Why do NTs turn nasty ...

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Great suggestion. I used to write letters like I was going to mail them somewhere and then change my mind later. Some I did revise and then mail, but anyway... I think some people are wanting a response, and sometimes I think they are wanting to hear things they don't really want to hear. Like they are looking for some direction with it. If my 9 year old nephew was angry about the kids at school and generalized that anger to a group of kids (like NT kids), I would want someone like you talking to him about it as opposed to someone who doesn't realize he isn't really talking about all NT kids as much as the specific ones that bothered him earlier that day.

Most of my friends and family are NT. I never feel like I have to justify myself on this site for it. But since I've came onto this site, I've understood my friends better and myself better. My NT friendships now seem more of a two way street as it was more a one way street back in the day. I think this site has helped me develop that. You do see a lot of generalizations about NT's, and I see that more geared to a conceptual NT as opposed to actual people, but those generalizations kinda help me. I've been really focused on the herding instinct lately. I never heard (pun) about it until here, but now that I've read some posts about it, I'm observing these instincts better, and I'm trying to practice that technique (go with the flow herding thing) just to get the insight on it, and it's really kinda ingenius in a very illogical way.

I usually don't feel judged on this site at all, but ever so often, I'll get ganged up on in a debate. There was one girl I really liked on here, and she stopped coming by because that happened to her more often than not. I always tried to have her back, but it wasn't enough I guess. It was like I understood where she was coming from, but everybody else kept missing her point. She always felt like there was a masculine domination on here, but I never really felt that. I wish she was still here though because NT's seemed to be her special interest, and I was learning so much from her. But what I think happens is that some people on here get the forum fever where it's too boring without some drama, and they are so thirsty for that drama that they find it when it really isn't there, so they inadvertantly create it as a result. You really can't argue constructively with people who just really want to argue. I really need to start directing those people to Religious chat rooms (they love to debate in those).

Incredibly well-worded and insightful post.

I just figured maybe a better way to word what i"m trying to get at here...

I have two beliefs...

1. Aspie children are better handled from a nurturing parent as opposed to the critical parent.

2. Nobody really ever grows up because people are constantly growing

So, all I'm saying is banning people for bad behavior, setting up a bunch of rules and enforcing them, etc.. all that is from the critical parent. I don't think that's a solution to Aspies. They come here looking for nurture. I'm under the impression that this site's mission is to provide support, in which sense, the nurture way is the way to go to be in the direction of that mission. I'm aware that there is no paradigm established for that, so there is a lot of trial and error going on. I think that's what this site is trying to do...come across from a nurturing moderator as opposed to the critical moderator. You know what? Props to you guys for doing that because that does more good to the Autistic Community than anything else I've seen thus far.


Example of what I'm getting at from critical vs nurture... My daughter, age 2 probably on the spectrum already sort of diagnosed, wanted to stand on a broken chair (a chair with three legs instead of four). My friend sitting next to me kept telling me to just tell her, "No." Instead of taking out the second to say no, I took 20 minutes out of my day to explain to her the chair is broken. She eventually realized where the other leg was and started asking for it (which it was out of reach for the both of us). My friend was getting frustrated watching me and kept saying, "Just say no." I wasn't cool with that. After some time, she realized nobody could reach the leg, the chair only had 3 legs and needed 4 in order to stand up right, and she still wanted to stand on the chair and refused to give up (like her mom), so then she eventually, on her own will, laid the chair on its side and stood on it that way...LOL.

Hi all,
I posted this before a 1-week vacation and intended this thread to foster discussion, but not to this extent .

So first of all, peace.

The title... Yes, it is a bit over simplistic, and I understand it could cause offence, even though it was not the intention.
A better title should read "One possible reason why some NT sometimes turn nasty (read below)".

Next, the content of the post. Strangely enough, 99% of the discussion focused on the potential offensiveness of the title, but very little seem to comment on the content: here is a summary.

Some people do turn nasty sometimes (NTs and AS).
The reasons why these NTs or AS turn nasty may be different.
This post will focus on one potential reason which may trigger this behavior in these NTs.
1. My first observation is that maintaining an image of moral perfection is more important to NTs than people with AS.
2. My second observation is that people with AS will be more enclined than NTs to openly discuss moral and ethical issues bluntly.
My suggestion is that AS may upset NT by discussing these moral issues bluntly and ruining the perfect image that I believe NT like to protect.

Therefore, a corrollary suggestion may be: if you don't want these NTs to bite you, keep them feeling about themselves and looking good.

Additional comment:
I recently was discussing this with someone who made an interesting observation: In the same manner than logical consistency is very important to me for esthetical reasons, it is very possible that the image of moral consistency is important to NTs, also for esthetical reasons.
These are just two very different esthetical views.
In the same manner that they don't understand why illogical behavior seems visually painful to me, I cannot understand why they cannot accept that imperfect morality exists, including in themselves.

