False Dichotomy

Post Reply New Topic

I am beginning to wonder, after a number of recent dustups in the various threads here, why it is that we must be separated into two camps, with Group A falling all over themselves worshiping the NT world (as we have always been taught to do), begging to have their brains rewired, and generally fawning after an elusive "normality" that is seldom observed among the "normal", while Group B wastes hours of their lives blaming all NTs for the destructive urges of a few, bashing the normals at every opportunity, and basically claiming that we're somehow superior to the average run of humanity, just because we're different?

What's more, the two groups seem to have both assumed a Bushian "us or them" mentality; either you support their cause wholeheartedly, or you're actually a member of the other camp. There can be no accommodation.

I sometimes make jokes about wanting to cure the poor NTs of their social compulsions, in part to point up the silliness of those who would insist we all need to be cured, and that lunatic fringe who claim that if we just knew what it was like to be NT, we'd be foaming at the mouth to join them. However, they are just jokes, ones that make my (NT) wife laugh.

Why can't there a middle ground, one in which we respect NTs for their unique strengths, while at the same time prizing our own? Why can't we request assistance without capitulation, understanding without anger? In the famous words of Rodney King, can't we all just get along??

(Yes, I'm aware that many of us come here in order to vent about their problems in the NT world to an audience that can understand without having to have the initial problem explained. To some, though, the dichotomy seems to have become much sharper than that...)

How about the idea that we recognize that NTs have faults of a nature that is similar to the faults that they find with alleged Aspies, alleged ASDs, and alleged other alphabet soups? We didn't start the name-calling or set the criteria for deciding if someone was "different" and in need of "treatment." I am in full rebellion against the required treatment paradigm.

I've seen alot of Aspies in the middle. I consider myself one. I don't like predjudice and generalizations thrown around on either end. I also think everyone has a right to choose for themselves whether or not they want a treatment or cure and whether or not they think they need one. It's their own business. NTs should not decide for them, but neither should other Aspies and Autistics.

Even though I don't fit in with most people and have even experienced bullying and ridicule for it, I definately don't like people judging NTs as a whole group. That's narrow minded. We are all people, we all have different strengths and weaknesses.

I don't think us middle grounders are all that rare, and it seems yet another generalization to assume every one of us is completely black or white on this one. But if you imply there are alot that are split this way, I agree, and I see no sense in it either.

We’re all people, that’s how I also see things. We all have our faults, NT and Aspies alike. I may have been treated like dirt in the past by those that are considered ‘normal’, but that’s no reason to blatantly hate them for all of eternity. Hating the other side is a waste of time and energy.

So I that puts me in the middle.

All human categories, whether Asperger's or neurotypical are only linguistic conveniences, not real things.

Why are these posts starting to look like X-Men satire?

Because art imitates life.

Astonishing as it may seem, Remnant, not all NTs believe we need to be cured, either. (You just try to tell my in-laws that their granddaughter needs to be "fixed"!) While there are virulent curebie NTs, just as there are virulent curebie Aspies, there are also those who think that we need assistance, not dubious "cures". Sure, they're not as loud and obnoxious as the curebies, but then again, who is?

All I ask out of the world is a certain amount of understanding when I miss their cues. I'm not better than them, I'm not worse than them - I'm just different from them. Is that so horrible of me? Does that make me either a "traitor to my kind", or a "coward who won't face the 'need' to be NT"?

And for that matter, is it fair to tar all NTs with the same brush, just because curebie groups have annoyed us so?

You seem to be objecting to me tarring some of them.

I don't consider my position a middle ground, because it's not even on the same axis.

I don't hate "all NT's" nor do I like them. I feel exactly about them the way I do about most ASD people I've known. I don't care. I have a handful of friends, divided evenly between spectrum and NT. Those people I care about. The rest can more or less leave, and turn out the lights when they go, they're messing up my planet.... getting it all dirty and stuff. There are a few people out there I don't like, but I don't think there's anyone I truly hate. If I did I would use my powers for evil...

I have to wonder if cruelty is a genetic defect.

Remnant, are you one of the extremists? All I really have to go by is your first post in this thread, which gave me the opportunity to expound on my basic point - that neither the NT-bashers nor the AS-bashers holds a monopoly on the Truth, and perhaps the most sensible position is one in between the two. I do recognize that there are some who react against us without reason; I simply deny that all NTs are the same, one monolithic mass out to destroy us all. (Similarly, I deny that it is necessary for us to become exactly like "them" to survive - I have found, over my life, unique strengths that I can use to thrive in this world, without having to give up who I am.)

AMEN DeaconBlues amen brother!






2

Hmm. What I want to know, is why would I want to take an opinion from straight between two kinds of unjust opinions? There's so much other room in the world without being between them at all. (They in fact look rather similar to me, they just differ on who is considered better than who else. So I take them as two versions of the same view.)

Maybe I am an extremist, in that I am willing to discard every opinion that NTs have formed about ASD people. The thing is, if I say that NTs appear to have deficiencies, the way that mental health "professionals" claim that ASD people have deficiencies, am I bashing them at all? If it is neurotypical to be unable to retain the ability to do long division even after having been repeatedly trained over a period of years, what are we actually dealing with? I learned it the first few tries and it stuck. People who thought of themselves as "normal" couldn't deal with some of the simpler aspects of living in a technological civilization and then they labeled me as peculiar, prone to delusions of grandeur and possibly violent, because I did learn a few simple skills. These included the ability to communicate ideas on a somewhat higher intellectual level than a punch to the stomach.

Telling the plain and honest truth is not bashing in my book.