ephemerella wrote:
There are certain cognitive experiences and thought units that AS people have, that aren't compatible with NT psychology, and vice versa. Some basic thought traits NTs have that AS don't, as a fundamental matter, and vice versa.
For example, it really bothers NTs to talk about certain social behaviors, like bullying, social aggression and (especially) the socially unfair behavior of NTs. That's why it's so hard to get friends and family to explain why some things are why they are or why someone said something. It bothers them to analyze their own social intuition on a concrete level because it induces social parallax (self-consciousness) and feelings of insecurity in them. Some NTs are almost incapable of dissecting social interaction because it makes them feel queasy and insecure. While you can see that here, it's not common. I mean, as soon as someone starts a thread analyzing or dissecting intricate details of NT social behavior, some people will freak out and spaz, saying it makes them ill and so on, to focus on NT social behavior. But I think that those NT-like people who get queasy and self-conscious whenever social dissection starts up in a thread, are a true minority (and maybe deluding themselves that they are AS).
As another example, the people I've seen here trying to form social cliques and condemn and sneer or belittle other AS people here (like saying who they think are the "okay" AS people and who are the "idiots") are also probably not AS themselves, because one might ask, Where does their social instinct for that kind of emotionally loaded interpersonal fixation on social worth come from? A fixation on social cliques, social acceptability, judgmentalism and worthiness is kind of alien to true AS mental landscapes. There are a couple of those kinds of people here and there, on WP, and I would question whether the "pecking order" belittlers and "this one's okay but that one's not okay" people are truly AS, too.
I think that some non-AS people just come here because they have some attraction for the thought processes and culture of those AS people that they approve of or think are cool in some fashion. And they're lonely, maybe.
To me, though, who have spent all of my life with NTs, in several walks of life and in various socio-economic settings, it perfectly obvious to me, that a lot of people here (most) are AS. The ones who are not DO kind of stick out, but because they display consistent patterns of interpersonal judgmentalism, verbal social aggression or they reveal their insecurity and distress when the AS people start micro-analyzing and dissecting NT social behavior.
This post is interesting: I´ve been thinking about it....(I meant to answer it sooner; in fact, I wrote something out last night, but I was too tired, and in the end I didn´t submit it). I have noticed something like this though, in life. For instance, when I try to ask people to explain why things are the way they are, they just can´t explain it. Or, if I question the logic of a particular social institution- (actually, I believe "stupid" is the word I have used on occasion)- people may take offense, and just finish with a gruff "well, that´s how it is". My guess is because they are doing it all intuitively, they never think about exactly what is going on, or whether it even makes sense. So, if you bring up something that obviously "doesn´t fit", which they can´t explain, I would think it WOULD make them uncomfortable. If you´re not the one analyzing- trying to learn- I guess it can be hard to explain. And, yes, I still have a hard time understanding why people would do things like bullying, or shunning! But, I guess this may be something we´ll never know.
_________________
"death is the road to awe"
12 Dec 2008, 3:02 pm
