The Special Interest Very High Functioning

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It is music of ciaos and anarchy.

is indeed. i saw this band live. i had to get earplugs for sensitive ears and sunglasses so i wouldn't make eye contact. but once i deal with that its a good experience even for someone with autism.

Ok so I listened to what I could of that one so listen to this one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTBml4oOZ8[/youtube]

I don't specifically know what it is your discussing because I'm not familiar with the Self Advocacy Network as I'm not diagnosed and don't have any involvment with aspergers syndrome except on here and the idea that I'm suffering the same symptoms as people with autism like social isolation and all the other difficulties surrounding that. I'm here because I feel more in common with you than I do with the mainstream.

I gather though that your unhappy with middle class well off people who generally know and who generally do tap into goverment grants etc far better than other groups yet they slag off others as being ridiculous asking for money and a waste of time while being adamant that their causes whatever they are are more educated, sensible and valid. Worthy more worthy in essence ?

With the global recession though it's only getting worse as there are fewer resources to go around and of course the people with the best chance and who will get them are these people who are middle income or their relatives who go to college etc and have all their own pet interests they wish to champion while hypocritically slagging off others as asking for too much.

Can I suggest a book I'm reading it's a good book related to what your talking about I feel, not directly related but related in a way: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-Demonizat ... 184467696X

If your American replace the word "Chav" for that other offensive word "white trash" they are interchangeable I'm British by the way.

There's always going to be unfairness in the world but it's maddening how the unfairness always seems to end up at the less well of people's door and that includes the disabled and other groups of people who are stigmatized like the working class, the disabled and the mentally ill, what the media like to call an underclass for their own purposes it only adds to the problem.

In response to somebody else's post I often fall into the belligerence trap I'm always getting a ticking off for it and been banned before for arguing too much trying to get people to see my point.

We see things differently but don't we as we use our brians different so there's going to be conflict there.

Self Advocacy that involves an undemocratic process of electing leaders and making decisions has an irony at the heart of it don't you think ? It's not true advocay or can represent true advocacy.

This topic is about ASAN politics that have gone to farat times and has done very little to help but rather create bitter sides and despondency. The lower class, the middle class and the higher class I personally have no problems with as groups of people and already receive grants and government funded help. My parents are middle class and my Uncle I'd think is higher class for instance. I believe the politics of a self-advocacy groups like ASAN is out of touch with those who they would like to represent. Creating more division then solutions and instilling despondency where instead solutions can be found by working together.

All classes can be part of the solution of inclusion. In how ASAN represents people with autism I believe because of the financial security of president for instance he doesn't care if it is reckless. If they understood that what they are talking about in protest like shouting they are not puzzles and calling compassion pity is itself not very meaningful or helpful they might consider themselves changing. They offer very little other then ingrained confrontational hostility and mountains out of mole hills to get attention instead of doing whatever is necessary to create inclusive change with every possible organization together.

Personally I don't like their priorities and destructive insecurity in the name of myself and others reflecting poorly at times on self-advocates which I noticed has an effect at times. I've been asked if I am an ASAN and accused. As far as grants for inclusion causes I've got one of those. I've got allot of success in what I do in advocacy and am very happy with it. I just believe some of the nonsense, division and focuses of ASAN are a waste of my time and others and I believe self-advocates should have more freedom to determine the direction of ASAN themselves. Otherwise it seems to be more of a soap opera with a script to keep myself and some others potentially distracted from more important issues rather then itself being part of the solution.

As far as my efforts not being taken seriously it's been on the front pages of two newspapers, other news articles, T.V news, hours of radio and I can call the media and Chamber anytime and am not declined articles. There is allot of success and I believe others can do it as well with good approaches and intents. I just don't think the issues ASAN handles and the way they handle them is a good way of working with the world around people with autism to help us who have autism.

