. But it didn't happen as much a decade ago. I wonder, there is such a thing as the streissand effect, and trolls, like snipers, go after targets they can see, so painting a big red target on your chest and screaming "try and shoot me! I am invincible! I am bulletproof! This chest is a sign of my pride and indentity!" they will aim at you.

On the plus side, at least whoever they used to target, I don't know, maybe it was furries, have been forgotten about. But I don't know if that was such a good trade off. Like a human sacrificing their life to save a drowning rat.


No, it's entirely due to a single individual who became a meme, Chris Chan, then stupid kids who knew nothing about Chris Chan or autism started picking up the insult from others.


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30 Jul 2017, 9:05 pm

Pieplup wrote:
Ganondox wrote:
In case you haven't noticed, autistic is increasing popularity on the internet as an insult, and if we want to be accepted as part of the community we CANNOT tolerate such usage of the term. While some people can just rub off their identity being used as an insult, for others it cuts like a knife, and it completely ruins their self-esteem which can lead to so many problems, so this is a serious issue. I for one have finally had enough of it and have decided to take action.

We could try educate to the population about what's wrong with the term, but unfortunately that's not particularly effective because most people simply don't care, they either don't realize autistic people are in their communities (in which case the solution is just to increase exposure to autistic people, not lecturing) so they don't see the need the change, or they don't care because lack empathy. It sounds bad, but must shame people who demean autistic to to send the message that it's not socially acceptable to discriminate against autistic people. This is the only way to get unempathetic NTs to change, they aren't going to change without a fight, and it's a fight worth fighting because it actually DOES work. Notice how it's no longer acceptable to use racist or homophobic insults, that's because people fought the fight.

If you want to join the fight, simplest thing you can do is wait for someone to use ableist language, and then encourage them not to use it. I've put more thoughts on this subject in this tumblr post.

PS: If you don't want to wait, you can find some ableism in the comments of this video, going find OcarinaPlaya's comment and show other people aren't okay with the use of autism as an insult because I'm petty every small change makes a difference, and NTs are more likely to be persuaded by groups than by individuals.
Whether or not you like it people are going to do this. It's not a huge deal.


There is always going to be as*holes, but that's not what this is about, this is about change in societal attitude. You're only 14, you haven't had time to see that things like this DO change. You're also too young to realize this IS a huge deal. I see part of the reason people in this thread aren't getting it is because people with autism tend to be bad at understanding the significance of pragmatics, but they are actually super important.


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02 Aug 2017, 7:00 pm

stripyrhino wrote:
In my school autism is used as an insult and I can barely stop myself from crying...whyyyyy do they think our disability is something to laugh at and use like a synonym for 'idiot'. It's so sad. Every time i say its offensive to them they say I'm a triggered sjw. (Which is also offensive to people with ptsd). And thats one of the reasons i have no friends :cry:

My favorite comedy Autism is used as a joke all the time. The audience is described as Autistic screeching and they joke about everyone being autistic. Sometimes you need to laugh at your problems. I have tried to kill myself twice this year. I love jokes about suicide. At the hospital we all sat around and made suicide jokes.



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03 Aug 2017, 9:04 am

gmad1 wrote:
Pieplup wrote:
Ganondox wrote:
In case you haven't noticed, autistic is increasing popularity on the internet as an insult, and if we want to be accepted as part of the community we CANNOT tolerate such usage of the term. While some people can just rub off their identity being used as an insult, for others it cuts like a knife, and it completely ruins their self-esteem which can lead to so many problems, so this is a serious issue. I for one have finally had enough of it and have decided to take action.

We could try educate to the population about what's wrong with the term, but unfortunately that's not particularly effective because most people simply don't care, they either don't realize autistic people are in their communities (in which case the solution is just to increase exposure to autistic people, not lecturing) so they don't see the need the change, or they don't care because lack empathy. It sounds bad, but must shame people who demean autistic to to send the message that it's not socially acceptable to discriminate against autistic people. This is the only way to get unempathetic NTs to change, they aren't going to change without a fight, and it's a fight worth fighting because it actually DOES work. Notice how it's no longer acceptable to use racist or homophobic insults, that's because people fought the fight.

