How can aspergers be a real disease if........

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I'm thinking there's two questions, really. What makes Asperger's and/or autism something worth giving a label to? And what kind of label?

Last edited by Mysty on 16 Oct 2010, 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree. How can Asperger's be a disorder, anyway? There are different personalities who could be labled Aspie, but they aren't sometimes...huh...I wonder why that is?

There are places were specific aspects are less noticeable.

Many Asian cultures involve less frequent eye contact, however there is much less of a sense of personal space making issues with touch allot worse. British culture is supposed to be more tolerant of eccentric interests. etc.

But I don't think aspies that have grown up in these cultures fit in any more easily than one in the US, maybe just disconnected in different ways. I have heard good things about living as an ex-pat, because you live in a country were your specific issues are less noticeable and as a foreigner no one expects you to act normal.

In my opinion, the reason is that your mind works differently from the majority. There does seem to be little question of that. But who defines whether that difference is positive or negative? I refuse to accept the definition of those who clearly have a selfish interest at stake (neurotypicals, who bolster their own sense of superiority by defining it as negative). I don't claim any right to define what is positive or negative, either. I simply say that a difference is just that, a difference, no more and no less. We are all human beings. If more people would accept that, being different might not cost us as much.

The most basic reason I so strongly reject the label "disorder" is precisely because that viewpoint is the justification others use in treating any of us badly. I just don't think anyone has justification for treating others badly, unless such treatment is either self-defence, or at the very least a reaction to some real provocation. (And by real provocation, I mean that if someone actually harms you first, then you may be justified when you react. But no one can ever be justified in harming anyone simply because that person is different.)

Another thing that complicates the discussion is that people with asperger's and autism generally don't know what they are missing. Maybe an idea, but, like a blind person doesn't know what it's like to see, an aspie doesn't know what it's like to have those abilities she lacks. And, of course, despite this, people with asperger's and autism really should be part of the discussion. After all, if the goal is to use the labels to help people be happy and functional, they those people should have some say in that, whether it's aspie, blind people, or whatever. (Not that there are currently any effective cures or treatments that can be imposed on a person without their cooperation. Not that I know of. And note that key word "effective".)

Mysty, that's true only to the extent that neurotypicals don't know what they are missing due to not being autistic. "Different" does not mean "inferior".

Autism is a disorder because, in the society where we live, it causes disability. Because disability is defined by a gap between what is required for you to live in your society without help beyond what is given to the average individual, and autism impairs some of those skills which society expects everyone to have, autism is a disability.

Those who have autistic personalities but no disability cannot be diagnosed with autism--despite that they can be neurologically, and identify culturally, as autistic.

Yes, exactly!

It's not just about society expectations. It's about basic human abilities, and lacking them. Autism IS a disability, not just a difference. Yes, some people have autistic traits and it's not a disability. Yes, there are those with autistic traits who get along just fine, and others who could get along just fine in the right environment. But there are also those who are distinctly, ambiguously, disabled, by anyone's definition. I have a nephew like that. And another in the more ambiguous area.

Oh, and I said NOTHING to imply different means inferior.

Asperger's Syndrome isn't simply another term for being socially deviant. Nor is every person with poor social skills on the spectrum.



That's a great point. Schools are good indicators of such differences, and some of what I've read about schools in certain Asian cultures is quite telling. Apparently, students are encouraged to emulate the writing styles of famous writers, and in general memorization is favoured over self-expression. Students recite passages as a group, but students usually aren't expected to participate by answering questions. My knowledge of this is very sketchy, but I'd be curious to learn more. In general, that environment sounds well suited for someone with Asperger's.

I don't know a lot about the social model of disability, but while I think it does have it's limits, it's also very easy to miss what it's saying. In the not too distant past, knowing how to kill a chicken and prepare it to be made into food was a basic survival skill. Nowadays, very few people know how to do it. So how do modern-day Americans survive? Other people prepare their chicken for them. Someone from the Civil War days might say, to a modern-day American, "you can't even prepare your own chicken and you call yourself an independent, self-sufficient adult?"

So there is help that people get from the way that society is structured, that people take for granted. It's invisible help. So, when someone with a disability needs help that isn't "usual," it gets seen as some thing that doesn't happen at all for others -- even though it does.

