Anti-cure Cowardice?

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I provided in my original post a series of possible explanations as to why various autistics, Aspergers, and neurotypicals are anti-cure. The explanations have nothing to do with what they ACTUALLY believe, but rather, what possibly underlies what they actually believe. In addition, I also provide some ideas unrelated to people (and what they may or may not be believe, or what may or may not underly their beliefs), and instead have to do with existential experience (not my experience, but rather the limited experience of autistics (having never experienced anything else)) and how this limits opinions, desires, emotions, motivation, tolerance, acceptance, understanding, etc.

I think the following is a hypothetical arrangement that provides an important perspective on the nature of autism and the nature of not having autism:

Hypothetically, any neurotypical who has entered into a state of autism, for whatever period of time, would without any question object to it, and want to re-enter their previous state of non-autism. It is this hypothetical certainty that undermines all of your views and your approach, as well as others like you. This hypothetical certainty establishes that (1) autism is not preferable to non-autism, (2) it is highly irrational for anyone to prefer autism, and (3) it is likely the case that many autistic people prefer autism themselves because they know of nothing else in their experience.

A related hypothetical:

Hypothetically, any autistic person who has entered into a state of being neurotypical (for a period of time) would almost certainly prefer this over being autistic. There would be no aversive sensory symptoms (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, etc), no communication impairments (varying levels of severe impairment in non-verbal communicative exchange and verbal communication), no severe social impairments, no repetitive physical behaviors, no restriction of interests, etc. As for the time the autistic person, hypothetically, would be experiencing being a neurotypical, of course it is foolish to say that after experiencing being a neurotypical for 1 hour most autistic people would prefer being a neurotypical. Of course, in this hypothetical arrangement, various considerations like this would have to be discussed further. Perhaps an appropriate hypothetical trial period with being neurotypical would be 1 full day, or 1 week, or 1 month, or longer. Perhaps at the start of being, hypothetically, neurotypical, the autistic person would encounter severe anxiety at the change, and reject the change, much like setting a mouse free, from the 1 foot by 1 foot cage it has known for all it's life, into the wild environment, and how the mouse might freeze and be consumed with anxiety and actually try to get back into the cage.

Last edited by elan_i on 26 Jan 2008, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I gave the above hypothetical because many people seem to be interested in considering hypotheticals such as "what if there was a cure", "are you pro-cure or anti-cure", etc.

Last edited by elan_i on 26 Jan 2008, 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

A loosely related and incredible real-life example. I've recently heard of a woman who was fully verbal from childhood onward for considerable time ... who acquired language at the standard age and had the standard language development ... but who later, well after her early teens, and for a myriad of possible reasons and factors, became, or claims to have become, LFA (low functioning autistic, including being non-verbal). It's been an astounding situation that I've been actively discussing with several scientists. And this woman, from about 16 years old onward for many years, did thousands of Internet posts which show some of the evolution of what has happened. In many statements, she clearly shows that she has "adopted", as she says, "autistic strategies" to deal with her other psychiatric problems. It appears quite possible that she had selected LFA as a coping mechanism to deal with other psychiatric problems of a rather horrific nature. It appears that adopting LFA (which means, acting like it, emulating it) is something that she finds very therapeutic and of immense value to her life.

I fully understand the need for her to do this, and find it to be a very creative way to deal with her other problems, about which I am incredibly sorry to her that she has gone through what she has in her life and that she has those problems. I say this is an incredible example not in the sense to criticize her, as many have done at length, or mock her, but rather in the sense of how unique and interesting it is, and sorrowful as well.

In this case, this is a person who finds what I consider "secondary autism" or "selected autism" to be more beneficial or preferable than being neurotypical with severe psychiatric symptoms caused by a myriad of very unfortunate occurrences, such as, it appears, sexual and physical abuse, mental abuse, and her own abuse of intense recreational drugs, etc.

So there may be neurotypicals, such as some with other diseases or dysfunctions of varying sorts who may actually prefer, in the hypothetical arrangement I gave above, to be autistic rather than what they are. For them, it would be an escape from their usual selves, and all the horrific pain they encounter.

Hey Dave! I have been trained to ask, "And how does that make you feel?"

I wrote a pm to my grandson with those words (he is aspergers). He read it, shrugged his shoulders and deleted the message! Oh, I've got so much to learn!

I know how my aspie friends feel about this thread. They are upset. They feel that their fundamental right to be themselves is being questioned. They feel that they are being judged for who they are.

Mmm! The message is to conform, folks. Stamp out differences. I know! Let's clone! We would have to find white, blue eyed males and females who are christian, and of course neurotypical (what ever that means)

elan_i, you are not expressing a hypothesis, nor are you asking a question. You are postulating, as an axiom, that being "neurotypical" is so wonderful that any sane person must of necessity prefer it to any other form of perception, and so of course anyone who disagrees must be either unsane, or deluding themselves.

