Why is aspie separatism/supremacy controversial?

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This looks a more fun game than politics and they will pay us money for it!

However I do think some political representation is going to be required. It should not take too much of our time, hopefully.

I think I might have invented the term autistic supremacist. At the very least, I came up with the term in 1999 without having heard it before, in order to gripe about it to my psychologist. I remember his incredulity to this day, he was a bit of a jerk though. (Tried to convince me I wasn't a real adult and screamed at my parents over the phone when he found out I wanted nothing to do with him, and messed with another autistic client I knew too).

Words change over time and people use them however they want to. So I don't claim to know all the current ways of using the word (and don't claim that only my way is correct). But here is what I meant by it.

I was referring to autistic people who went beyond just thinking we were just as valuable as anyone, and went into the mode of thinking they were superior. When I say superior I don't mean being better at specific skills (which on average we are in some areas) but better people. More valuable as a whole. Some went even further than mere superiority and said the most insulting and terrible things about nonautistic people (not as satire but for real) and some went even further than that and wanted nonautistic people either dead or evolved out of existence.

I didn't consider it the same as separatism. Separatism just means wanting to live your life with people you share a certain trait with. It's not my cup of tea but I don't understand why it is so condemned by some people or conflated with supremacy. You don't have to think you are superior to want to interact with only one sort of people -- although when the separatist is not a minority group then there can be problems (whited wanting to only be with other whites are usually white supremacists and enforcing that with the power on their side turns into racism and segregation and other ugly stuff). But if the people are a minority (in terms of power not numbers) then separatism is often a protective move and not one to be condemned as supremacist.

(I have a friend who tells me even supremacy can be a necessary step on the way to equality for minority groups but it still leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.)

As far as aspie supremacy I often use that word for something much more specific. There is a kind of snobbery in parts of the autistic community where aspies and/or people who consider themselves high functioning, think they are better than people who lack the label high functioning, and/or better than all non-aspie autistics. Often it looks like "us aspies are equal to nonautistic people but those other autistics? They're broken and need to be fixed/cured/etc." It looks like some autistic people lording their relative privilege over others. It looks like "AS/HFA is okay but all other autistics, ew, why should we have to be associated with them?" It looks like Michael John Carley publicly flipping out about having to share a diagnostic label with people who wear diapers (people like me), the irony being that many "aspies" wear diapers and Carley with his supposedly extensive exposure to them never noticed.

And that? That I find despicable. I sort of understand it in people who are new to autism and haven't learned better. Don't like it, argue against it, but can grasp that many autistics have absorbed the same stereotypes everyone has. But as an autistic who has many of the traits despised by aspie supremacists, and who also wants equality? It's a fricking slap in the face and then some.

Aspie supremacy is in some ways worse than general autistic supremacy. Why? Because with general autistic supremacy... let's face it, they have neither power nor numbers on their side, most of society considers them a joke, and while they can make the rest of us get tarred with the same brush they can't do much more than that. Aspie supremacists have power on their side -- the power of a whole ableist society that regards "high functioning" anything as better than "low functioning" anything. Who already rank us according to how far we differ from their norms and values and value us less the further we are from that.

In such a society I am already in grave danger as someone who can do almost nothing to escape the idea of "low functioning" even when I argue against functioning labels in general. My body has already been permanently damaged in a potentially life-threatening way by people who saw my value as next to nothing, far less value than someone who just seems geeky. I once heard a medical professional, as I was starting to go septic, tell another that I only had the cognitive function of an infant, and without speech I had no way to avoid that characterization (which I think is wrong for anyone even if they have an IQ of 10) and all the devaluation that goes with it (and yes I know there are "aspies" who get this stereotype as well but they usually know better than to become supremacists).

This means I am vastly more in need of being seen as an equal than people closer to the norm are. On average the further from the norm you are, the more it is literally a matter of life and death that your value be seen as equal with the people with the most power.(I know there is life and death stuff for "aspies" too but we are talking averages.) So aspie supremacy is a threat to my life in a way that general autistic supremacy is not. Aspie supremacy is telling those in power, "You are right about those auties/LFAs/whatever, but not about us aspies. Why don't you just let us in to that big room full of valued people, and close the door in the face of those who need the protection of that room even more."

I know that to many aspie supremacists it doesn't feel like that's what they're doing. It feels like they are just stating common sense, that aspies have more valuable skills, more logic, less dysfunction, whatever, than other autistics. But that's because having a bit of relative privilege renders them unaware of the full consequences of their actions. They don't realize that they have things backwards -- the more devalued you are, the more you need equality, the more you need to be considered another important part of human diversity, etc. Not the less. And "less" is what aspie supremacy ends up meaning to those of us who (even if we have some very valued skills in a few areas) are more vulnerable to devaluation and all of it's effects.