If you want to join the fight, simplest thing you can do is wait for someone to use ableist language, and then encourage them not to use it. I've put more thoughts on this subject in this tumblr post.

PS: If you don't want to wait, you can find some ableism in the comments of this video, going find OcarinaPlaya's comment and show other people aren't okay with the use of autism as an insult because I'm petty every small change makes a difference, and NTs are more likely to be persuaded by groups than by individuals.
Whether or not you like it people are going to do this. It's not a huge deal.


Agreed. Whilst it is annoying, all I can suggest is to ignore it. To some, you're only going to prompt them more to use such words.


This. Because there are always going to be nasty people who are going to take anything that means "different from me" and turn it into an insult just to re-inflate their own leaky balloon of self-worth.

We can mock them, I guess. It's satisfying (in the same way that belittling others is satisfying to them).

Which is a problem, in my opinion.

I'm more a fan of reclaiming terminology. It takes some of the wind out of their sails with less direct potential to turn into a pointless semantic argument. It also gives the people affected by their nastiness a way to reclaim self-respect.

Changing their attitude, possibly by getting at the roots of the problems that make them want to tear other people down to begin with, would be best. But frankly that takes more time and compassion than I've got, and probably more effort than they're willing to put in (if they really wanted to fix the problem, they would ask someone to help them do that instead of attacking people).

Keep working on making culture, in general, less perfectionistic and less mean. Might help everybody...


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03 Aug 2017, 10:59 am

Reclaiming language effect on others is questionable. If it does great but that is not the point. The point is to help the self-esteem of those reclaiming the language.


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03 Aug 2017, 12:50 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Reclaiming language effect on others is questionable. If it does great but that is not the point. The point is to help the self-esteem of those reclaiming the language.

Why is it everyone else's job to adjust to please someone's feelings? Why they just get over it?



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03 Aug 2017, 3:58 pm

Feelings are a means to an end. If their feelings toward you are not hate, disgust, or pity there is less chance they will mistreat or persecute you. It is the job of people not to mistreat or persecute other people. If they like you, you might be treated well. Trying to influence others to feel better or at least less hostile towered you is in your self-interest. Why is it a treated as offensive or a character flaw (whiney, SJW) when autistics try to do it but when millions are spent to sell a product it is considered perfectly acceptable and normal?


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12 Aug 2017, 9:52 pm

Ganondox wrote:
johnnyh wrote:
Hmmm, I wonder why it has become an insult, and why youtube videos with autistic people are flooded with troll comments. Now, if it was always that way, I wouldn't have any leads to why. But it didn't happen as much a decade ago. I wonder, there is such a thing as the streissand effect, and trolls, like snipers, go after targets they can see, so painting a big red target on your chest and screaming "try and shoot me! I am invincible! I am bulletproof! This chest is a sign of my pride and indentity!" they will aim at you.

On the plus side, at least whoever they used to target, I don't know, maybe it was furries, have been forgotten about. But I don't know if that was such a good trade off. Like a human sacrificing their life to save a drowning rat.


No, it's entirely due to a single individual who became a meme, Chris Chan, then stupid kids who knew nothing about Chris Chan or autism started picking up the insult from others.


As much as we are ideological opponents, on this we can both agree Chris Chan having his computer smashed years ago and prevented any internet access would have saved so much pain and anguish for many people both autistic and non-autistic.

The weight of his actions is incredibly severe. He did not just only make a fool of himself, he provoked "autism" becoming an insult. Fortunetly this is confined to the west. Other countries don't use "austistic" as an insult. (Yet...)


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I still hold many of my views, but I will tone down my anger and stop being so bigoted and judgmental. I can't possibly know how you see things and will stop thinking I know everything you all think.

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