something i’ve been noticing more and more, and which i am feeling increasingly uneasy about, is how neurodivergent folks roughly on the left routinely assign virtue to neurodivergence and especially autism.
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like “neurotypicals hate when i [do leftist thing], but yknow i got that justice hypersensitivity”
@jepyang often by the same damn people who would consider "making a pop science meme my personality" to be explicitly "a neurotypical thing to do"
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@jepyang white ND folks need to keep that in check especially, just like white queer people. sometimes ND folks use that as an excuse not to learn how to observe systemic racism and microaggressions and to absolve themselves of responsibility for observing and changing their own behaviour.
there is definitely a need to accommodate a wide range of social styles and approaches to political action on the left. we can't all go to in-person rallies, but they can be effective so we should still hold them. people shouldn't be accused of not contributing to the cause if they can't show up. I can't do door-to-door canvassing or make phone calls to my representatives without a massive mental struggle, but that doesn't mean I need to cry about people doing that.
and we all need to keep in check on what things merely irritate us personally instead of being an impediment to the cause.
@jepyang (sorry, more thoughts)
for some neurodivergent conditions, one trait is that we can get more focused/passionate on particular issues at the expense of day-to-day functioning. this may make it look like people who can focus on their day-to-day functioning don't care about issues external to themselves. they are immersed in their own lives. but their own lives include caring for family members or forming friendships in social settings or volunteering in the general community or other things that give them opportunities to engage with people and communicate their values in a way that influences and impacts others. they may not have the same inclination or amount of time to commit to reading theory or watching video essays or engaging in online discourse that reaches more people, but even little hints dropped on them in their regular lives can spread ideas and instill values. it doesn't make them less "intelligent" or less valuable. the "ugh, have you even read [ideologue], bro??" smugness is just so ineffective at really communicating.
we can't mix up hyperfocus or special interest with virtue.
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang "Justice sensitivity" is, I believe, a real thing. However, "justice" is not an objective truth, nor an ahistorical one.
For some people, "justice" means rigid social hierarchies and gender roles.
And honestly, it's just painfully obvious that a lot of neurodivergent people are fascists. 4chan, Gamergate, etc., clearly had a lot of autistic people involved.
Neurodivergence does not make someone a better or a worse person.
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@jepyang See also: Elon Musk.
Absolutely. It really pisses me off that he used it as an excuse for his bad behavior, too. I'm autistic and I don't do that shit. Maybe he should take a minute to reevaluate instead of dragging public perception of neurodivergence through the mud. We already get enough of that with the constant mentions in the news of whether such-and-such awful person had "mental health issues" or was neurodivergent.
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Absolutely. It really pisses me off that he used it as an excuse for his bad behavior, too. I'm autistic and I don't do that shit. Maybe he should take a minute to reevaluate instead of dragging public perception of neurodivergence through the mud. We already get enough of that with the constant mentions in the news of whether such-and-such awful person had "mental health issues" or was neurodivergent.
@ainmosni @jepyang I think that a lot of the nonsense talk about autism causing a person to automatically be virtuous is in fact a reaction to the nonsense talk about autism causing a person to automatically be inferior or broken. The truth is, we are human beings, like everybody else; we just do it a different way from them.
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang Alternatively, your lack of autism does not make you better or superior in opinion, political or NIGH!
Actually a SYMPTOM OF THE 'tism is sometimes a STRICT code of justice.SO SOME AUTISTIC FOLK ARE QUITE LITERALLY MORALLY SUPERIOR THAN A MAJORITY OF YOU MOUTH BREATHING NORMIES!
Alright, I'm cutting myself off for today.
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@jepyang "Justice sensitivity" is, I believe, a real thing. However, "justice" is not an objective truth, nor an ahistorical one.
For some people, "justice" means rigid social hierarchies and gender roles.
And honestly, it's just painfully obvious that a lot of neurodivergent people are fascists. 4chan, Gamergate, etc., clearly had a lot of autistic people involved.
Neurodivergence does not make someone a better or a worse person.
@foolishowl honestly i kinda go back and forth on “justice sensitivity”. i mean, i think it’s “real” in the sense that is is observable, many autistic/neurodivergent people do seem to share this trait. but otoh, it also often feels less like an inherent trait of autism and more like one way that more generalized traits tend to manifest. (1/2)
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@foolishowl honestly i kinda go back and forth on “justice sensitivity”. i mean, i think it’s “real” in the sense that is is observable, many autistic/neurodivergent people do seem to share this trait. but otoh, it also often feels less like an inherent trait of autism and more like one way that more generalized traits tend to manifest. (1/2)
like, if you take rigid thinking and love of rules, combine it with complex trauma from being part of an oppressed class (and in particular an oppressed class that often goes undiagnosed for decades), and sprinkle in some neurodivergent emotional dysregulation, it’s not hard to imagine the result is gonna look like “having an outsized reaction when people are mistreated in ways that aren’t usually or shouldn’t be allowed.” (2/2)
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@jepyang Alternatively, your lack of autism does not make you better or superior in opinion, political or NIGH!