Now apologies to all offended, AS and NTs, and peace.

I see (everywhere) "categories" of people: As, Autistic, NT, etc.....It is usually posted something like AS/autistic vs NT....I really don't think NT is a full/correct description of anyone who is not AS/Autistic.....There are many categories of AS....some people are bi-polar, ocd, turetts(forgive the spelling),mood dissorder, depressed, sociopathic, psychodic, etc....to judge anyone who is not AS/Autistic by putting them in one category doesnt seem quite fair to me. What ever diagnosis anyone is "labled" with the one fact that is 100% true is that we are all individuals....Ive seen many NT's (as we are called) that get on my nerves, and I've been around AS/Autistic people that try my patience. I tend to hold the NT's more accountable, but then again, to some degree I understand the AS/Autistic people, so I don't necessarily have as many social issues with them, as other NT's might. I can usually tell, within the first few minutes of a conversation, if someone is AS/Autistic, and then I know, from basic skills, how to socialize with them. I do hair, and run into a whole spectrum of individuals on a daily basis.....I believe humanity, in itself, needs to be more tollerant of itself...

I was wondering where you were. I really wanted to discuss that...your post.... but this one now has how many pages of posts unrelated to what you were saying except for providing evidence to your theory (as we all just witnessed how some people just turn nasty). It's funny because it did seem the NT's involved in this discussion were trying to protect a moral image and the Aspies were half and half on protecting the moral image and trying to say that nobody is perfect.... (at the risk of creating yet another argument/debate)

Nice to know my assumptions about you were right. I'm glad I gave you the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT because I would feel pretty bad right now if I jumped on the "let's judge the OP" bandwagon.

I agree that we shouldn't judge people based on those categories, but like you said you can tell an autistic person early on. Why? Because we are different. So the differences cause categories, and we can learn a lot by analyzing those differences and trying to learn from them. Most of these differences aren't exactly identified beyond a broad scope. I personally need specifics for me to learn how to fit in a society that sees me different from them. Why is this important to me? When I was single living on my own, it was no big deal if I angered a whole church, the school system, and my workplace because they misunderstood me. But now that I have kids who depend on me and will be equally judged for my behavior in many of these realms, it does matter to me. I also want my daughter to be able to fit in. Wouldn't it be awesome if an Aspie was Homecoming Queen and a 4.0 student? I'm not expecting these from my kids, but I want them to be able to live independently, and in this world, it requires some knowledge and a lot of social skills. If my daugher is anything like me, she will have lots of knowledge and only some social skills, so we got to flip this balance for the both of us. I'm trying to turn an instinct into a science and art. I can't do that without observation, and some of that includes observing differences in categories, even at the risk of judging them (which I try really hard not to do).

thegreatpretender - if you say that you didn't mean to engage in hate speech, then of course I will take you at your word and apologize to you for misinterpreting your intentions.

Still, I think the ensuing discussion merely raised an issue that had been bothering quite a few people (both NTs and Aspies) for a while about other threads in this forum. To put it simply your thread was the straw that broke the camel's back.

As for the question in your OP - People (NTs and Aspies) are nasty because it makes them feel good and there are no repercussions for their actions. To paraphrase Trainspotting, if it didn't feel good, they wouldn't do it. And there is no-one or nothing to smack them down. And obviously their inner "smack down" i.e. their conscience isn't very strong. Or to put it technically when they are nasty they receive a chemical reward in their brain.

The reason *why* it "feels good" may vary - relieving tension, because it makes you feel part of a group, self-defense mechanism etc. but in the end they do it because being nasty feels good. The reason why this is part of the human race - being nasty can have its evolutionary benefits, not just for the individual but also for the group. At the same time excessive nastiness is detrimental to group cohesion, hence the development of biological and social restraints against it. An extreme example is murder. Murderous instincts are useful - to an extent. Taken to the extreme, a society full of people with a tendency to murder someone at the drop of a hat and no restraints against it would not survive long. Hence the reason why religions usually develop some restraints against murder. And the biological mechanisms that lead to feelings of guilt (which lead to punishing chemical signals in the brains of people being nasty, thus encouraging them not to do it). This leads to the development of an equilibrium of "allowed" nastiness and "forbidden" nastiness. The exact details of this equilibrium differ according to place, group and time - whatever leads to the most stable and evolutionary successful solution for the environment of the time and place which BTW is *not* necessarily the one which is most "nasty". As I said, excessive nastiness undermines social cohesion.

Nastiness is not confined to NTs of course. Only some reasons for nastiness is related to following the group or impressing the group. Other reasons for nastiness are highly individual e.g. relieving tension, aggression to win a reward or defend against a perceived danger.

