The Autisnob

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One thing I've noticed on this site is something that may be best described as autism snobbery—that is, a form of snobbery that follows from one's having an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger's syndrome. I'd say roughly 40% of the active members of this site show this attitude to a greater or lesser degree, and it is poisoning us. Being so vocal, these people set the orthodoxy of the Internet-based autism and Asperger's community whence our hatred of curebies, ABA therapy, and vaccination "conspiracy theories." Their fundamental belief is that autism spectrum conditions are a superior way of being; thus all "NeuroTypicals" (NTs) are contemptible conformists and closed-minded fools. Here is how we might identify them:

• Believes aspies are smarter
• Believes aspies should be recipients of welfare for their "disability" (yet means of superiority) instead of having to engage in work as the hoi-poloi do
• Believes autists possess a different set of social skills that enable them to communicate among each other but not among NTs
• Believes aspies are more creative
• Believes aspies are more logical
• Blames NTs for all problems

Fellow aspie, I know you are not one of these autisnobs, but the time is ripe to challenge them. Let's call them out and see what they have to say!

Something about this really stumped me.

What's that got to do with superiority?

Because they believe they shouldn't have to engage in unskilled labor and work their way up while acquiring education and certification as NTs must.

OMG I completely agree with you! I've noticed a ton of prejudice against "NTs" here. After a short while, it starts to get really, really annoying...

I don't agree with any of the beliefs listed but I understand people who do.

It is an almost inevitable stage of politicisation for many people as they begin to understand how much another, usually majority, group has oppressed them just by blithely being themselves and assuming anyone who is not the same must be inferior in some way/of little account.

It's a phase of frustration between the rage and sadness, and acceptance of how one, majority, group's priorities have made your own life much harder than it need have been, by transforming differences into disabilities with certain social structures/organisation, ( roads all over the place, for instance, which for people who are smaller, slower, more sensitive to noise and speed, etc make life more dangerous and exhausting. And school which creates entire groups of disabilities out of difference).

Many women in the feminist movement have been through this phase, of saying men are inferior beings, aggressive, dick-driven, etc. It's a classic behaviour of an oppressed group on discovering how much they have been unconsciously accepting this kind of denigrating behaviour on the part of the oppressor.

Last edited by ouinon on 12 Apr 2008, 12:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yai. Tthat can very well be be misleading, since some Aspies are not in the least superior it comes to being able to obtain and keep a job, since most good paying jobs have a lot to do with social skills... and it is not very easy at all to get on aid, especially disability. It can often take years to get through all the paperwork, doctors exams, and proof that an applicant has failed miserably at attempts to get gainful employment. And usually it's because they have multiple disabilities that get a person aid. Not to mention being on SSDI or SSI isn't really enough to live on, as it is.

Just adding a thought...

Last edited by Tetraquartz on 12 Apr 2008, 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with you. I've noticed a lot of snobbery on here as well.

The only thing is, I'm on disability, but it's not because I think I'm too superior to do manual labor. It's because I'm kind of on the lower-functioning end of Aspergers and it would be too hard for me (it was too hard for me to even finish going to school).

Do you want anything with your pointless post?

Being a snob never "follows from" being autistic. It generally seems, from what I've seen, to follow from insecurity and a desire to feel superior to other people, or a very common mistaken belief (that you, oddly enough, seem to share) that believing one is not inferior must lead to believing one is superior.

Edited to add: And what the ounion (I hope I spelled that right) said is saying it far better than I could.



I don't know how many people really have those points of view. I've seen these viewpoints a lot, I can't stand them, but I think you see them where they don't even exist.

While snobbery poisons a community, attempting to label things as snobbery that are not, poisons it even more, by preventing people from discussing various realities of being autistic for fear of being labeled snobs if we do.



You know what... I've been involved in the "internet-based autism and Asperger's community" a long time. I know where our critiques of cure, ABA, and vaccination "conspiracy theories" actually originated.

And they did not originate with snobbery or the belief that autistic people were superior to non-autistic people.

Critiques of cure tend to be based on the idea that being autistic is not an inferior way to be. It used to be that all there was was talk about cure, all the time, about how autistic people were doomed to a life of hell unless we became non-autistic or at least as close to resembling non-autistic people as possible. Many people had been through attempts to cure them, or to get them to be "indistinguishable from non-autistic peers". Many suffered greatly because of this. And that's where it came out of.

Critiques of ABA tended to originate from various ethical concerns brought up by observers or by people who had actually been through it, some of whom had even been said to be cured by it. Some critiques come from people who actually don't mind certain forms of it. Some critiques come from people who don't like any of it. Some critiques come from scientists who believe that autistic people naturally learn best in a specific way that ABA actually suppresses.