Ambuend : What if " no one gets left behind."

I think that it's better that everyone in society would have a higher IQ, does that mean I'm disrespecting stupid people?

I also believe that the world would be better with 100% autistic people. Perhaps so, perhaps not. I'm still not trying to separate myself from anyone... I don't see why it's a problem that I think it's better. I think autistic people get along with each other nicer than NTs do, and believe they are important for society. If everyone was autistic, we would have less herd mentality, and more people who expertise on their subjects with passion, I think. We also have people who notice lack of rationality, while feeling strong emotions.

Social skills can be taught. I prefer to have autistic people who study these and research alone, than people who know how to socialise (yeah, like NTs really understand each other, and never fooled by others), and learn other things that our basic for me.

That being said, I have my disabilities (personally, not even talking about autism), and don't believe in supremacy. And perhaps I'm wrong. I love all people, anyway.

From the huge groups, Girls Night Out, to the large minoritiy, The Black Cacus. to groups smaller than autistics, the local inventors club, people do want to share their world view with others like themselves.

Artists writers, musicians, inventors and mechanics, know it is a small group, they they fit an even smaller segment, I do not see pan aspieism. Perhaps we share some neurological traits, but they are as different to me as all people.

Broader, Neurodiversity has as much appeal as the Fellowship of Hairless Ground Apes. I am not a Mammal Supremacist, some of my best friends are cold blooded.

Still I would like some space where I can just be myself, without the giggling, the smiles, and the grammer school tricks, he's different, lets play a game on him.

I really have a very small life. It is all I have to live, and that does have it's problems.

I am about as seperatist as it gets, a hermit, because that is the only way I can function.

I can relate to part of people, but not the whole, not in person, or by phone. My common links with humanity are few.

I can relate to others defending their space, and right to fill it, but I am at a total loss for gatherings, street demonstrations, activists, leaders, for they do not share autism as I know it.

Working outside the world sounds good, separtism, and doing what I do much better than most, is all I want to do, supremacy in my field.

No one else puts their office on the sidewalk, for passerbys to look through, nor do they say why they make a living doing what they do. They chose who they would work with, and I just do as the world does.

My life is a single outcome.

"Unto thine own self be true..."

I can relate to your feelings, Inventor. That's what I like about WP, I feel at home here. Still, I believe our goal as human beings should be to promote better understanding of one another.

I'm part of many cultural groups - Sephardi, Israeli, MTA (football team) supporter, Funk music lover, and also autistic - just to name a few. I like to combine them all together.

I don't think that searching for people who are like me contradicts me trying to communicate with others. After all, I'm very interested in people who are different than me. I'm happy when see other peaceful and creative forms of life. So I like WP, and I also like to talk to my NT friends, and raise awareness. Don't see any contradiction about it.

When I do one thing at a time I do not double post.

The devaluation goes with it because when an adult is said to have the cognitive functioning of an infant, aside from being always inaccurate, it is a shorthand for "nobody is in there". It's not a factual or literal judgement any more than "low functioning" generally is. It is a combination of distortion of reality, and a shorthand for a very ugly concept that fits nobody (including infants), which is that essentially there is nobody there. I guess I wasn't clear enough about other elements of context so it sounded like I had something against infants, which I don't.

someone without aspergers told me that it was a step in evolution. Maybe they were just trying to make me feel better?

Also, I don't think anyone with aspergers really understands what it is like to be a low functioning autistic. Stand up for rights to exist but don't claim to pretend you understand what it is like to have low functioning autism because really you don't.

Probably because some people have mindsets like Autism Speaks truely want us elimated. It irrates them when we fight back and say no.

Some think all autistics are low functning and they can't fathom how someone would want to stay that way. Some low functning autistics have even admitted they do not want a cure.

I do see Asperger's as something that can bring the human race to a brighter future and perhaps help in intellectual evolution. But a view based completely on superiority and separatism seems very much like the fictional character Magneto. Think of the quote from the first X-Men movie "We are the future, Charles. Not them."

I'll add my very controversial hypothesis in the .... controversy. We are currently speciating. Before complaining, keep in mind, that its the first time in geologic history, that there is just one human species. Unconsciously we have similar ideas, this website is coaled wrong planet after all.

If you assume NTs and autistics as equal, then the speciation hypothesis is a natural one way consequence.
If you assume NTs are superior, status quo will hold
If you assume Autistics are superior, NTs will get replaced.

Example: Two species of insects, are virtually identical, the only difference, is that the females don't like the nuptial songs of each other males. If you trick them in the lab they mate and reproduce just fine.

NT women don't like .... aspie male "nuptial song"
Aspie women prefer Aspie male "nuptial song"?

Keep in mind the mechanism involves an exponential, meaning the bulk of the change will happen towards the end.

jargon: sympatric speciation