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Jayo
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08 Oct 2021, 1:15 pm

Do you ever get the feeling that, as a spectrumite, people treat you as though intentionality your part doesn't matter?

I was just reading a book called "The WEIRDest People in the World" by Joseph Henrich (where "WEIRD" means Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), and the first chapter talked about how cultures in 3rd world countries tend to not consider intentionality in the commission of any kind of offence. The word "offence" here has rather broad application, as it means acting counter to one's family wishes or honour or image or such, i.e. not engaging in nepotism or cronyism that is more frowned upon in Western cultures.

One example used was that Person A and Person B are in a crowded marketplace; Person A puts his bag down and Person B steals it. IN a slightly altered scenario, Person A and Person C both put down their bags that look identical, and Person C unintentionally walks off with Person A's bag. People in those "high context" 3rd world cultures vilified Person C as much as Person B. :?

So you can see that intentionality is mostly a Western construct - in terms of the criminal vs. civil law, where the former is about establishing intent. It's about getting past primitive witch-burnings and stonings and such.
But in spite of that, there still seems to be something in the mammalian brains of homo sapiens from millennia gone by that intentionality doesn't matter - anyone who violates cultural sanctity or causes injury to another, however unintended, must be punished the same way.
We can see some examples of this in early civilizations, where Roman aqueduct engineers could be executed for a collapse when they took reasonable measures otherwise.

So I think we still retain some of those primitive notions in modern society, and hence the "mob mentality". Even the cancel culture or "woke-ism" discounts unintended slights and thinks the offender should be figuratively roasted at the stake. As I have, and as I'm sure almost everyone here has, I've had to defend myself against accusations from an irate NT that I must have done or said something that caused them upset on purpose, because no sane or smart person could've made that mistake unintentionally. Thankfully these situations have greatly diminished since diagnosis in my late 20s, or the faux pas is much more benign that they realize it wasn't intended.

I am also reminded of a past job in the late 2000s where they had a company policy on sexual harassment, that actually said "the harassment need not be intentional for it to have occurred." 8O I wonder which sub-population they had in mind when they wrote this...?

All I can say is, I just hope we're not regressing back to a society where we have to "virtually rewrite our legal system" (saying that indignantly and sarcastically) because of that irrational mentality!! 8O :( :x



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08 Oct 2021, 1:52 pm

"Ignorance of the law is not a defense" is a thing in the us. If one drives a car drunk, it doesn't matter if the intent of the drunk person was or was not to kill someone in a car crash. But if such occurs, it's consider a foreseeable consequence of the choice to drive drunk. Accidentally hitting someone can still be battery (or assault if without contact). Saying sexual things in the workplace, meant for the people who hear them or not, is still considered sexual harassment (as it should be). So, no, intent doesn't always matter even in modern law (here in the usa anyway).



funeralxempire
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08 Oct 2021, 2:04 pm

Jayo wrote:
"the harassment need not be intentional for it to have occurred." 8O I wonder which sub-population they had in mind when they wrote this...?


My money is on needle-dicks, since claiming harassment wasn't intention is a common tactic a harasser will use to undermine the victim's complaint.


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Fnord
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08 Oct 2021, 2:17 pm

Jayo wrote:
"the harassment need not be intentional for it to have occurred." I wonder which sub-population they had in mind when they wrote this...?
Whichever sub-population is being represented by the person being harassed.  It is a gross mis-conception that only one sub-population ever gets harassed.

Sexual harassment includes any situation in which the victim is subjected to unwelcome comments, advances, requests for sexual favors, or gestures because of their gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity, regardless of the harasser's intent!

• In the U.S., conduct is considered to be sexual harassment if a reasonable person in the harassed person's position would consider it to be harassment.

• Canada also states that sexual harassment is any action, conduct, or comment of a sexual nature that can reasonably be expected to cause offense or humiliation to an employee.

• Numerous European countries discuss sexual harassment as conduct violating the dignity of a worker rather than using "reasonable person" language.

Harassment can happen to anyone, by anyone. No one needs to tolerate it. If you experience or witness harassment, report it to your supervisor, Human Resources, or another designated company resource.

Sexual Harassment can consist of blatant requests for sexual favors or being physically aggressive. More commonly, however, sexual harassment arises from joking, innuendo, and sexual references.

Anyone of any gender can commit sexual harassment, and anyone can be a victim.


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ezbzbfcg2
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08 Oct 2021, 2:34 pm

Blue_Star wrote:
"Ignorance of the law is not a defense" is a thing in the us. If one drives a car drunk, it doesn't matter if the intent of the drunk person was or was not to kill someone in a car crash.....

This is actually a poor example. Regardless of intention, driving drunk is illegal. Even if they did NOT kill anyone and managed to drive the car properly, they're still blatantly violating the law.

But using the example of someone accidentally, unintentionally walking off with something of yours, how does it make you feel? If they bring it back and apologize for the mistake, do you still think they're as despicable as a deliberate thief?

But even that can be a poor example of disregarding intentionality. Just like a sexual harasser may try to downplay the harassment as a joke, in poorer places, thieves may try to feign innocence if caught in the act. The idea is that if you live in such a place, and your intention is not to steal, then you should be extra conscientious and cognizant of what's yours and what's someone else's in the first place. So, even if the person whose stuff you accidentally took knows your intention wasn't to steal, there's still that broader concept of "thievery is so commonplace here, you're very foolish to have made such a mistake." So, I think even that example doesn't get to the crux of it.

