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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@jepyang having lots of Thoughts on this one, good thing they are too complex for me to put into words.
@jepyang it's just one of many characteristics that some people seem to think absolves them. it may be an explanation but it's not a justification. it could be a correlation but not a causation. it's more about blame on the undefined masses than actual principles.
and saying neurotypical people aren't capable of having the same values is basically ableist in the same way as calling bad people a mental illness term. neurodivergences are (largely) inherent conditions but nobody is inherently more moral. that is a belief of fascism.
for me it's more about explaining to myself why it is that other people aren't seeing what I'm seeing so I have a starting point in how I can share my perspective in a way that will be received by them. it can also be used to help me decide if developing mutual understanding in a social sense would be worth my time. I have to make that assessment on other neurodivergent people as well.
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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 omg thank you for saying this. I'm not autistic and I don't have ADHD so I feel like everything that's ascribed to neurotypicals is true of me and that's always supposed to be a bad thing.
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@jepyang just cause you have strong feelings about justice doesn't mean you're actually right about the things you feel strongly about.
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@jepyang It also makes neurotypical morally wrong, either implicitly or explictly. Which is bad to begin with and worse when people equate not having autism with being neurotypical.
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@jepyang it's just one of many characteristics that some people seem to think absolves them. it may be an explanation but it's not a justification. it could be a correlation but not a causation. it's more about blame on the undefined masses than actual principles.
and saying neurotypical people aren't capable of having the same values is basically ableist in the same way as calling bad people a mental illness term. neurodivergences are (largely) inherent conditions but nobody is inherently more moral. that is a belief of fascism.
for me it's more about explaining to myself why it is that other people aren't seeing what I'm seeing so I have a starting point in how I can share my perspective in a way that will be received by them. it can also be used to help me decide if developing mutual understanding in a social sense would be worth my time. I have to make that assessment on other neurodivergent people as well.
@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.
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@Aurin_the_classtraitor 100% alllll of this!!! especially since i frequently see this kind of thing from people who *do* intersect with mainstream power structures in one way or another: white people, cishet people, cis men, etc.
i don’t usually mind the jokes about this kinda stuff but like any joke of that nature, there is a (fuzzy and ever-shifting) line where it gets uncomfortable real quick.
@jepyang @Aurin_the_classtraitor
So very much this. queer/crip/ND people are not inherently better (or worse) than anyone else. Most of us would just like to get on with living fully without bullshit.
Feels like this over-valorisation of "being better cos queer/crip/ND" becomes pink or crip washing when it suits us and mainstream world but is also dangerous cos the mainstream world CAN (and is likely to) turn on us as we are seeing against trans (typoed that as trains lolz) folk right now.
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@jepyang @Aurin_the_classtraitor
So very much this. queer/crip/ND people are not inherently better (or worse) than anyone else. Most of us would just like to get on with living fully without bullshit.
Feels like this over-valorisation of "being better cos queer/crip/ND" becomes pink or crip washing when it suits us and mainstream world but is also dangerous cos the mainstream world CAN (and is likely to) turn on us as we are seeing against trans (typoed that as trains lolz) folk right now.
@jepyang @Aurin_the_classtraitor
Also thinking about Rev Jesse Jackson, and how he didn't 'just' talk race rights and black liberation, he understood coalition building and class politics (as so much disadvantage boils down to marginalised group being more likely to be pushed into a lower social and therefore financial class).
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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.
