The ever growing plague of Aspie supremacism

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More and more I come across people with Asperger's that identify to Aspie supremacism and not just in a way that is against LFA but also against NTs and sometimes even against people with an HFA diagnosis. I am wondering if they feel so wronged by others that they really have the need to feel superior to non-aspies.

Btw, here is a poll asking with what you identify with and I ask you why.

I don't identify with any of those. It's not my personality to do so. Besides I don't want to follow someone else's views or ideology. I'm not a huge fan of everyone becoming overly politically correct. It solves no problems, just makes the problems they are trying to improve worse. Lol

I believe autism is nothing to be ashamed of. Nor is it necessarily a "gift"--though some of us happen to be "gifted" in certain areas.

Some autistic people have done extraordinary things--and that should be acknowledged.

It does not mean autistic people should feel they are "above everybody," though. They should be held to the same standards as neurotypical people.

Neurodiversity.
In some ways I feel superior to NTs because I'm not afraid to ask myself and others certain questions, but in other ways I feel there are also many areas where I'm unquestionably inferior, however trivial these areas may seem to me. I for one would actually like to be able to do that "social thing".

I'm sort of borderline between ND and "I don't like labels". I agree with a lot of what neurodiversity means, but a lot of people who identify with the movement get a little too zealous for my taste. I definitely consider myself against Apsie-supremacy.

I have not got a clue what you are on about.

Where is this growing plague of aspie supremacism you're on about? I see nothing of that sort here. If anything there seems to be an increase in aspie bashing lately. The poll choices are non-sensical too. Since when did "Aspie supremacism" become a movement so much so that it can be compared to neurodiversity?

Can't say I've noticed any aspie supremacism lately.

i have no idea what either of those things mean, and i don't think i care.

i don't like labels.

Where did you come up with this?

I don't think anyone here is any kind of supremacist, if anything I think a lot of us feel inferior to the rest of the world and misunderstood. I think that's why a lot of people seek refuge here, where other people understand some of their struggles on a personal level.

This happens everywhere people who endure similar hardships with life seem to congregate together for support and understanding, it's not a movement. Do you consider people in support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous to be part of a movement, or supremacist's?

I seem to encounter them most frequently on Reddit. I wouldn't say they're super common, but they're definitely out there.

There is a small minority on this Site who dislike NT's, and think themselves superior to them.

I'm going on a limb here but I'm going to assume that most of them are some of the younger crowd here either in high school or recently graduated. I had a bitter attitude at times as a kid growing up because I didn't understand why I didn't fit in, and it was easier to put the blame on others than it was to accept that I was different.

I checked neurodiversity.

Aspie and Autistic supremacy does exist here. Most of it takes the form of believing that Autistics are superior to NT's because all most or all NT's are less intelligent and only care about their place in the social hierarchy. There are a very few aspies mostly outside WP that do not want to be associated lower functioning autistics. These supremacists represent a small minority.

What makes me angry how widespread the idea that one should not call oneself Aspie because it is assumed most aspies identify as aspies because of supremacist beliefs. For a period here in 2014 there was a real atmosphere of public shaming (as in multiple concurrent threads) of people who identified as aspie because it was assumed we were supremacists, wanting to be trendy and a bunch of other stuff.

What also galls me is the widespread false belief the autistic supremacy or identifying as Autistic is a result of our lack of empathy because of our autism. Usually it comes from a combination the supremacists lifetime of being othered and elements of their personality.

I was once a devoted supporter of the neurodiversity movement (2011-2014) in my pre-libertarian individualist days, but then I started to question the aspergian supremacist, excessive out-group stereotyping ("neurotypical" bigotry in particular), ideological postmodernist (e.g. intersectionality) and ABA denialist thought collective that was abundantly prevalent within the social movement and felt that it was undermining individuality, independent thought and critical analysis that an enumeration of autistic people can demonstrate.