Critiques of vaccine conspiracy theories originated in a wide variety of areas, some of which have nothing to do with autism. People concerned about the effects on public health are numerous, as are people concerned about the by now very unscientific nature of the claims, and the effects on autistic people of some of the more dangerous ways of treating supposed "vaccine damage" that may not even exist.

None of these are the same thing, and not a single one of them originated in the belief that autistic people are superior. Of the most coherent, well-written, and widely-read critiques of these things I have seen, none of the people who wrote them believed autistic people superior to non-autistic people.

And some of the people involved in these things even believe that autistic people are inferior.



That attitude exists, and is pretty nasty.

But consider a few things:

1. About half the things you mention aren't about autistic superiority at all, and making it sound like they are can negatively influence people who believe in equality (or even some who believe autistic people are inferior) .

2. Autistic supremacy is a problem, but who exactly does it generally affect? It basically ends up being people blowing hot air. Autistic people are not powerful enough for a belief in our superiority, even if it does exist, to have real influence on the way non-autistic people are treated.

Consider, also, that belief in non-autistic people as superior is far more common, far more widespread, and tied to a power structure that does cause routine and actual damage to autistic people. It even results in the deaths of some autistic people.

Personally, I don't believe either autistic people or non-autistic people are superior. I don't believe in such hierarchies at all. But the idea that autistic people are superior, while pretty disgusting, simply isn't as physically dangerous to people as the idea that non-autistic people are superior. Therefore, while I fight autistic supremacy ideas when I see them, I do not fight them anywhere nearly as hard as I fight the idea of non-autistic supremacy, because the real physical damage being done to people is almost exclusively stemming from a view of non-autistic (or non-disabled in general) people as superior, and because non-autistic supremacy is far more widespread of a problem.

A few people blowing hot air on the Internet may be mistaken, but they're not particularly numerous or dangerous and probably never will be. The main way that I see autistic snobbery as hurting autistic people, is that its existence makes it easier for people like you to confuse autistic-snobs with people genuinely fighting for autistic people's human rights and equality.

3. Additionally, if autistic people do turn out to be better than non-autistic people at some particular set of tasks (and this is the case sometimes), then this is just a fact, just as non-autistic people being better at other tasks is a fact. Neither one of those facts make anyone better than anyone else. There's a difference between being better at something and being of better value, and I hope you see that people being better at particular things is an inevitability and people being of better value is plain nonsense, and that they are not connected to each other in any way.



Yes, that is a form of snobbery, and untrue.



Could be an accurate account of snobbery, if it's accurately applied.

Simply believing that autistic people should be able to get public assistance if we can't work, is not snobbery, it's standard procedure for any disability.

Believing that autistic people who can work but choose not to because the sort of jobs they could do aren't "good enough" for them should be able to get public assistance, is snobbery.

For reference, I believe the former, not the latter. I have no objection to manual labor, in fact it was always my preferred work because I was better at it than I was at sustaining intellectual work. I just can't do manual labor anymore, and still can't do intellectual work either.



Not snobbery, and has a fair bit of basis in fact. Although I would say that it's autistic people being able to communicate better with other autistic people who are similar to them in specific ways, not all autistic people communicating well with all autistic people.

How is it snobbery to say that autistic people have a different set of social skills than non-autistic people do? Having different skillsets doesn't make anyone better than anyone else, after all. Snobbery means feeling like you're better than someone else.

And what on earth am I supposed to think if I've spent my entire life being misread by other people, as well as misreading other people's deliberate social signals, but as soon as I met autistic people I could read many of their body language and many of them could read mine? This is a common experience. I don't have any clue how it's supposed to relate to the idea that we're superior, and it ought not to be confused with beliefs in superiority.



Yeah, not true, and therefore usually a sign of snobbery.



Also not true, and therefore usually a sign of snobbery.



Would definitely be a form of snobbery if it's all problems.

Non-autistic people can of course cause problems, as can autistic people, though, and discussing that is not snobbery.

It would be very easy, reading your list, to spot someone blaming a non-autistic person for a problem that they actually did create or contribute to, or spot someone employing the social model of disability or similar things, and think that it is someone "blaming NTs for all their problems" and then jump on them as if they're doing something wrong.

Which ought not to happen, but judging from the rest of the things you're saying, you might well want it to happen.



You're addressing a set of people that you claim to be 40% of active posters here (although from what you claim to be snobbery I bet it's less), so how do you know that the person reading this isn't an autisnob?



It almost seems like you're trying to manipulate people into believing that everyone who thinks one part of your long list of beliefs in here (for instance, critiquing ABA or conspiracy theories), believes all the rest (like that autistic people are somehow superior).

