NTs and Compassion

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Wow, tortuga! How did you get that from neanthumain's post?

I'm so amazed that you read so much into his words.

It didn't read at all to me like he wants other people to suffer. He was just describing his experience of what a day is like for him...

Lupin, it was this line.

Ok, thanks for pointing that out! I missed that - still not sure that it's the same as saying 'I want everyone to suffer because of my problems'. It reads to me like - 'those who cause harm should get a taste of their own treatment'.

Actually, I'm coming round to the very same thought - that those who inflict cruelties large and small, or unkindnesses should be made to suffer.

Last edited by lupin on 02 Jan 2008, 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I do feel something similar in that morality and even the slightest courtesies are for those in the clique. Solidarity is mechanical, for those alike . . .in some way.
Then those acts of morality or courtesy are used as examples that said people are educated, courteous and ethical.

They make me think of nazis discussing their favourite music or their pets. This constant insitence on a morality facade seems to me ubiquitous - same thing in every group; things happen, but people have failed to see the forest for the trees. The term humane makes me snigger; people want to think they are humane. . . for some reason. I think we long ago got to the point when everyone should know everyone is f*****g liar so we might as well cut it out.

Y'hafta love aspiness!

I love whatever clump of neurons that allow us to see through the emperor's new clothes, to debunk all the BS.

Whatever child gets taught: 'everyone lies and you have to go along with it and pretend they don't - you have to go along with society's self-delusion that it is compassionate and moral and kind and decent and humane'?

'Because if you don't, if you blow everyone's cover, you'll find yourself outside the pale, thrown out of the in-group and they'll try and label you as a troublemaker or disordered.'

No one gets taught this explicitly. NT children somehow have clumps of neurons that allow them to absorb this information.

AS/PDD kids don't seem to have these clumps of deception neurons for some unknown reason.

The ostensible, overt principle that the world says it works to is that dishonesty is bad. Why then is AS/PDD forthrightness, honesty, characterised as 'disordered'?

There's a deep, deep rabbit hole here folks.

I'm not sure why so many are willing to generalize to such an extent. It could be just me but "all non-autistic people lack empathy" sounds just as bad as "all autistic people lack empathy" - it's an overgeneralization either way.

All my closest friends are not autistic and they are GREAT people. I can't stress that enough.

I have come from a very disfunctional and toxic family environment. I don't know if it is my Asperger's or not, but I found it very easy to distance myself from those who are supposedly, family. I don't talk to any of them much and I feel no worse off because of that.

Sometimes, you need to choose your family.

Same here.

As to the post topic I'd say compassion is a rare thing for anybody, NT or not. In my admittedly limited experience about 95% of people are all about themselves. They're good at pretending to care or help others but when it comes down to it they won't even go through a minor inconvenience for a friend or family member. Oh they will if others will notice, but if they think they can get away with not helping don't expect them to lift a finger.

A compass to compassion Topic

I have found as a rule that NTs are compassionate only to a select few. In the workplace, or at the office party, they are superficial because they do not want to reveal too much of themselves. They are often intrusive, and may reveal a little of themselves in order to get you to tell them things, and then they can use it against you should the need arise. Especially in the workplace, they are not to be trusted. I find them to be uncomfortable around me, because, as an Aspergian (Aspie to us here) I have that ability to see the nakedness, behind the mask, as lupin so aptly wrote in her post. (I wish I could read their body language and facial expressions so well.) NTs project that aura of superficiality, and it is so nauseatingly obvious, it makes me almost gag and vomit.

I think the main difference is that we take them at their word because we interpret everything literally whereas they base their assumptions about what is really meant on many things including their own experiences and understanding (yes, built on mirror neurons and the information gained from such). NTs are not aware of the information they gain from body language, eyes, tone of voice because their brain takes that in and processes it within nano seconds. The way their brain operates is to continue building and building on that forming patterns that allow it to classify and interpret that information. Then it shoots back a theory to them about what is happening.

We aren't dealing with all of that input (or at least the information received and sent from all that input), so our interpretation is different. What our brains send back to us is far different.

I think sometimes we ascribe intentions to people (as they do to us) when it is really an entirely different reality based on our brains and theirs. You can't expect to understand them at purely a behavioral level any more than they can understand you because you are missing everything that makes that behavior happen (just as they miss it with you).

I find most (almost all) NT interpretation of our behavior to be utter nonsense and vice versa. Until you back up and look at what is happening in the brain, it's all a subjective theory based on very little objective data. We just don't understand enough about the brain to really know what is going on, but we do know enough to understand that our brains work in a vastly different fashion. If you consider this is what we use to understand each other, there is going to be all manner of problems.

Do I feel compassion? I don't feel it a lot, but I feel it sometimes. I think the biggest difference is that I don't mouth the words just to mouth them and I don't feel compassion just because I've been told I should (or I observe others who do). That is a distinctly different way of experiencing compassion than the way NTs experience it. I come to it in a completely different fashion. That has to do with how my brain and their brain takes things in and processes it and nothing to do with whether I am a good human being or they are.