Do We Have a Culture?

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Indeed. I suspect that unity in a culture is something of a myth - witness the UK main political parties and church of England, united by the skin of their teeth. I'm against joining an Aspie culture so far because all my life the only social solace I've found has been in counter-culture - anarchism and other outlying groups. If this culture thing requires a leader, forget it, for me leaders are always bad news, and I think an Aspie leader with no social imagination would likely be even worse.

Any autistic person who doesn't desire a common autistic culture has no right to argue that autism speaks should have more autistic governing members. NTs develop their culture naturally and they are strong because of it.

Individuals have very little power in society.

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I never argue that anything should be. I just decide what I want, and if I happen to get the chance, I might make it happen, or help others to make it happen. For me, rights don't enter into it. But I'm probably being pedantic, your point is that a group without culture cannot impose a change on a group that has culture. I'm not sure, you'd have to define culture and show how those defined elements of it made such a difference to a group's ability to bring about a change. Personally I think all a group needs is a strong common purpose.

I have a strong sense of purpose in my life. To seek a scientific, communicable explanation for autism. But I can't do it on my own I need other people's help. Having a common culture of autistic people would help.

Agreed in that cultures have to form organically.

I'm going to insert the word "do" as in "we need to do more..." when I read that sentence. If I read it wrong, please let me know.

How would you recommend getting basic rights and respect? Generally, groups don't ask for them, they demand them. Without a culture or an in-group identity, there's really no viable group to actually protect our interests.

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I'll wager you're right about inserting the word "do." I'm almost certain it's one of those typos where you intuitively correct it via an awareness of the context. But it's up to the author to say if we're right or wrong.

My main way of getting rights and respect is to avoid people who try to treat me like an inferior. It makes for a rather solitary life, but there are egalitarians out there. When dealing with the other type(s), I use as much assertiveness as I can muster, sometimes I even become slightly aggressive, and that's been known to work too. It's well short of a perfect solution but I get by. It would be nice to combine with like-minded individuals to force a societal change of some kind, but I've not managed to do that yet.

What criteria would you want to use for "like-minded individuals"? The less one relies on the larger society, and the more support one gets from one's own, the easier is it to function within that larger society.

Very broadly speaking, the people I've got on best with have been of anarchist / socialist persuasion, I tend to see them as like minds in many ways. In some cases they've engaged in political activism and achieved a bit of change here and there, and they tend to take it as read that the disabled and all underprivileged groups are entitled to proper respect and status in society.

What would be an autistic culture like, if there was one?

If there was an autistic culture I probably wouldn't fit in.

Btbnnyr, good to see you again.

I doubt very much there would be only one culture, after all, depending on what definition you use for a culture, you can have several different ones in very close proximity.

Any culture that comes out of Neurodiversity would almost have to have either a "positive" identity as something, or an anti-identify that they define themselves by the lack of a characteristic. For example, Star Wars fans would define themselves as being Star Wars fans, while the "Never Apple" would be a faction that doesn't want Apple products. In the case of Neurodiversity, you're either identifying as some form of identity, take your pick on the name and definition, or you're identifying as "not NT". To be a distinct culture, there needs to be some sort of divide between the inside and the outside. It doesn't have to be ironclad or "bright line", but it needs to be there. A culture can have many supporters that might not share it's core identity, but it's the core identity that define the culture, both for internal identification and external identification.

After that core distinction is set, alignments with other cultures, other organizations, and other topics will form from there. For example, some Star Wars fans are pro-Disney ownership, some are not. The Corn Laws and free trade broke the Victorian-age British political parties in the early 1900s, with consequences that would play out for decades. Most issues and identifications don't rise to the level of breaking the core indemnity. You could be pro-Corn Laws and for a weak Pound at the same time.

Without getting into Schelling Points and arcane historical debates, the first successful group/tribe/culture will probably set the framework that all discussion afterwards works through. For example, all modern discussion of international commerce flows through the 1944 Breton Woods model as adapted in the 1970s by Richard Nixon and the rise of the petrodollar.

Thing is there was a Aspie/Autistic etc "identity" that was happaning and arguably a nascent Autistic culture. But in the the last few years a lot of the community has seemingly rejected these ideas as this and many other threads have indicated. Aspie and Autistic are still very much around but it seems more like a self descriptor and in the case of Aspie somewhat a matter of habit then an identity these days.

Based on autistic people I have met offline and interactions with autistic people online, I feel that I don't have enough in common with them, and they don't have enough in common with each other, to form a culture. The only commonality is autism, which seems only enough to form a culture if each person builds their identity around autism. But most people don't do that, I think it is only a small minority who do that, but they are more vocal about autism, since it is their identity or a big part of their identity. Others who don't have autism as much of their identity don't talk as much about it. So it may seem like autism identity was or is popular, but not really, since 5% of the people could be doing 95% of the talking. For people who don't have autism identity, it may be harder to maintain interest in autism groups like meetups to interact with autistic people, because they will go to these groups and find out that they don't have much in common with others in interests or personalities, which are basis for relationships beyond the one topic of autism. Then, people who are not very social to begin with and don't get much socially from autism groups would probably not participate anymore. I have been to various autism groups and didn't make any lasting friends there, although I generally liked the people. But lack of commonalities in interests and personality made it hard to make and keep friends.

Do autistics have less in common then blacks or deaf people?. If autistics want a culture do they need to use traditional face to face interactions to make it happen?

Deaf people have their own sign languages that the majority of general population don't know.
Black people have more common ancestry and more commonalities in culture from growing up and interacting often with other black people, this doesn't apply to all black people since some did not grow up a lot around other black people.
Autistics don't have these.
Autistics don't even have a clear definitive autism, but a heterogeneous mix of traits, such as person A and person B are more different from each other than either from most NTs.
I think that face to face interactions are necessary to form autism culture, online interactions are not enough.
They may seem enough to people who take autism as identity and consider themselves strongly connected to an online autism community, but it is just their tiny community, and most of the autistic population are not connected to it and may find it hard to connect, if they don't take autism as identity.

Agreed, at least occasional face to face interactions appear to be necessary to form a culture, in practice if not in theory.

I don't think the DSM 5 paradigm really is something that can be used to form an identity, but it could be used for an anti-identity. The DSM 5 paradigm of "you're only on a disorder spectrum if you have defined disabilities", while arguable, completely ignores the existence of a separate neurology, and the issues relating to social and cultural interaction and acceptance. Repudiation of that concept could serve as a central identity.