Who wrote the social rule book?

TheCatWoman said:

We must have been successful enough to breed,

Unless of course autism is relatively new, e.g. the genes required appeared in the last 5000 years or something and were not around in the stone age.

Not sure if there is a way to tell when it might have appeared.

Maybe life really was simpler then and there were less was of being "wrong"?

Another thought, in some ancient cultures those who didn't fit in, often ended up with a role that was important but slightly outside of normal life, such as Shamens, they were sanctioned by there society to be different and deviant, often those who were trans or something like that.

It's only in the bronze age that you really start to see social status and specialist workers really showing in the archaeological record, it would seem that neolithic, and hunter gatherer cultures were more eglatarian than those who used metal. Is there something about metal that makes people more concious of rank and status? Was this all part of a wider cultural change, towards hierarchies and possibly patriarchy too? Whilst we can't say for definate because we don't have huge amounts of evidence the neolithic looks much more equal, whereas rich tombs appear to be male. Although that might be an assumption on our part and the parts of previous archaeologists, for example in the Viking world there's quite a lot of weapons burials with female bodies, once it would of been decided they were male burials just because of the pressence of weapons.

Another thing to think of, is that in the deep past people tended to live in smaller groups, maybe an extended family, this si very different to us where we send children to school and nurseries in infancy, exposing them to a much wider range of potential interactions. Maybe if there was a gathering of many different groups at certain times of the year etc, then everybody felt a bit overwhelmed and unsure of themselves?

What you are saying makes me think of many animal species who reject their young or refuse to let a ‘deviant animal’ join the group. Generally, I want to fit in because it allows me to pursue things that are important to me. That means at times I mask, often consciously and I suspect unconsciously.

Researchers in fields such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, social policy and political science are among those who have researched where social norms come from. 

I think people like us had value in ancient cultures, maybe we were less noticable, maybe they were valued for the ability to concentrate, one of the identifiers for ASC is repetition so maybe our relentless quest for better tools was valuable. We must have been successful enough to breed, or maybe our ancestors were kinder and cared more about all group members?

Thanks the cat woman, appreciate your time in replying 

Thank you Iain, that’s a lot of food for thought. 

Thank you for your detailed reply.

Humans are curious. We have no claws, fangs or poison, we have no fur, hide or scales, we can't run very fast and we are not great at defending ourselves. Most predators can kill or seriously hurt us.

Our power comes from being social, like other apes. We have evolved to live on groups. We do not do well on our own in the wild. Social interactions are therefore critical to our success and being able to breed and raise the next generation. Modern society masks some of this, but if you had to grow and hunt your food, make your clothes, create shelter, and fire, and collect water, every day, you would struggle.

Greater than 90% of people are able to be social. They don't make the rules, the rules are intrinsic.

The question is what happened to people who didn't fit in. If they were pushed out I suppose they got eaten by a lion or something.

The interesting thing is whether the idea it is a big a disadvantage still applies in the modern western world, which is becoming far more solitary and isolated.

I saw an interesting thing related to artificial humanoid robots. If it was not too close to being a human, people would accept it as it was not a threat. If it got really close but was not quite there, people got suspicious and rejected it.

So if you want to be accepted you either need a big deviation from the norm, or to mask to fit in a close as possible. But if you are not so good it can be difficult to get accepted. This is subconscious psychology at work, what in other animals would be called instinct.

There isn't a body of professionals that decide what is normal social behaviour, society as a whole does that. What relevant professionals do is investigate the various forms of non-normal behaviour, label them, then try to find the cause or causes, and endeavour to decide what can be done about them, for both the 'behavioural deviant' and for society.

I think my social difficulties were compounded by only ever playing with one other child before I went to school, if its right that children learn most of their social cues and stuff by the time they're 7 then I only had 2 years to learn and a lot of that was taken up with being ill.

Autismman said:

Do neurotypical individuals ideally want to be popular or at the very least have a room full of friends?

On the whole, I would say yes. There is a drive to be successful (popular = social success) and to have the validation and companionship of friends. There is a variety or appetite for these things amongst individuals but on the whole it is true.

Autismman said:

the bigger picture is that the most highly educated people on the planet, the scientists, the doctors, the psychiatrists have all come together to agree on what is considered “normal” social behaviour.

I think you will find it is not the intelligent people setting these normal standards - it is the less informed masses and the media. The rules are becoming much more changable than they ever were due to the speed of dissemination of social media and the masses pick up on what is the new hot rule of the moment much more quickly.

There are positives - the rise of the "me too" movement was one such event which has given women much more encouragement to stand up to a historic wrong is one such case.

I think that the autistic issue of not getting the rules stems from the way our sensory filters do not activate as children, leaving us overwhelmend with sensory input while other children have more capacity for observing and mimicing the social interactions. They had the capacity to see the rule book in play and follow it while we were occupied with our special interests and stayed away from others.

The good news is that you can learn it but it requires a lot of paying attention to something that doensn't really interest you which is one of our weaknesses. You can read up on it, observe it and mask/script to apply what you learn, but this all takes effort and energy which we are typically low on.

I think there's a secret manual of how to be a person in 20th/21st C Britain or whereever you're from, I think most people arrive on this planet with one, I suspect people like us were to busy in the special interest section and missed this vttal document.

Seriously though, I think a lot of people have an idea of whats expected of them in terms of work, relationships, cars, houses, holidays and stuff and that's what we're appraised against, or judged if you prefer and I admit it does often seem pretty judgemental.