I hardly see any of the aspie supremacists discuss about the gifts and creative talents of people with other neuro-cognitive abnormalities like dyslexia, hyperlexia, non-autistic giftedness and synaesthesia, yet are willing to irrationally encompass a proliferation of serious neuro-psychiatric disorders like Bipolar Disorder, Social Phobia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Psychosis, Tourette's syndrome, Parkinson's Disease and dysnomia under the neurodivergence continuum, which quite conspicuously have no beneficence to society whatsoever other than the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex (including insurance companies), the welfare state and the insidious victim-hood industry (e.g. fat acceptance, SJW). They also in a blatant sense have the self-vindication to use their AS as a form of intellectual superiority or neuro-elitism, even if they lack the intrinsic possession of perplexing cognitive talents like an eidetic memory.

Many people in the neurodiversity movement (not just aspie supremacists) also subconsciously conceal their deplorability towards the individual rights and voluntary association of parents who unimpeachably want to improve their autistic child's quality of life by alleviating the symptomatology framework of their child's autism by using treatments they deeply resent (e.g. a medical condition that was exacerbating the ASD symptoms like SIB, and had to be conducted through biomedical means like a GFCF diet) and some opulent groups have even lobbied the federal government to criminalize them as such. For me this is a very unpalatable entitlement mentality that can be equated with social justice warriors and feminazis which could do with a bit of a "curing!" I wouldn't be surprised if they advocated sanctioning unmeritocratic affirmative action policies in universities and businesses for aspies and high functioning autistics only.

It's quite clear that they are bright and intellectually coherent non-verbal autistics such as Amy Sequenzia and Amelia Baggs who have strongly influenced autism rights and the neurodiverse paradigm, but I would foresee that aspie supremacists would self-righteously use them as anecdotal bait (for the exceedingly gullible minority) as a submissive excuse to justify not curing autistics within the non-verbal end of the spectrum; or even worse, propagandize Facilitated Communication crankery (95 percent of the time it is useless) which the autism psychologist Bernard Rimland, who famously debunked Bruno Bettleheim's pernicious "refrigerator mother theory" (Leo Kanner instrumented it, Bruno facilitated it) quite rightly rejected into pseudo-scientific obscurity.

I formally disenfranchised myself from my neurodiversity activism permanently 8 months ago (although I've been skeptical of many activists since very late 2013) and have since then fervently opposed collective identity politics and pseudo-nonconformist social movements (both on the left and right - White nationalism, Idenitarianism, goths, bronies, SJWs, New Atheists, third wave feminism, MGTOW, MRA, intersectionalism, neuroqueer e.t.c.) which are sadly an inherited epidemic today thanks to the 1960's Neo-Marxist counterculture movements; all of this of course, is directly influenced by the natural Orwellian proclivity of groupthink. Just DO NOT do identity politics of the sort ever (it's evil and leads to deindividualization and oligarchical essentialism) and if you have to be in a collective group (this includes individualists and so-called skeptics/"freethinkers"), try and compromise your loyalty by dissenting with some of their radical objectives, or simply what you believe by using independent "freethinking." Attaining this idea is the only way to evade collective conformance and to be a true non-conformist (no such thing as "nonconformist movements").

Just because I do not want to be cured, doesn't mean to say I want to conform to the thoughts of other's who also say so.

Last edited by TheRedPedant93 on 26 Aug 2015, 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Aspie supremacism may be a consequence of a society and mental health systems an devices too unprepared for supporting people like us. I'm from latin america and i can tell you this phenomenom happens in the spanish speaking countries too.

I have had a though time in an asperger rights group i started on a well known social network where once it began to get bigger than some "official" support groups i began to have heavy problems with hackers and trolls, stuff i can't believe from a real aspie. This situation got me researching into Psychopathy, wich more or less, may be our neurological counterpart or opposite, not sure what word to choose to describe this, but, i think, nt's seems to be trained to survive in what it seems to be a psychopath ruled society, while, we don't function well or even sometimes we end fighting this. A book that everyone should read is "without conscience: the disturbing world of the psychopaths" written by Robert Hare. I'm nearly sure that there're enough psychopaths on mental health and social ruling to turn neurotypical society into a problem and not a place for us, however, i think nt people it's just another victim of this.