Do We Have a Culture?

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I made a new deaf friend recently, and subsequently have been spending more time learing about "Deaf culture". It got me wondering about whether autistics have a "culture" which is separate from NT life. I know there's the "autistic community", but to me, culture and community are two different things. The former has rules, instinctive expectations of behaviour from group members, and unique rituals or ways of being and thinking which set the group apart from those who aren't affiliated with the culture. A community is little more than a group of people who live close to each other, or, in this case, live on the same spectrum, it doesn't have the same cohesiveness and inclusiveness as a culture. So what do you think, do we have a culture, or just a community? Do you think we need a culture if we're to push the slow-moving autism rights campaign along further, or do you think it makes little difference?

No, we don't have a culture, but we must create our own.

I don't think there is an autistic culture, and I don't think there needs to be.

I agree with this sentiment. As I posted in the thread about whether or not it's fine to be autistic but not agree with Autistic culture, I think the best way forward is self advocacy, but in the here and now I don't think that's realistic unfortunately. Now even then I think forums like Wrong Planet are a great starting point; if more informal groups like WP can become formed then large organizations like Autism Speaks wouldn't have as much of a chokehold on public thought like it does now. Instead, people's individual voices would help to form public thought more.

Exactly. As I said in your other thread - I don't see that it's helpful to represent ourselves as a single demographic "block". It encourages people to think that there will be "one size fits all" solutions to making our place in society more comfortable. The generic way that mental health care provision is arranged is a good example of this - the services need customising to suit the combination of traits that an autistic patient might have. As soon as I was working with people who understood that, I could suddenly see the point of therapy - before, it was like banging my head against a brick-wall. It wasn't the label, or an in-depth knowledge of autism that helped, so much as identifying my innate traits as an individual.

Not really. Not in the same sense as Deaf culture, in any case.

We don't have a social collective in the same way, nor do we have our own language. Less of a "history" too, I'd argue.

(Not that we don't have a history, but it's less defined and doesn't bring us together in the same way as Deaf culture does.)

I say this as a person who was part of Deaf culture as a child.

Perhaps different from the perspective of someone in a special school, though?

Not that I'm aware of. I don't really want one, either.

No, but I wish there was an autistic culture. It would make me feel like part of a group I could belong to instead of being an outcast all the time.

But how would you feel if there was an autistic culture - but you still didn't fit into it?

If there was an autistic culture, no one would fit in because they'd all be autistic.

The only culture we might benefit from would be found in a cup of yoghurt.

Deaf culture is a special case. It exists because deaf people speak their own language, separate from the surrounding community. In the US there is even a deaf university (Gallaudet) which is in fact the center of the deaf culture. In that language, they produce their own literature, theater, etc. All cultural stuff.

In contrast, it's debatable whether other "disability" communities can claim to have a culture. Paraplegics get together to play wheelchair basketball, for example, but that doesn't really constitute a culture. I guess you can think of disability communities as special interest groups, but not cultures.

That's pretty much what I was thinking when I saw this thread. The very nature of autism seems to militate against the idea of establishing a culture based upon it. A bunch of people with poor social skills getting together to obsess about their disparate special interests doesn't sound like a recipe for promoting group solidarity.

That's not to say I wouldn't be interested in getting together with other people on the spectrum now and then (if I knew of any other diagnosed adults in my area).

We own Star Wars and all the various comic, fantasy, sci-fi cons.

Seriously, though, our culture includes Daniel Tammet, Susan Boyle, Craig Nicholls, the Robisons, Daryl Hannah, Alan Turing, Thomas Jefferson and our adopted cousin Steven Silberman, among many others like our interplanetary captain, Alex Plank. I think we rock!

We systemize, analyze and focus on the world everybody else takes for granted.

Alan Turing and Thomas Jefferson migh be our cousins or might be our adopted cousins. Based on todays knowledge we do not know.

Do we want one? If so why?