I recall hearing the argument that there are two ways to end up having other people dress you: 1) be disabled in certain ways, and 2) be royalty. And apparently, if you're very wealthy and have tailor-made shirts, the buttons are put on the opposite side from usual. The reason is that in the "old days" only royalty could afford custom-made shirts, and the buttons were put on the opposite side so that they'd be easier for the servants to button, since they were the ones who dressed you.

Another argument would be that in the past, intellectual impairments were less disabling than now. It's not that being intellectually impaired is so inherently limiting as it is that the job market has less use for strong backs than it used to.

While it might be hard to see how the social model completely shows how a disabled person is disabled by how society is set up, I think it's easier to see how non-disabled people do get a lot of help without even being aware of it.

Again, it's not as if I'm well read on this stuff, but I am aware that there is a lot more to these ideas, and the philosophy has been built over some decades, now. Maybe someone who knows more can add to it.

Again, there are those with autism who are disabled beyond those things where expectations change from society to society, or social class to social class, etc. Those people are real.

And, even in those who aren't disabled by it, autism is still a disability. If it's not a disability, it's not autism. Maybe autistic traits, but not autism.

Of course, disabilities can be accommodated so they don't limit a person. I wear glasses. Some people use wheel chairs. Two examples.

And I really don't think it's ever been normal for royalty to completely not take any part in dressing themselves, if they are able bodied. At the very least they are going to provide a lot of help and assistance. Just as a child might cooperate, move his arm through the whole, without doing absolutely everything themselves. A royalty who does nothing in dressing himself, would be either an infant, or an invalid.

There are autistic people who are severely disabled who advocate the social model. If you're going with the fallacy that only "high functioning" people advocate the social model, check out the ballastexinstenz blog, or Cal Montgomery's writings. Autistics.org is also good.



I never said it wasn't a disability; the model is, after all, called the Social Model of Disability.



The point is, do you view the accommodations as a special gift or handout, or part of a basic right to participate in society. If glasses were socially unacceptible would you consider it a special favor to be allowed to wear them? If the majority of the world were blind, would lighting be an accomodation? If you were disabled enough to qualify for a nursing home, do you think you should get to choose whether or not to live in one -- is it a favor or right to have that choice?



Whether or not royalty has literally everything done for them is beside the point (maybe they put on their shirt and someone else buttons it). They get help with that and it's seen as perfectly normal, whereas the same help to a disabled person is not considered normal.

But, in another side, I suspect that the aspie trait of correcting the teacher when they are wrong will be considered very rude in these societies (more than in the West).

I think the autistic combination of social eccentricity and need for order and structure will be very difficult to satisfy in any society in the world, because societies who are high in order and structure are usually low in tolerance for eccentricity, and vice versa.

I'm not saying anything at all about WHO advocates the social model.

I will not, there are people with autism who don't speak, nor write.

My point is, that it's not correct to say, as was (as I understood it) said somewhere in this thread, that autism is just a matter of societies rules and if society had different rules, there'd be no autism, and no differences/disorder/diabilities/whatever that are what we call autism.

That's absolutely true. I suppose that in societies which emphasize originality aspies will appear overly formal, and in more formal societies aspies will appear eccentric. Too bad for us.

I was watching a documentary about the Blacksmiths of the Dogon tribes in Africa.

The Blacksmiths are highly respected in the tribe. They are the artisans. They are individuals surrounded (and I think protected) by myth and legend. They are considered "holy men" because they are believed to be decended from the first Blacksmith, the man who discovered fire and smelting.

A blacksmith would live in a hut on the outskirts of the village.
He would have helpers and apprentices tend to him.
They would provide him with food in exchange for his iron cooking utensils and ploughs.
The tribe respect the blacksmith. If they didn't, there'd be no more pots and pans.
The blacksmith is essential to the survival of the tribe in the harsh environment south of the Sahara desert. Without him, people would starve, and have no masks and equipment for rituals.

A blacksmith is destined to be a blacksmith from birth. He has no choice: he cannot change his career mid-life like someone in an industrialised society.

He is not expected to make small-talk: he is expected to make pots, pans and masks.

His society is structured in such a way that he can continue to make technology without being disturbed. His society also has a kind of "dating agency" built in. When he wants a wife: they go and get him one.

I believe that many of these blacksmiths would now be identified as "Aspergers" if they had to live in a western culture where people are forced to be chatty and cultural roles are constantly shifting. Maybe our society is losing many of the social structures and mythology that would've protected people like this.