Or maybe you really do believe it.

I hope others can see through it, at any rate, because proposing to label everything you describe as snobbery, will silence important and necessary conversations.

A lot of us who critique ABA, and vaccine conspiracy theories, and believe that autistic people are not inferior to non-autistic people (which is not the same as saying superior), and believe that autistic people have skills that non-autistic people don't just as non-autistic people have skills autistic people don't... are not being snobs and those sorts of things ought not to be listed on a list of such things.

I'd be in total agreement with you if you were describing only things typical of autistic superiority types, but you're not, you're describing things that are typical of lots of people who don't believe in anything approaching superiority, and then asking that anyone doing those things be stereotyped and "called out" as snobs. Which is a very destructive thing to do to people who just believe in equality, and plays right into the hands of the many people who don't even read what a lot of us write because they write us off as snobs to begin with even if we're talking about equality and not snobbery.

As such, I think a lot of the things you've described are a pretty irresponsible way of describing it.

Last edited by anbuend on 12 Apr 2008, 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Neanthuman,

I actually agree with you in most cases.... as for MY beliefs?

I believe aspies are supposed to be, as a group, in some areas, but that certainly doesn't mean an individual is, or that NTs, etc... couldn't be smarter. And, as for me? I HAVE met people smarter than I am, and some are probably NTs.

BTW... That is not to say that others aren't smarter than I am in some area. HECK, everyone on the planet might be smarter than I am in some area. I mean in areas I really try, or overall.



Even though I see work as a kind of slavery(think about it). A LOT of work has to get done, and I HATE people abusing sympathy, ESPECIALLY at the expense of others. That IS all the unjust applicants of social security are doing.

And I AM one of the workers. I think in my life of almost 50 years, I got maybe 2 unemployment checks(I was practically unable to even situp!), and I have paid well over $800K in taxes.

At least people with AS are not the only ones that abuse the system.



Actually, that is expressed by some NTs! DON'T I WISH! Still, I think some AS people get along better with some AS people.



At times I HAVE been very creative, but NOT very artistic. Some aspies ARE more artistic though!



Well, the idea of considering one's self superior because they are on disability kind of shoots THAT down!



Maybe not ALL, but a lot of the problems I have ARE! NOISE, touching, etc... HECK, if they honored my wishes, I would probably have never even caught a cold! THAT could have prevented my near brush with death a while back. AGAIN, it SOUNDS outrageous, but I am just looking at my desires/habits I have had since AT LEAST 4YRs, my history, and current science!

Well, all of the prejudice that AS/ASD's experience from the "real world" gets really, really annoying, too, not to mention downright exhausting and depressing. And it has a lot more affect on them than an NT posting on an internet message board, frankly. So, I think a lot of the "attitude" you describe is self-preservation and reaction against that.

I do believe that there are AS/ASD's who think like that, no question, but I think that, fortunately, it's not really that common.

Excellent thread and very true, I call it superiority complex. You should also add the "NT vs AS" attitude too.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 12 Apr 2008, 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

There are plenty of aspies with that attitude, but there are plenty of NTs with it as well, their focus just changes a little.

I think anbuend broke it down quite well.

I forgot to mention something else:

The post (and some people replying) make it sound like nothing that confers any advantages could possibly make a person unable to be gainfully employed.

That might be intuitive to some people, but it is not true. I know he's a fictional character, but look at Adrian Monk. His OCD makes him at the same time a very good detective because he notices tiny things that are out of place, and unable to be employed by the police. While he does manage to sustain a job as a consultant, it's quite possible that there are people in real life who have OCD that makes them good at certain things, but also unable to work at all, even as a consultant, because it just interferes too much in other ways.

The same thing can be true of people with bipolar, whose mania and/or depression may be too severe to work, but who may be extremely creative and productive in times of hypomania. They might have too many periods of mania and depression to be gainfully employed on a regular enough basis, but this doesn't negate the benefits they get from it as well.

It also presumes that the only possible way something can be advantageous is on the job, which is not true.

Among autistic people, there are probably many people who can't sustain gainful employment because of being too overloaded or too erratic at what they are able to do, but who still experience the advantages that come with an autistic cognitive and perceptual setup. Many savants come to mind there, but this is even true in many non-savants. There is no way I could be gainfully employed and support myself that way, but it doesn't mean that I don't have skills that stem from being autistic.

I find it kind of insulting to be told that if I can't hold a job, then I ought to stick to describing autism as wholly negative. The one doesn't even follow from the other, but a lot of people seem to think it's just a given that they do.

(And, as I said, having an advantage conferred by a particular neurological type doesn't mean you're better than anyone else. Better at, including statistically better at, is not the same as better than, they're not even remotely connected.)