I would ask you to consider the opposite postulate - might not an NT, given our freedom from the demands of socialization and unspoken cues, come to prefer this to their former mode of perception? Would it not then follow that not forcing this "cure" onto other NTs would be cruelty?

Are you mobile? Did you take yourself to the doctor? Were you able to communicate with the Case Manager? Understand what they were telling you? Apply any treatment yourself? Or at least implement it on your own accord? If so, terrific. Imagine that there are thousands and thousands of Autistics who'll never be able to do that and maybe they may want a cure so that they can.

There is no cure on the horizon and as someone has already stated, if there was, it would be implimented probably during gestation or as a vaccine after delivery. But, if the question is would some want one now, HF Aspergers may not be the best spokespersons for the more severly effected who might want and need one. Particularly those whose future is institutionalization when there is nobody left to care for them or a family can't handle in home care of them.

Wrong, and obviously so. I constructed a hypothetical state of affairs, in which hypothetical things happen, and about which we can consider what, hypothetically, people would decide. This is a thought experiment, and is intended to bring forth what people would do, in my view, in certain circumstances.

You say I postulated an axiom. However, a postulate http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postulate is the essentially the same thing as an axiom http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postulate Both are statements assumed to be true. And, I'm actually not doing so. I provided a hypothetical arrangement and my opinion that the people in the hypothetical arrangement would decide various things, and I provided what I believe their reasons and explanation would be. You may think they would decide something else, and then we can compare my and your arguments as such things have been compared for thousands of years, namely according to the strength of the arguments: the ideas themselves, the underlying conceptions of rationality, conceptions of the person, etc.

A mouse kept for most of it's life from birth within a 1 foot by 1 foot cage system with a running wheel and water feeder and wood chips and sleeping area, would likely, upon being let out of the cage, undergo great anxiety, shock, depression, and possibly freeze not knowing what to do or where to do, and may shortly try to get back into the cage, or, run frantically in furious madness until it died from hunger or killed itself by getting trapped in something or running off a ledge or into a dangerous mechanical mechanism, such as appliances, a heater vent, etc.

If asked prior to this, would the mouse want to go anywhere else, if told what there is outside of the cage, and if shown? Unlikely, out of fear and cowardice, but understandably so. The mouse may be shown other mouses running around outside, and still reject wanting to do this.

The mouse knows nothing different. And of what is different, it is rejected and objected to by the mouse.

At first the prison walls are hated, then gotten used to, then depended upon. Many with autism and Aspergers depend on their walls, in an intensely psychological way. On the other side, profound debilitating fear. I understand why this is, and am very sorry for this whole arrangement, and am also glad that seemingly most with Aspergers have found ways to live lives that they like and enjoy.

I'm going to try this more simply.

Some Auties and Aspies don't want a "cure". The ones with severe enough autism might want a "cure". Some who just want to be normal might want it. I, however, don't. And you might say "good for you", but it isn't just about me. Its about genocide, and I'm sorry that you view autism and aspergers with such disdain, but I don't. And others don't. But if people who continue to want the "cure" continue to show all those on the spectrum with such negative light, and the cure is developed, its the end. It may take a few generations, but autism will fade. And you might celebrate that. But I won't.

You have obviously seen other people are just as against the "cure" as I am. Yet you continually use degrading terms, unable to accept that people's views are different than your own.

You pretend to be civilized. You've used the fact that you went to college as a point of pride, mocking another. You aren't civilized. If you were, you'd at least FEIGN respect for your fellow beings.

People like you are one of the many things wrong with this world. Unable to accept another because they don't fit in. Thinking there is something wrong with them because they do not conform.

If you want a way to lessen the negative effects of autism for the people who want, I'd be okay with that. If you find a way to take people off the spectrum entirely who want that, I'd be all for it. But when you start calling autism itself as wholly negative, thats the problem. And I think I've restated this several times, in several ways.

Elan i have YOU been tested for AS?

Reading your posts . . . you seem to sound very much like a lot of AS scientific debaters here on WP.

You defend you "hypotetical postulating." If it's all hypothetical then you're just pulling it out of your rear. Its just a WHat If ? You can't seriously expect me to give your imaginings on what an NT or AS would do if they woke up in the others state of mind weight. At present thats still Science Fiction.

You also seem to have made up your mind before coming here. If we don't understand it's because we are AS. A trait of AS is a pattern at being misunderstood. You denounce emotional reactions to your statements, AS hve been accused of being stunted emotionally. Again I wonder if you have been tested.

AS for a cure I agree with many points I've read here. We can still be unique without being AS. AS does cause a lot of pain and suffering.As does many other things in life. Such as adolecence, motherhood, growing old etc.