Actually a SYMPTOM OF THE 'tism is sometimes a STRICT code of justice.SO SOME AUTISTIC FOLK ARE QUITE LITERALLY MORALLY SUPERIOR THAN A MAJORITY OF YOU MOUTH BREATHING NORMIES!
Alright, I'm cutting myself off for today.
@Mage_of_Chaos hi there, comments like this one are actually the exact problem i’m talking about. what exactly makes you think that screaming at a random stranger (with whom you have never previously interacted) makes you morally superior to anyone? you’re actually just being kind of a huge jerk.
ps: i’m autistic
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something i’ve been noticing more and more, and which i am feeling increasingly uneasy about, is how neurodivergent folks roughly on the left routinely assign virtue to neurodivergence and especially autism.
@jepyang yeah it is a morally neutral thing, in and of itself. there are, like... ways that people relate to their neurology that may be good, but there are ways that are bad, too.
we've long noticed a kind of undercurrent of what we can only call autism-supremacy rhetoric, which doesn't really get much traction at all in queer circles, but we can see how it could, so we think it needs to be actively opposed.
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like “neurotypicals hate when i [do leftist thing], but yknow i got that justice hypersensitivity”
@jepyang it’s not like a person’s sense of justice and fairness is shaped by the culture they live in, and so could just as easily bend towards horrid things…no, that is definitely not a thing we have seen play out over and over again.
If there’s literally millions of any person with a condition or identity, there’s going to be some shitheads. Comes with being a human among other humans.
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like, if you take rigid thinking and love of rules, combine it with complex trauma from being part of an oppressed class (and in particular an oppressed class that often goes undiagnosed for decades), and sprinkle in some neurodivergent emotional dysregulation, it’s not hard to imagine the result is gonna look like “having an outsized reaction when people are mistreated in ways that aren’t usually or shouldn’t be allowed.” (2/2)
@jepyang i think some of what is described as “justice sensitivity” can also be due to misunderstanding social hierarchy and being very driven by ideals and rules.
it goes without saying that what autistic people internalize as “rules” to live by can be bad in a myriad of ways.
and the hierarchy thing can make autistic people have no fear about speaking up about someone they see as breaking those rules, even if it’s about someone with more social power than them or done in an inappropriate social context
this can look like noble behavior under some circumstances, but it can also look like acting like a snitch or a cop under others.
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@jepyang it’s not like a person’s sense of justice and fairness is shaped by the culture they live in, and so could just as easily bend towards horrid things…no, that is definitely not a thing we have seen play out over and over again.
If there’s literally millions of any person with a condition or identity, there’s going to be some shitheads. Comes with being a human among other humans.
@jepyang on the flipside, we ADHD brains make better anarchists…after all, we can’t even govern our own executive function! /s
Honestly, if a neurodivergent person isn’t queer, the chances that they have good politics isn’t any better than their background society in my experience. The only reason I know so many neurodivergent folks in activism is because they are also queer and frequently BIPOC, so they come to their politics through surviving multiple axes of structural violence.
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@Mage_of_Chaos hi there, comments like this one are actually the exact problem i’m talking about. what exactly makes you think that screaming at a random stranger (with whom you have never previously interacted) makes you morally superior to anyone? you’re actually just being kind of a huge jerk.
ps: i’m autistic
@jepyang you are so good at handling this shit, damn
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@Mage_of_Chaos hi there, comments like this one are actually the exact problem i’m talking about. what exactly makes you think that screaming at a random stranger (with whom you have never previously interacted) makes you morally superior to anyone? you’re actually just being kind of a huge jerk.
ps: i’m autistic
@jepyang p.s. I am a peer. They are totally a dick, you didn't mention that incident as the scenerio, & you seemed to be attacking people with autism so I made an observation about your vague description of the conflict.
I didn't make a problematic comment & will not apologise for my response because the vague statement you made absolutely did NOT entail that you were experiencing unprovoked shouting from a stranger.
You only said being autistic doesn't garuntee superiority in political views. -
@jepyang you are so good at handling this shit, damn
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@Mage_of_Chaos so to recap:
- you were seemingly aware your response was not appropriate
- you apparently agreed with my sentiment
- you decided to scream at me anyway, including cruel name-calling and incorrect assumptions about my neurotypeso what was the point? just having a shit day and wanted to scream at someone else till they’re having a shit day too?
you gonna take accountability for being a douchebag here, or is that something only your autistic family members do?
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@Mage_of_Chaos hi there, comments like this one are actually the exact problem i’m talking about. what exactly makes you think that screaming at a random stranger (with whom you have never previously interacted) makes you morally superior to anyone? you’re actually just being kind of a huge jerk.
ps: i’m autistic
@jepyang @Mage_of_Chaos "God-dayum that's a shallow, eugenics lite dogshit take to a perfectly normal statement about avoiding the pitfall of confusing our own sense of justice with what is "right", who could have possib- oh, yep, mastodon.social account."
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
