Why are neurotypicals worth mimicking?

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There is no set criteria for normality, instead it's up to current dictators of trends both physically and mentally.

Does this willingness to adapt quickly up and leaving your previous personality behind to suit the current trend really have any merit?

Wouldn't that also cause some form of resentment towards others who do not adapt to such trends and changing their minds and physical appearances because they themselves have no sense of true identity?

Should normality be a criteria set in stone and why is only normality left blank?

I personally think neurotypical should be a diagnosis and it should go into details of what normality is.

People expect us to follow this strange normal protocol yet I don't find being able to change like that as something worth mimicking. I would not want a role model like that.

Normality lacks a certain consistency.

If there were set rules for what "normal" was, would it be easier to follow those standards. I do find it ridiculous that there are all of these labels of what normality is not yet there is a lack of defining normality or even putting normal people under the microscope to reveal what normal means.

I think normality is just a farce to lead people who wish to adapt at any cost into a scheme of control with no rules that really apply to them.

Fit in, obey. Leave your mind a blank canvas so the "experts" can paint your own personality and how you perceive things for you. Don't question it.

Go against the programming, you are a robot. Go with the program, you're normal. Even if that program turns you into something you don't like.

What are the rules of what defines a normal person or what do you think would happen if there was a diagnosis for normality? If they can't define normal then how is it they define everything that isn't normal?

Excellent questions and it's what I've been wondering since I arrived on this forum. Why should NT behavior be the model others should pattern themselves after?

"Normal" can be mean 2 different things. It can refer to whatever the norm is, whatever is typical or average, or it can be a reference to being healthy and/or functional. The two meanings don't always overlap.

I don't mimic others, because I don't know what I would mimic, how I would mimic it, and why I would mimic it.

I think that neurotypical people know all these things, and that the knowings, applyings of the knowings, and enjoyings of the applyings are part of what makes them neurotypical, i.e. the large majority of people who can and have set themselves as the standard due to their large majority and therefore expect others to be like them.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but I see it as a matter of survival. I.e. A lot of people here have trouble getting and maintaining employment. Another thing is that securing a place to live can be difficult if you come off too strangely to landlords. Someone on this board currently needs to find a new roommate in order to make mortgage payments, and is having a hard time and a lot of worry because people find her to be odd.

I'm not defending trying to be normal at all costs, but I think that people often forced by the realities of survival to engage in it to some degree. Maybe things are different for the younger and earlier diagnosed, though.

If I've ever mimicked anything, it was because I wanted to fit in, to be accepted. Nobody likes rejection.

To put it simply, it's the path of least resistance. However, if everything stays the same, no progress occurs, so there needs to be different people. However, when you're the original or fist adopter or something, you get shunned/people think you're weird, etc. IE, thick rimmed glasses, used to be just for nerds. Nerds were laughed at for thick rimmed glasses. Now, thick rimmed glasses are cool for some reason, and now nerds usually got skinny rim glasses, haha.

Thomas Jefferson said this:

I try to see things that way, not everything is worth me fighting with everyone around me over, but some things are.

They aren't.

I know a few people with ADHD, and I like to mimick their behaviour, more than NTs. I seem to admire people with ADHD lately, I'm not sure why.

Well for one, NTs are the ones evaluating us so they put normality as a standard. Therefore we are rated based on how much we stray away from normal behavior. Secondly like someone mentioned previously, normality is a matter of survival. It seems if you dont adapt to most of the NT norms, your survival is on the line in one way or another. Even making friends. It has been said that having friendships and relationships is healthier then being lonely.

I agree it's a matter of survival, totally, but that doesn't make it ideal. It doesn't mean I like doing what I have to do to survive. It doesn't mean I find that behavior more worthy or suitable than the way I would behave on my own.

It's a good critique of society, but most people do genuinely want to get married and have kids. In order to do that (create a family) you need to have a house. In order to have a house, you need to borrow money and become indebted to a bank for 30 years. In order to be approved for that loan, you need long-term, stable employment (and a good credit rating). In order to have that, you need will need to stay out of trouble (jail) and come off as pretty normal. In order to do that you may need to follow fashion and watch sitcoms in order to be able to social around the water cooler at work (and I'm not even going into all the stuff ASD people may need to do in addition to that).

So, there's basically only one path and the system has you by the balls, if you want a family. It's not that people want to be 'clones,' it's just the price they pay for getting what they want.

Ah ok. I agree that it's a necessary evil, rather than being an inherently good/correct/proper/admirable thing.

A moot point considering the only reason people see having a family as a major goal in life is because our society tells them so from the moment they're born to do the day they die. And the other things just show how our society largely just rewards conformity, both socially and professionally, despite the fact that's the "weird", and usually Aspie-like, people who start the businesses and create new ideas and products and scientific theories and so on.

I don't buy that. Most people genuinely want that and most of them are happy when they get it. And most, at end of their lives, list it as one of the best things they ever did.



It's not rewarding conformity, it's just not facilitating any other way. If you're independently wealthy you can do whatever you want.

Most people who start businesses and new ideas are NT. They outnumber ASD people 100 to one. The vast majority of students and profs at Berkeley's Physics department (20 years ago) also struck me mostly NT. ASD people do not have a monopoly on intelligence or creativity.

Human nature is to mate and therefore continue the survival of the species. The idea of a family is something our society made up. It's hammered into everyone's heads, so of course they think doing it will make them happy. But I don't buy that. Most people who've been parents and have been married for a lot of years just seem stressed out and upset most of the time to me.



Our society is designed to reward conformity. Everyone goes to school and learns the same things to do the same miserable jobs for the rest of their lives until they die and rot away leaving their stupid little offspring to continue the legacy.

I watched a Charlie Brooker show where he put that a lot better than I did, but it's a very truthful, objective look at what life is.



Indeed, and that's the real attraction in it, I guess - not having to do the same things all the other idiots do.



Really? Steve Jobs wore the same clothes every day and went mad if everything wasn't done exactly as he wanted. Bill Gates obsessed over computers for years and dropped out of college to pursue a business in them, even though they were an unproven idea at the time. Einstein was mad and known to be solitary. And what about Nikola Tesla?

Hardly any of the well-known people we know today are what we describe as "normal". Yet they're the ones who actually get s**t done.

Stress and upset are inevitable parts of those things, but they are not the whole or the most important part. Just because something causes stress and upset sometimes does not mean people wish they didn't have it. Even people who have been divorced often turn right around and try to partner up again. This is not unique to NTs. There are divorced Aspies who do too. There are some horrific and newsworthy cases of parents who regret having children and abuse or neglect them. AutismSpeaks showcased a scary video of a woman who said the only thing that kept her from driving off a cliff with her autistic daughter in the car as a murder/suicide was her NT son. That's a pretty scary case of regret. But at the end of the day, most people do not regret having kids, including kids with disabilities and even kids who do terrible things and wind up in jail. Despite all the stress that families go through, it really is worth it.



Those are understandably the go-to guys whenever somebody brings up success and autism. But the world has more than two scientists and more than two succesful businessmen. Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch are also succesful businessmen. Watson and Crick were also brilliant scientists (yes I know Watson is racist, this does not detract from his work on DNA).

Last edited by Janissy on 29 Nov 2011, 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.