But as for joining in on the cookie cutter cloning bandwagon . . .

"Hypothetical:"

'I'm black! Quick SOmeone perfrorm a skin transplant to rid me of this skin that has been keeping me oppressed!"

Why have blacks in the US had more trouble than Asians ? Because the black culture insists on remaining its own, Asian culture assimilated more readily. Does that make Asians or Blacks better or worse than one another? NO.

Blacks are not MORE different than Asians from the white majority. For Gods sake many Asians living in the US don't even THINK in English THATS how "alien" they are. No the thing that pisses the majority off is the CULTURE.

Rebellion is integral to the black man who "doesnt know his place."
He does not WANT to be anything other than what his own freedom to choose leads to be.

Sure a lot of things would be easier if he had been born white, but he wasn't.

We AS were not born "white" either. The idea of changing who we are RIGHT NOW is disgusting for many of us. It is immoral, undemocratic.

Everyone has a cross to bear in this world. Why trade one for another?

Wouldn't MANKIND benift more if a movement to accept a type of people unconditionally began with AS and snowballed into including ALL of humanities Brothers and Sisters?

How much good will eliminating one undesirable really do for the benifit of the whole of the human race?

I will not enter into a contest to show off how much I know about the range of the spectrum and the handicaps it presents. I KNOW.

But arguing over wether or not people agree with your Science Fiction is not the way to make a change.

I thought that both of the people who you are attacking made very reasonable replies that did address your original post. Instead of replying in a reasonable manner, you made personal attacks, got emotional and tried to shout them down, all while accusing them of doing this to you.
I'm not sure whether this is incredibly sad, incredibly funny, or both.

NewportBeachDude makes a good point.

You know, I'm really, really and really high-functioning for someone with autism (a typical "aspie"); I cannot prepare food for myself, the best I can manage is opening tins of tuna and eating packets of prepared salad.

What of the autistic individuals who cannot do "anything" at all? Don't they deserve the chance to live a somewhat normal life if it's possible (i.e., like a typical "aspie")?

Daniel is still waiting for a sedative that doesn't knock him the fudge out in doses that work; I like taking drugs if they work, kinda like drinking water, that seems to fix the symptom of thirst.

Elan_i,

I would have to agree with you. There is no cure, and people affected do reject the idea of one.

I do not find it comes from a rejection of Science, but from a long history of when there was nothing to be done, and that did not stop people from doing something.

Do something, even if it is wrong, is human nature.

Burning at the stake was common treatment for hundreds of years.

Unless you believe all those people were indeed witches, in league with the devil. I have my doubts, if ever there was a person the devil would want a deal with, it is me. So far nothing.

Sevear beatings were tried when burning fell out of favor.

The beatings were such, that several could cause death, which was thought for the best.

That state of affairs continued into the last hundred years.

Then a more humain method was tried, locking them up for life, chained to a wall, fed slop, and out of sight, out of mind. This continued till the Supreme Court in 1974 or so ruled that a person could not be deprived of life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness, without due process of law.

That closed alll State institutions and State payment to private institutions.

I was there, I worked with many of the released, and within a year, most blended into society.

All of their stories had the same theme, they did nothing to wind up institutionalised, no acts, it was their family who asked a doctor, and without trial, examination, or appeal, they were suddenly wards of the State for life.

There are a lot of Clinical labels from the period that no longer exist, the vanished mental illnesses, that could not withstand peer review, and independant testing.

There was no body of medical evidence that the treatment given to those people, had any validity, they were drugged, because then had no rights and could be drugged, or strapped to a bed, by people who had no medical training, for State Institutions got very low grade workers.

They were subjected to powwerful drugs for no reason other than the housekeeping staff wanted it that way.

Your startment about a mouse raised in a cage does have some truth. It is the reason I became involved. The new crop of young professionals at the time admitted that if they saw this person professionally, they would advise improving social skills, with no need of drugs, and most definatly, these people did not meet the new standard to be locked up, "Is a danger to self or others." That started thirty years ago.

I took these caged raised mice out into the world, and introduced them around. Everyone needs some social network, and I go places the young professionals would not dare. I introduced them to the crazist people I knew, who were. They were not legal crazies, because they got by fine in the world.

The cage raised State mice were shocked. They had lived in the State supplied world, and knew crazy when they saw it, and here it was, out in the world, running a business. It was not hidden, everyone knew and said, that person is crazy, they also did the best body and fender work in town.

They had never gone hiking, fishing, driven a car, so we did a lot of that.

I found that they were more perceptive, had had to be, were better at understanding people, and soon their new employers said the same. Other people just worked there for money, these people took an interest, in the business, the owner, and wanted everything to work, and it did.