But in a broader sense, yes. I think especially with ideas and thoughts. Many, many people default to defensiveness and hostility when they can't understand what another person is trying to express, even if that person's intentions aren't hostile. The shoot first, ask questions later mentality. "I can't work out his intention, therefore, it's BAD."

Aspies, I think, are more likely to try to work out intentions when we're confused, because we've had a lifetime of such confusion. NTs, generally, don't have to work out intentionality nearly as much when dealing with others, and often will assume the worst when they encounter confusion.



Last edited by ezbzbfcg2 on 08 Oct 2021, 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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08 Oct 2021, 2:39 pm

I used to have a coworker who would criticize other people for the most trivial reasons, only to claim he was just "joking" after his victims complained about his behavior.  After a while, it became obvious to even the people in upper management that he just liked to make people uncomfortable.  After several attempts by Management to counsel him on harassment, he was dismissed.

His stated intention did not match up with his actions.


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ezbzbfcg2
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08 Oct 2021, 2:51 pm

Fnord wrote:
...After a while, it became obvious to even the people in upper management that he just liked to make people uncomfortable.

Yes, it's a double-edged sword. People who deliberately do such things will lie and downplay and cover their tracks. On the other end, how many people (particularly on this website) were fired from jobs for 'obviously making people uncomfortable,' and then sincerely wondering just what exactly they did wrong?



Fnord
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08 Oct 2021, 3:00 pm

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:
Fnord wrote:
...After a while, it became obvious to even the people in upper management that he just liked to make people uncomfortable.
Yes, it's a double-edged sword. People who deliberately do such things will lie and downplay and cover their tracks. On the other end, how many people (particularly on this website) were fired from jobs for 'obviously making people uncomfortable,' and then sincerely wondering just what exactly they did wrong?
"Obviously making people uncomfortable" is not the same as "Intentionally making people uncomfortable".

However, the commonality is "Making people uncomfortable", which is a terminative offense in many corporations.


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Jayo
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08 Oct 2021, 3:24 pm

I think it's fair to say that those of us with ASD have had a history of making others feel uncomfortable WITHOUT INTENT.

Whereas, if an NT makes someone feel uncomfortable, it is generally with intent.

That is, unless they're an abnormally large person (with lots of tattoos), have a very brash personality, or have chronic halitosis.



ezbzbfcg2
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08 Oct 2021, 3:28 pm

Fnord wrote:
"Obviously making people uncomfortable" is not the same as "Intentionally making people uncomfortable."

The commonality is "Making people uncomfortable", which is a terminative offense in many corporations.

Correct. That gets to the root of the theme of this thread.

In your specific example, you seemed to believe that the offender was doing it deliberately and trying to feign ignorance, as he 'obviously liked' making people uncomfortable. And maybe he very well did in that scenario.

However, suppose someone is truly oblivious to how and why they're making people feel uncomfortable. And perhaps they're even terminated for such an offense, regardless of intention, for violating company policy without knowing why; this thread appears to be dealing with the assumptions made by those who felt uncomfortable in the first place. In this scenario, the co-workers would likely -and erroneously- agree it was deliberate, or simply say "he makes me feel uncomfortable, no need in trying to find out why." In other words, they've incorrectly deduced his intentionality, or made no effort to deduce it in the first place, and are convinced his motives were deliberately malicious.



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08 Oct 2021, 3:36 pm

ezbzbfcg2 wrote:
... suppose someone is truly oblivious to how and why they're making people feel uncomfortable. And perhaps they're even terminated for such an offense, regardless of intention, for violating company policy without knowing why...
Been there, done that, went on unemployment for two weeks.
ezbzbfcg2 wrote:
... this thread appears to be dealing with the assumptions made by those who felt uncomfortable in the first place. In this scenario, the co-workers would likely -- and erroneously -- agree it was deliberate, or simply say "he makes me feel uncomfortable, no need in trying to find out why." In other words, they've incorrectly deduced his intentionality, or made no effort to deduce it in the first place, and are convinced his motives were deliberately malicious.
In the "Been there" situation I mentioned above, I had apparently come across as 'hostile' to the boss's girlfriend; when I actuality, I was reacting to my own discomfort from a burrito I had bought off the catering truck.  Of course, I did not find out until much later the official reason the boss had fired me -- his only concern was that I may have been hostile to his girlfriend.

If only I had known how to tell his wife...


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08 Oct 2021, 5:36 pm

It can be a lot harder to establish what someone's intentions were than to determine what their actions were.

For this practical reason, a lot of the legal system uses the standard of whether a "reasonable person" would think that this action is likely to have this consequence as a proxy for intentionality - ie, if most people would know that a bad outcome is likely to result from doing X action, doing X action implies that you are willing to risk that bad outcome.

The one big exception is if you can prove that the defendant isn't a "reasonable person" - eg if they have a diagnosed mental condition that would affect their ability to predict the reasonable outcome of their actions. This is a basis for a "not guilty by reason of insanity" ruling. Although people usually imagine NGRI as applying to someone who did a crime during a psychotic episode, it can also be applied to developmental disabilities, including potentially autism if the evidence supports the idea that autism prevented the person from knowing the likely outcome of their actions.

However, in practice, NTs are often really bad at inferring what autistic people are or aren't capable of understanding. In particular, they tend to overestimate the correlation between verbal skills and nonverbal cognition, so they overestimate verbal autistics and underestimate nonverbal autistics.