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@wandering.shop so it's that part of it that really rankles me. it's the misconstruing the "strong sense of justice" trait being worn as a cloak of moral superiority over other folks. for a neurodivergent person who exhibits that trait, that's not an automatic win button, that's a rigidity that depending on life experience can either be helpful or harmful.
imo, by default believing that being neurodivergent makes one better than other, especially when it comes to moral and ethical superiority, that's eugenics. that's a kind a racism. that's an us v them. therein lies the path to ruin.
one by default doesn't have a more correct moral code than others because of their brain chemistry. we learn, socialize, and integrate into a world, and assuming that makes one better than others is the hallmark of a shitty person, in my experience, actually.@jepyang@wandering.shop sorry for ranting in your replies
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@jepyang@wandering.shop sorry for ranting in your replies
@fen no need to apologize for a 100% on-point rant
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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 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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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 I hate this so much, it's aspie supremacy rhetoric only with a leftism-friendly coat of paint
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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 I get the joke, it's just when those jokes stop feeling so much like just jokes, y'know?
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang I camped with a group, and the defacto "leader" of this group was autistic. 2015-ish I started noticing that he and some of the other guys were getting really into Rogan, they started going on rants about how "empathy is unnecessary, we can just use logic to deduce morality," and going down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole that I now recognize as the alt-right pipeline.
I checked in on them, social media-wise, in 2020, and to no one's surprise they were deep, deep into racist bs
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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 do not get me started
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@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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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang See also: Elon Musk.
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@jepyang yeah I get the joke, it's just when those jokes stop feeling so much like just jokes, y'know?
@infernusgoatus yeah exactly
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@jepyang I camped with a group, and the defacto "leader" of this group was autistic. 2015-ish I started noticing that he and some of the other guys were getting really into Rogan, they started going on rants about how "empathy is unnecessary, we can just use logic to deduce morality," and going down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole that I now recognize as the alt-right pipeline.
I checked in on them, social media-wise, in 2020, and to no one's surprise they were deep, deep into racist bs
@balrogboogie yeah exactly this. and like i think this sort of thing shows that they aren’t really any different than other autistic folks, it’s just that the justice sensitivity or whatever gets hijacked by folks convincing them they’re the ones who are victims of injustice.
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@jepyang do not get me started
@wicche aren’t movies fun? i like tv shows too
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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 autistic people can also be fascist.
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang
The way I see it, assigning virtue to something mainstream society oppresses (like neurodiversity, autism, but also queerness) it like cool and fun and all and I do it all the time. It's a way to fight stigma. But like you say, and I agree, it can be a trap. Just because someone is different/marginalised doesn't mean they're (me included) automatically better than whatever the oppressive norms are.Which would also be a huge burden and no one wants that
It's like... it depends on context. There's a lot of nuance here. Celebrating diversity per se is cool and good and important imo, but that also includes celebrating those people who are "normal" and being cool about it. I love my token straight friend! (I don't know if I have any neurotypical friends lol)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, we want rights, dignity, freedom and cookies for everyone, not to reverse the polarity on what is deemed "good" or "bad". (And yes, I know that prejudice in the absence of power is no where near as dangerous as actual discrimination, but it's still unpleasant and can lead to smallmindedness).
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@jepyang
The way I see it, assigning virtue to something mainstream society oppresses (like neurodiversity, autism, but also queerness) it like cool and fun and all and I do it all the time. It's a way to fight stigma. But like you say, and I agree, it can be a trap. Just because someone is different/marginalised doesn't mean they're (me included) automatically better than whatever the oppressive norms are.Which would also be a huge burden and no one wants that
It's like... it depends on context. There's a lot of nuance here. Celebrating diversity per se is cool and good and important imo, but that also includes celebrating those people who are "normal" and being cool about it. I love my token straight friend! (I don't know if I have any neurotypical friends lol)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, we want rights, dignity, freedom and cookies for everyone, not to reverse the polarity on what is deemed "good" or "bad". (And yes, I know that prejudice in the absence of power is no where near as dangerous as actual discrimination, but it's still unpleasant and can lead to smallmindedness).
@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.
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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 having lots of Thoughts on this one, good thing they are too complex for me to put into words.
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your autism does not guarantee you have good politics
@jepyang imo, with plenty of Autistic young folk around me (like, pre-teens and younger) I'm much more concerned over them getting sucked into the right wing gobbledygook than I am for the neurotypicals. Mostly because they're in general, much more rigid when they absorb something as a fact and less likely to re-examine that belief, and they're more naive of other people being truthful to them. I worry this makes them easier targets, and that they might go totally overboard easier
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@jepyang having lots of Thoughts on this one, good thing they are too complex for me to put into words.
@theynege if the words sort themselves out at any point, definitely curious to hear those Thoughts.
but yeah, it is complex.
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@jepyang See also: Elon Musk.
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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.
