Hypothetical Situation

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This most likely is not a good metaphor for Autism, but it is somewhat related. Here it is:

Imagine that only 2% of the worlds population could see color, and the rest were color-blind. How would those who could see color be treated by the rest? Would they be thought of as crazy? Would they have problems that the majority does not as a side-affect of seeing color? Would they blend in, or be ostracized? Any thoughts?

Have you read H.G Wells Country of the Blind? Pretty much same thing happens to the man that can see - the blind people think it's unnatural and try to fix him. That's the best description I can give without giving away any spoilers.

Now I'm reminded about how we (the majority of humans I've come across) treat people when they find out they are colour blind or deaf in one ear, after making fun of them for not knowing what a colour is or having a funny accent: like they are impaired.

So, I would think the colourblind would think the person that sees in colour as weird, unnatural and needs to have the colour trained out of them.

It doesn't even take a large majority to attribute insanity to others who are different from oneself.

For example, I used to think that everyone around me was insane, because they all behaved in ways that were incomprehensible to me.

Another question is would they even realize that they could see something they can't? And if they did would they think they are crazy or are like some sort of "savant", can't think of a proper term right now.

I understood the meanings of metaphor and simile by the middle of second grade. The other kids used to make fun of me for getting the story-behind-the-story and getting praise from the teachers. Then they'd try to "fix" me for making them look stupid.

Here's an example fo what my 6yr old daughter has to deal with regularly:

Some girls picked a flower from a plant and were surrounding it with stones, etc, to 'keep it safe'. As my daughter approached them, to find out what they were doing, they became worried that she was going to 'kill it'. She told them that it was dead anyway, because they had plucked it from the plant and she wasn't going to touch it, because she doesn't destroy things. They became hysterical about her claim that the flower wasn't living, proclaming that she was wrong and her intention was to kill the now very wilted flower. The result was that she ended up running away, as they pulled her jacket from her, in a rage.

An additional worry about this scenario is that one of the girls involved is actually my daughter's teacher's daughter.

The film 'Harrison Bergeron' comes to mind too.

I don't understand behavior like this. She said she wasn't going to destroy it, so why do they need to act like that?

My only guess is they are offended that she doesn't want what they have. Most kids would have gone for whatever it was, just because the others valued it so highly. But she can evaluate objectively and realize she's got better things to do than fight with people over their own garbage.
edited: Also, I've seen the "hysterical" reaction...people get so upset when you shatter their illusions about how the world should work. As in, I've manipulated all these girls into doing this absolutely nonsensical thing, look at me, I am the Queen. And then one child comes along and tells the emperor he hasn't got any clothes on, so to speak. And just like that, my fake empire collapses.

Those who can see colours would have to become the electricians in that society.

^

Or, as we say in the UK, the sparks!

They would try to correct them not to see what isn't there. After all, normalcy is most often median between extremes, and extremes are ok if you can fit in majority.
Then, there is another problem and it societal in nature. This society is obsessed with standardization...it almost seems to me that what is needed are not people but industrialized humanoid products that must think enough to be productive members of commercialized, materialistic society but at the same time, they mustn't think too much so that they could see stupidity of it all. No wonder that diagnosis of various ailments reached sky high.
After all, it is beneficial to certain sectors of society to diagnose you, correct you, drug you and make profit from it. And I say to my ADHD cousin who is having a really, really tough time at school: the problem is not in you, the problem is in the setting. You see things are not right, it's not expected of you to see that thing, specially if you're a kid.

It's always easier to blame individual then setting. But the fact remains - aspies, autistics, add-ies, and others... they can excel if certain conditions are met. But, who really wants to adjust anything to fit needs of different minority....

Wow - this was my childhood. The schoolyard is the learning ground for "don't speak truth to power."

If I remeber the statistics correctly there is more autistic people than blind or deaf people, who get support all the time, but there is virtually no support of the autistic.

Ah ye, an interesting point. It seems to me that deaf and blind people evoke more sympathy and/or, it is easier to identify a problem and find a solution. And this two thing are not the same - one is physical handicap, other is neurological/developmental and, after all, many aspies, or those who are diagnosed with ADHD do not want to be ''treated'' it's their parents who insist and, later, many (that includes me) try to find help because of commorbid conditions such as anxiety.

A parallel can be drawn between physical illness and mental illness... patients on psychiatry often get worse treatment. The reason is simple - they don't know how to deal with it, and they don't know how to cure it (in most cases). In cases of autism, they currently can't cure it at all so they don't want to bother to much either. In mos cases, they want to make you ''normal''
There is this shift, fortunately, from medical perspective to socially inclusive model in other words, the emphasis must be put not on what you can't do but on what you can.

I think of it more like we can see I totally different part of the colour spectrum while we can see many thing others cant we have can also have problems with everyday things which my belief is when everyone is cool accepting and understanding, this is a good thing now the human race can collectively see a much larger part of the spectrum but yeah everyone is not always cool