Aspie Elitism

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It is interesting to see so many think that NT's are generally singled out as being discriminated against by people with Asperger's Syndrome but in reality this is not actually discrimination but envy even though it appears to be a form of anamosity. For some reason Aspie's far more than Autie's have a problem with NT people and this is something I have personally never understood and I've writen briefly about it on my site as Nt's and Aspies are basically peas in a pod compared to autie's.

I think one of the reasons for the apparant gap between Aspies and Auties is that most Aspies don't realize that many of us deeper down on the spectrum actually do perceive the entireity of our environment very differently than normal people do, including most Aspies. Sometimes we see things that most people hear. Sometimes we hear things that most people see. Sometimes we see complex patterns in simple everyday images. sometimes we visulize mathamatics where regular people suffer throught it. Some of us see everything in monochromatic shapescapes while other see visual color blasts with sharp piercing jagged objects coming at us. A piece of nylon on our skin might feel like a red hot branding iron. We might not be able to make a satisfactory score on an aptitude test but we might be able to make remarkable inventions or creations.
Perhaps those of us on the lower rungs of the ladder are as far from Aspies on the one extreme as NT's are from Aspies in the opposite direction.

Personally I've never known the huge differences between auties and aspies on this site. In fact I myself used the word autie for short so I wouldn't know who's being an autie and who's being an aspie unless they made it very clear to me.

I don't dig too deep into people's profiles just to find out what kind of spectrum they function from and don't really give a damn! The only person I did know was Strapples who's site I also go to.

I would be careful making that generalization as I've never known why aspies/auties compared their so-called elitism to NTs. I've never really compared that much and I'm on the High functioning spectrum.

Thank you for your thread Gary

....I have what got formally diagnosed as AS (albeit because my mum didn't want to admit that they didn't notice my language delay for fear of seeming a bad parent), whereas my son is diagnosed as "classic" Autism.

Not just because of parental loyalty. (although that is a BIG part of it) I don't agree with this hierachical attitude...Behaviorally, I would say my son is more sociable and outgoing, but in other respects pretty much the same as me at the same ages...which makes the division seem entirely false. Or one of us has the wrong diagnostic "label".

Why is there a division in what many experts believe is a spectrum of disorder? Where are the cut off points? And given how many people with AS complain of discrimination, why then pick on Autism (other than it mught be in the minority here)?
And I'd go further, why insult *mental retardation* (hate that term). I'm all for laughing at common or garden idiotic behaviour by people who know better (in fact it's one of my favourite things), but starting to define *worthiness * based on IQ scores is the thin end of the wedge.

Come next DSM, if we're all integrated as a spectrum, there are going to be a lot of apologies due!

I did not read this whole thread. But I don't look at it as elitism. I look at it as pride in who I am. This is me, I have AS, don't try to change me because you won't. Accept me for who I am but if you screw with me be ready for a fight.

Then again...I think I am seeing it....

Ken since you don't have time to read I have posted this so many times that I've lost count:

I am often asked how Autistic people are ‘different’ than ‘normal’ people and in all honesty my answer is usually “We aren’t”.

Neuro-typical people have a very hard time understanding that for all practical purposes autistics aren’t any different. We have likes and dislikes, fears, hopes, dreams, prejudices, aspirations, curiosities, desires, emotions, habits (good and bad), issues, problems, strengths and weaknesses, skills, talents and all of the millions of others characteristics that all people have.

It’s just that we perceive our immediate environment, which includes other people, and then interact with it using alternative methods that appear to make us different.

I have to remind people that just because somebody appears strange it doesn’t mean that they are strange. It is very dangerous to judge a book by its cover.

Interestingly I get asked that question by autistics almost as often as by neuro-typical people and this fact just confirms my belief in our similarities.

Respectfully adding my opinion here as a new person, I hope: One problem with any institution, including websites set up to help people, even by individuals that share the same issues as the people they serve, is that the institution can not help but be flawed in some way. Any people who are in a minority....and I say this not only about autistics, tend to adopt "some" although not always "all" of the tactics of whatever group they feel is the dominant one. People sometimes become victims of the, as I call it, sainthood phenomena. A we can do no wrong attitude because we have been hurt. And then an arrogance towards others who share the same qualities in varying levels because some appear to be slightly better off than others, or are yearning for acceptance from the dominant culture, and maybe folks who seem, but may not actually be less eloquent don't care about as much.

When some people want assimilation more, and others may not, friction happens. The other problem, I think, is that if one thing that binds us, at least according to the DSM and other medical texts, whether completely true or not, is a supposed lack of empathy or at least a problem communicating it, and communicating in general. While I don't personally think that is true for all people, at all, I think that due to the inherent issues surrounding the internet and how we interface with it, use of text.....even handwriting is more personal, lack of tone of voice, body language, facial expression-even if those aren't areas that autistics are thought to excel at--it compounds problems.

Whether autism is a gift or not for people, I don't have the ability to make that judgement. I certainly wouldn't disparage such, if an individual feels that way. If it helps that person or some people in the end. I think most things are a blessing or a curse depending on the situation, myself. Sometimes living itself is such, usually is on a daily basis. I suppose there's nothing wrong with trying to be positive. Noting that I did not see the video in reference....just speaking generally in this paragraph.

The other thing is that human beings don't understand half as much as we think we do. Intelligence is a minefield. Most of it is probably a social construct anyway. We live in a world where people are judged so harshly by verbal language and then by the written word. It's certainly not fair.....and there are huge biases in how intelligence is measured. Why measurement of it is so important is beyond me.....performance or how to maximize performance in areas, if one would wish, would seem to me to be a more productive way to look at "intelligence."

For myself, intelligence is merely a sensitivity or sensitivities to certain facets of perception by way of thinking. It's not an immutable, singly defined, coherent entity. And even people who seem to be "conventionally intelligent" can be inaccurately judged by those standards. What may seem eloquent may take more work than imagined, and not be as effortless as thought. Tenacity itself could be a form of intelligence.

Also, at some point, people are going to vent about things serious and trivial-to others and themselves even. Sometimes people don't have the energy for an indepth response, at all times, at least for those who are or consider themselves more verbal....and while brevity has its benefits and usefulness, it can come off as harsh without further explanation to buffer it, at times.

As far as the question of "how it is to be autistic"...I'm not sure it's a bad question.....the process of continually trying to educate can be a tiring one, but better to ask than to assume, I think. Maybe in the learning there will be understanding. Much harder to relate when there are nothing but assumptions.