NT Mental and Emotional Handicaps: Your Thoughts?
I am the author of the Izgad blog. I just came across this posting. Thank you ezbzbfcg2 for posting the link and for doing an excellent job coming to my defense. I have not been doing much blogging for the past two years as I have needed to concentrate on writing my doctoral dissertation. Izgad was never a particularly successful blog in terms of readers so it means all the more to me when I hear from random strangers that they read a piece of mine and felt strongly about it (either really liking it or hating it).
Nessa238: While there may be legitimate edge cases, there are things that are objectively rational such as logic and science. My rule of thumb is that any claim that is the product of a set of rules that you are willing to apply universally whenever applicable is rational. As an aspie, I may be hurt by both baseball bats to the head and by being called an automaton. Since the latter, unlike the former, will not necessarily harm non-English speaking neurotypicals, we must declare the harm to be emotional and not based on reason. As for my emotions, I admit that I have them just like a neurotypical does. I attempt to transcend that by appealing to universal rules. Neurotypicals should not have to take my emotions into account, but I should also be free not to take theirs into account as well. Obviously this is not the world we live in now or will ever likely live in and there is little any of us can do about it.
Ever since I was recently diagnosed, I have been trying to understand the common patterns in neurotypical behavior. To help me, I have read a book (“A Field Guide to Earthlings”) which describes 62 such patterns. The concept of "organizing in hierarchies" is discussed in the "Relationships and Power" section.
So, call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time believing that these patterns govern the thoughts and actions of every neurotypical. Maybe it does. But, for some reason, I don’t see it.
Then again, my siblings always told me that I lead a sheltered life (and need to get out more). LOL.
The writer of the article in this thread is not saying anything new in other words.
I had the same thought. I liked the article in many ways. That sort of forceful critique, containing many microscopic insights, really got my inner Skinnerian behaviorist all hopped up. But I've heard this appeal to reason from everyone from Lenin to Rand and it's always the same rationale, the same formula, the same text, and the same police to enforce it. Totalitarianism makes a cool literary tradition but a poor working relationship with the world.
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ASQ: 45. RAADS-R: 229.
BAP: 132 aloof, 132 rigid, 104 pragmatic.
Aspie score: 173 / 200; NT score: 33 / 200.
EQ: 6.
The writer of the article in this thread is not saying anything new in other words.
I had the same thought. I liked the article in many ways. That sort of forceful critique, containing many microscopic insights, really got my inner Skinnerian behaviorist all hopped up. But I've heard this appeal to reason from everyone from Lenin to Rand and it's always the same rationale, the same formula, the same text, and the same police to enforce it. Totalitarianism makes a cool literary tradition but a poor working relationship with the world.
I agree
Things that seem fine in theory almost never work in practice as it's human beings that are involved.
Also I don't see what's irrational about getting upset when someone is nasty to you - that's a perfectly rational cause and effect response. If someone is nasty or violent to you it's rational to be affected by it as they might do you serious harm that you would want to avoid. So rationality and emotionality are not mutually exclusive; both have a role to play in a person's survival.
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'Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality' C.G Jung