Lonerider, Hi

It's good to hear a voice like yours come into this debate. I remember when a radio 4 presenter thought it was hysterically funny that someone had done a doctrate on the ermergence of Chav culture in the UK. What the middle class forget is the working class and other marginalized groups live lives as real and solid as their own ( without the same resources ) as well. Try bringing two kids up and looking after parents on a sometimes low sporadic income and always scraping to get by.

It pisses me off, (not as much as it used to) when I hear one of these R4 type voices, or reading newpapers like the Guardian, or books by accademics , describing marginalized groups and noticing their attitude.

I can never stop myself from thinking how much of the process of education , attitude and state- society issued life chances, to an extent determined by that strata of middle class, goes into creating the culture and attitudes of the working class they (sometimes openly) criticize and deride. There is a very thin surface of politeness and when you get underneath you find the "us and them".

That's the thing that makes marginalized people angry, they are marginalized because the stratas above them have the power and control over their lives- to an extent , but the anger comes when those above them blame them for their position.

Attitude example : nice, conscientious guy comes to paint the house next door to me . When he's gone home I say to my neighbor who is a health manager , "Pete's a good decorator", my neighbor says "what?, oh you mean the painterman." Now I'm actually in the trade as well, so what do people like my neighbor say to other middle class about us? How do they think about us. Does this extend to all marginalized groups and how strong is the differentiation.

Hav e to ask- do you ride a bike?

Meme

^ Your obviously a person who enjoys influence if you can get the media to print what you say. I've nothing against the middle classes either but I'm very working class so I've a vested interest in knowing all about how the class system works.

It seems to me though that in everything people do your always going to have certain people middle class, upper class, working class whatever who are going to end up thinking that because they can talk and take on positions of responsibility that it's about them, vanity always comes into all human dealings.

How do you stop that happening though so that all decsions made are made first by looking at the problem from all angles and everyone's perspective and secondly making policy that truly reflects that.

It won't work until you have everyone represented and in most of these bodies and organisations sadly the working class element is practically non exisitent that's the problem. Part of it anyway that and human vanity and weakness.

Last edited by LoneRider on 01 Aug 2011, 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Your getting into an area that I do not grasp as of yet. Autism is about allot of different people. In premise it's about disability and overcoming obstacles because it was originally about obstacles I'd think.

Sorry for going into other areas I apologise but I found what you said interesting though I need to find out more about ASAN but Autism shares many of the same obstacles with other things stigma is the same wherever it occurs and it occurs across the board for people. I reckon if we beat stgima everybody wins including Autism.

One starting point in all this is to look up the process of how society generates structural stresses arising from conflciting interests between different groups , and how these stresses become 'internalized' in the individual and the profound effects they have on on health ,life expectancy and people's perceptions of themselves.

This is a definable well researched process, not some bit of theory, and understanding this process is the other side of the whole thing, ie how much an idividual is responsible for their life chances, and how much society reinforces this for the benefit of other groups futher up the hierarchy . Ci has got the individual approach, but their are wider questions to ask about the formation of self and self perception with regard to AS.

Like you say- maybe we need to evolve more before we can do this, so is that evolution going to be a biological one, or a socially adaptive one?

Did we stop burning old women as witches because the entire human race's brains organically, genetically altered to create this change in attirude over a few generations generation ?

I think not.

I think understanding the social dimensions of 'difference' is empowering, if you can find a route through, and when people do find a route and piece together the complex set of interelationships this it drives change , sometimes positive.

If might add I thnk the really sound questionyou are asking is , do we (AS) currently conflate attitudes to AS with more genral sometimes negative attitudes towards differnt groups and social classes?- Especially if we ar ein crap socila situation or a string of menial jobs, etc.