Human beings are in some ways quite simple creatures. There is reward and there is punishment, controlled by chemicals in the brain and activated by certain actions. The complexity comes from individual variations in the strength of different chemical signals, either due to biology (possibly genetics) and social conditioning. Hence for some people, the negative feedback from the feeling known as "guilt" tends to outweigh any reward for "nastiness". Other people with different biology and/or social conditioning have different levels at which "guilt" overcomes "reward from nastiness". And for a group of people known as sociopaths, the feeling of "guilt" is probably not even there at all. In addition there is added complexity in which the other person in the interaction can strongly influence the way this process acts out and hence what action emerges at the end. The survival and success of individuals of greatly varying levels of nastiness I think show, that in most societies, there is a wide range of conditions for which success in society can be obtained depending on other talents and abilities of the individual. Hence people who are "nice" are not necessarily failures and people who are "nasty" are not necessarily successes despite the popular somewhat self-serving mantra of "nice guys finish last" and similar other phrases.

Another complication is that this process does not occur at an optimum level of information exchange. People are not mind-readers. They look for "signals" in other people for information, both verbal and non-verbal but at best this is like looking through a foggy window. At the same time person A cannot necessarily predict for certain what B's responses or intentions are. The closer person A is to B or the more experienced A is the better their guesses but it is still a guess with ample room for misinterpretation.

Attacking a group as large and vaguely defined as "NT" is in no way comparable to using an individual person as a punching bag.

Also, most people don't bully because they have low self-esteem. That's just something victims like to tell themselves to make themselves feel better. Anger and bullying aren't the same thing.

As for the logic argument, it's one of those things you can use yourself if you find it useful but it won't necessarily work for everyone. Secondly, nobody really operates on logic. They only claim to. People usually come to their opinions based on emotion and then use logic to defend their opinions after they've already formed them.



Even if what you say is true it's not a practical way to change someone. It's not simple for everyone to just snap their fingers and "let go of the hate". Why can't you build people who are hurting up rather than just condemning them for being angry at the world? If you can just go back to your own happy life then why don't you just do that? If you're truly happy with yourself why do you have to be so judgmental? I can never tell whether people's feelings are truly hurt by anti-NT rants or whether they're just acting on an urge to moral grandstand.

On a general note please don't personalize this with me. I find the way you're personally implicating me condescending. I never personally attacked anyone in this thread.

I cant believe this has reached 200 posts.... seems like a lot.

Anyway I am kind of seeing 2 distinct schools of thought here. People seem to think this thread is an aspie VS NT conflict. It isnt. Most of the posts here in this thread have been made by aspies.

In actuality it is a conflict between aspies who have sort of rationalised and shrugged off their problems, or got help to deal with them and are fine now and integrated into NT society,
VS
aspies who are still struggling and have lots of past baggage and noone to discuss it with and still dont understand what they are supposed to do socially and are emotionally unhappy with what has happened to them regarding the world.

But then I have long observed this on the board.

I think you are quite right.

I have recently discovered the reason behind my problems with my social workers. Ive figured out that the reason they are so agressive with me is because I was telling them that they frightened me and gave me nightmares. The more I told them how upset I was the more aggressive and cross they were at me. I tested this by pretending to be not scared and they were better, then I mentioned them scaring me and they were worse again. i dont understand them as I would try to be nicer to someone who was frightened of me but my mum agreed that they would find it very rude for me to call them frightening.

This does fit with your theory that conflict comes from them thinking that their moral integrity is in doubt.

I will definately pretend to be happy with others

Maybe it's also that they interpreted your statement as "I don't like you, you're nasty" - which most likely upsets them. After all, as far as they know, they didn't do anything to harm you. (I'll just assume they're nice people and genuinely trying to help. If they're not, that's another issue altogether.) And they don't consider themselves scary. The mere thought will seem strange to them and I'm not sure they will be able to comprehend it. After all, it's unlikely the average person would be scared of them.
In my experience, most people want to be LIKED by others. Especially those who choose a "social" job. Social workers are usually not particularly well paid, so they get their self-esteem not from making lots of money but from the feeling that they're helpful to others and well-liked. I can imagine being told they give someone nightmares hurts them to quite some extent.
An aggressive reaction is illogical, but people are rarely logical when they're emotionally hurt.

Some people are just complete a**holes. Unfortunately, there happens to be rather a lot of them. Most people aren't worth the time of day but there are some really lovely and helpful people sometimes.

I think what's really needed is a separate "rants" sub-forum. If people find a topic to be too vitriolic or antagonistic towards NT's they can request that it be moved to the "rants" sub-forum. People can start new topics in that sub-forum if they want to but people with thinner skin don't even have to look in there if they don't want to. I think all-out censorship of such topics will set a very bad precedent for this site. It's a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to people feeling stifled.

You also have to realize that members change over time. People coming here for the first time might have a lot of negative emotions going on but they might become more positive and reconciliatory over time.