Many became managers, they understood people, and knew what to say to calm them when they were having a bad day. About 95% just vanished into life within a year.

This left a built up Mental Health Profession without work. All the crazies quit them, and got by on their own, and prospered.

The Mental Health Profession was reduced to saying school children had problems, and should take Dexidrine, till it was banned, for we have know the dangers of that stuff since WWII. So they switched to Ritlin.

In 1994 they Discovered Aspergers Syndrome, Autism lite, and a catchall with broad and uncertin symtoms. Everyone they could not nail on something else, now fit the criteria for reviving the Mental Health Proffesion, who will claim people diseased, deranged, and just wrong, for food.

That is what is seeking a cure, they have lost credibility, market share, and their priesthood in the human brain religion has lost clout.

Back in the 60's and 70's, it was considered cool to have a shrink, by the upper classes, now they would rather join a mega church, with waterslides, and put their problems on Jesus.

Psychology took their shot, blew it, and discredited themselves. A Masters in History does not empower me to make people Historically Correct. I know if they were put in camps, forceably reeducated, so they would understanfdd the flow of history, they would be happier people, would fit into the world, and if they do not, they can stay in the camps forever. It is the best for everyone, and who are You to question a Historian?

Psychology claimed understanding, and all of the MDs, Researchers, have always said, the human brain is a mystry, and our first rule is, Do No Harm." Not being Medicine, or Science, Psychology thought that did not apply to them, they were above that, God Like!

Both Medical and Science agree with the people here. There is no likelyhood of a cure. Anyone talking about one is spreading a false hope, a very unprofessional thing to do, unless you are selling Magic Charms.

Magic Charms is the identity of Psychology. They failed, rewrote their sacred book, failed again, and are now back for another bite of the apple with Aspergers Syndrome.

The, what if, is their last grasp at straws.

The idea of a cure is absurd. The Autistic brain would do what, talk about football? It would still be different, and that would be bad for Neurotypicals. Their world would become confusing with us running around freely. Cure us and create Super Predators.

The second problem is it would cure Neurotypicals, just through breeding, the modified genetics would spread. High intelligence, anylitical minds, lacking empathy, would consume normal people in a few generations, and set humanity on a course with unknown results.

Consider our current mix to be nature's buffer, worked out over millions of years, and it works. There is enough sameness to keep it together, and enough differance to produce change. Bad change lasts a generation, good change spreads, because it is good.

Read the Seven Faces of Eve, seven women who's children make up most of Europe. Before that there were other Mothers of All, one woman, the African Eve, 150,000 years ago, and we out of Africa, are all her's.

A cure by whom, for what purpose?

Who has been self appointed to cure God's obvious mistakes?

I think Evolution is doing just fine without you.

So it is not the concept of a cure for Autism that is objected to, it is people who have chosen themselves to play God.

You are not qualified for the job, besides which, you do not understand the Science.

You are just a common Troll.

elan_i, you have restated your fallacious axiom once again. You assume, without providing anything to back it up, that autism is a "prison", that those of us who don't want a cure must be "afraid" to escape it.

I view NT strictures as far more imprisoning than anything in my mind. I've observed quite a number of normal people in my four-plus decades, especially during the times that I was still trying to be one of them, and I've come to realize that NTs are far more restricted in the areas of allowable thoughts, allowable interests, and allowable activities than Aspies. Why, they regard simply playing as suspicious, childish behavior! (They are allowed to bowl or golf, because that's used to expand their social networks and "get ahead" in the world; but heaven forfend they should pick up a video game, or just sit on the floor and play with their child's Legos!) Everything has to be bent to the goal of "advancement", however they define that; usually, it's defined as "more money than the other guy" or "more 'friends' than the other guy" (although when one accumulates people simply as a means of keeping score, rather than because one actually enjoys their company, one seems to have a much greater chance of picking up a social leech, or someone who will betray one's best interests in order to advance their own). It's all a complex, pain-filled, lonely zero-sum game they play, and I for one decline to participate. I like me, I like being me. It took me a while to stop trying to be them, but when I did, my life got a lot easier. (Hell, being me is what attracted my wife! Trying to be "normal" was what attracted my first wife, who it turned out was looking for a meal ticket, and dumped me when it became apparent I wasn't going to be rich.)

Now, if you'd care to reframe your statements as, perhaps, "if you think of autism as a cage", there might be something to discuss; but when your basic axiom, the unquestioned basis on which you found your postulate, totally disregards my life and that of my daughter, well, there's nothing to discuss then, is there? It's not unlike, as was pointed out before, basing a discussion of skin bleaching on the axiom that of course being black is socially limiting, "a cage" - or, for that matter, taking as axiomatic the idea that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real, and basing a discussion of Judaism on that.

It is Hypothetical. Look it up in a dictionary, then make accusations about what he's doing.