Thanks I listen to radio 4 all the time though I don't fit into the group that is their target group. I had to laugh one day when they were discussing funding and talking about their target audience and who listens and it turned out a young black boy of fourteen, quite intelligent and from a comprehensive school was a listener and not only that he was from Yorkshire which is up north whom the sort of have a north south rivalry with in common Lol. At least they had the sense to phone him up and talk to him though they are quite open minded radio 4 and willing to look at themselves and talk about issues that's why I enjoy it a lot. I love listening to radio 4 I listen all the time.

That's the thing though just because your a certain way does'nt mean your going to listen to this station or read that paper you might actually be in essence more Chav than the Chav you slag off around the dinner table you know what I mean ?



There is a thin layer of politeness I get it all the time because I don't use it I just tend to come out all guns blazing and talk straight emotions and how I'm feeling. Then they say I'm rude and uncouth and all sorts of other middle class sounding stuff to try and quiet me down Lol.

I don't ride a bike no but I can ride a bike why do you ask ?

Or a bicycle as they would say on radio 4 no I don't ride a bicycle ?

Last edited by LoneRider on 01 Aug 2011, 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So that's aquestion to Aspie48- how much are you mixing attitudes towards young people ( I used to not like it when some one called me that as well btw) and people in crap situations , and crap jobs with their attitude towards AS? Are there two distinct but related themes going on here. Does AS intensify this, make you want to understand it and unpick all the knots?

I thought you might have been a motorcyclist- Lone-rider . I want a bike so bad but my kids keep finding reasons for me not to have one. Like

"we have to buy a new vaccum cleaner this week"

"- who the hell drops most of the crap all over the carpet , not me . I don't want a new vaccum cleaner , I want a bike-"

"Yes but you can't put the bike in the kitchen dad ,"

"-well get a flat then ,it's my kitchen.." , and so it goes.

See how cruely I am exploited by my offspring?

What does individual approach mean?

So what do you think of the heavy metal band Rush and their atomic rocket tour?

Yeah I see this all the time I feel it all the time inside myself and i don't like it but I know it's there and it's there because of these issues I'm not entirely responsible for them myself it's a wider societal issue. It's been well proven that in the UK for example that your life expectancy and health prospects and your job prospects dramatically change by postcode and by background you sound like your from the UK though so you may know about this, the NHS postcode lottery and things of that nature ?

How working class kids fail to get to Oxford time and again because the structures are not in place and they don't have the best tutoring or encouragement to fully exploit themselves to gain entry. Some do but most don't the figures are shocking.

You see it coming out in things like football hooliganism I mean all that anger and feeling frustration at being marginalised etc has to come out someway and it was prevalent in the eighties when things were economically tough and seems to be making an remergence. Are you familiar with sectarianism between Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic there's been a reigniting of those old tensions recently. It's all connected.



We have already evolved and made great leaps forward but it was science that did it because science smashed into and delivered a death blow to many of the supersitious theories that allowed all that to happen.

We can thank the middle classes for that as they are the one's who mostly have the know how and the drive and the education to make that happen. Some of them are enlightened and intelligent and civilised and admirable and good and live up to the claims they live by. It was that enlightenemnt that took everybody forward to where we are today.

Educating the working classes helped enormously because if your going to take a poor woman into court and call her a witch but she knows about science and everybody in the gallery can prove your acting ridiculously then that's going to blow holes in the case for burning her as a witch.

That's an improvement but it came about by including and educating everybody if say the working class were still 90 percent illiterate I reckon they would still be burning us for something completely ludicrous ye know ! They would get away with through our own ignorance as people would back it up your neighbour would back it up. Revenge and other motives like that how many witches were burned so somebody could get hold of their property for example ?



I think so I guess that is what I'm trying to say. Like literacy if we could get to the stage were everybody was at a stage where self interest and stigma were seen as childish and extremely ridiculous and let's face it some people air these views with a straight face and many people accept them as being adult. Well if we couldn't do that things would have to change for the better and some of those problems CI was talking about would be solved. ?

Last edited by LoneRider on 01 Aug 2011, 1:31 pm, edited 4 times in total.