Published on 12, July, 2020
So I recently stumbled across this article that really resonated with me - https://aeon.co/essays/the-autistic-view-of-the-world-is-not-the-neurotypical-cliche
It describes to negative connotations and stereotypes associated with autism and covers controversial areas, such as how autistic people lack empathy, are unable to love etc.
The scope of the article highlights how autistic people are observed and judged by neurotypicals and explains how their perceptions and prejudices are based on their own perspectives and experiences.
This may sound harsh and divisive at first, but there is a valid point throughout that due to our minority status, we rarely have a voice to explains ourselves and although I confess I could never fully understand something from a neurotypical perspective, at the same time I wouldn't expect a neurotypical to fully understand something from a neurodiverse perspective either.
What is depressing for me, is that despite that insight into each other worlds, so to speak, clearly lacking on some parts, it is the autistic person who us at fault and not a problem shared by both parties.
I shared this article with my partner and his response was, when are you going to accept life is unfair and you just have to get on with it. Of course he wants to crack on with things because it doesn't affect him! I gave the example of how it would appear should you swap the autistic person with someone who is homosexual or black - he didn't think the same thing applied and so this is why this article is so relevant for out times.
I don't want a NT and ND division, so how do we come to understand each other better?
I don’t think I know how to twist words and your view of the book is simply your view, not that of the whole autistic community. It’s a valid and rightful opinion, but it’s only yours not everybody else’s.
I don’t happen to think that a Muslim person is different to anybody else, other than their religious beliefs, maybe, or a person who is gay. They may have different religious or sexual orientations to me, but I don’t see them as different to me. Maybe I don’t judge people and categorise them into groups according to how their brain works or what their religion is, etc, that’s all, so to me, grouping people is exhausting and I’m not sure I get the point of it. Although I understand it in terms of business and selling books etc.
Wouldn’t it be easier to show autistic people in a positive light by talking about the positive aspects of autism and how many of us are succeeding in life and not talking about all the difficulties? I don’t get that logic. I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying it’s different to how I see the world.
I’m sorry if it appears I’m doing some weird stuff with your words, I fully respect your view on the world, as I do everybody else’s, we all see the world differently and I enjoy listening to other people’s world views as it’s interesting and helps expand my awareness, which is limited due to my autism, I have the rigid thinking patterns and think everyone sees the world like me. So it’s good for me to hear other people’s world views.
It’s a shame (to me) that you no longer want to talk, I was enjoying the conversation and learning a lot. I do tend to frame what others are saying, in my understanding, as it helps me to understand them. It’s a bit like translating French into English and saying it back, to check with the other person that I’ve understood correctly. This works with most people, and they get to understand me a little better as well, but I understand my style of processing and understanding the world, doesn’t work for everybody so I respect your wish to not talk any more on this subject.
Thanks for that conversation so far though, I can see why you’re a winner at work. You seem like a tender hearted soul.
Oh, yeah, that’s very confusing (to me), to me when somebody refers to autistic people as a group of people that are all the same but different to others, I take it that they see autistic people as being similar to each other and different from non autistic people. It’s hard for my mind to separate the two because I don’t see a separation to begin with, I guess.
Just as all Muslims are different. Or all Polish people. The label 'autism' confers an idea in the public mind that's in many senses influenced by stereotypes (as, unfortunately, does the term 'Muslim', or any other group identifier). That's what the article is about challenging, that false public perception. We aren't all savants or nerds or social lepers, but that's how it's so often portrayed. Even the DSM categorisation, if you read the article, tends to confirm a negative stereotype.
you say you think it would be beneficial for a non autistic person to experience what life is like for an autistic person, which to me, implies that all autistic people are the same and all non autistic people are different,
No. I say it would give them the experience of what it's like, which might lead to a greater understanding. Inevitably, though, there would be a focus on what are regarded as the classic 'impairments', so it would most likely be a generalised model of experience. Something particularly that could show it in terms of predictive coding, and how we build our models in our heads, which would then lead away from thinking of 'impairments' altogether and more towards looking at autism more positively as simply different ways of experiencing and processing phenomena. Not wrong or impaired, but different. Again, though, each person experiences these things in greater or lesser ways.
All autistic people being the same and all non autistic people being the same, isn’t my reality.
Nor is it to me. I think I made that clear. I don't know why you seem to be implying that I seem to be saying anything different.
I don’t know anything about Slenderman, I’ve never heard of him as I’m not into popular media or tv’s and things like that, so I have no idea what you’re talking about there.
Fair enough. There is plenty of information about it if you were ever interested in looking. I just thought it was an interesting example that could be used to help explain why many autistic people have difficulties (to a greater or lesser degree) with analysing facial expressions.
Yes, I understand people make jokes about autistic people and that’s your right to do so, I know people make jokes about autistic people being like dogs or cats or whatever, I just wasn’t expected an autistic person to make jokes about us, but that’s cool, I just don’t get jokes very often, not just because it’s about autistic people, I often don’t get jokes full stop, so I’m not sayimg your jokes are rubbish and I guess it’s probably because like I said, I see us as all being different, so a joke like that would go right over my head and I’m not into joking about people in that way anyway, as the term can easily get used and turned into a derogatory statement even when it just started off as a joke. But if I did find the joke funny, I would laugh so I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with making jokes about autistic people, if that’s what makes you laugh.
I wasn't making jokes about autistic people. Why would I? What I meant was that I made the comment
Rocinante said:No, it's the other way around! Cats are much more independent creatures who will do things on their own terms and spend lots of time alone. They aren't always demanding our attention like dogs. They aren't as servile as dogs either. If they don't want you, they'll just walk away.
in a jokey or light-hearted way. It's an analogy that I often see used, and is useful perhaps up to a point. I prefer the Windows/Mac analogy myself. But the scenario of the person landing up in a foreign country and experiencing culture shock is more salient. You seem to be turning my words around quite a lot in this comment. I have already stated that I don't regard all autistic people as the same, and that I'm against authors who sell their work on the basis of its being about bringing up an autistic child only to write a book that does treat autism more or less as something to be mocked and laughed at. The sheer transparent arrogance of her 'This book wasn't really written for an autistic audience'! It was marketed as a book essentially about autism, so why wouldn't it appeal to an autistic audience? So she quite cynically cashed in on the 'autism' buzz word, then used the book to make condescending remarks about her son, mock him during his puberty, and even suggest at one point that it might be an idea to have him sterilised. And before you make the argument again about books and their audiences, here it is plainly. I have worked in the publishing industry. It is, as you might imagine, very cut-throat. Publishers are always on the lookout for the next big money-spinning thing, and autism is currently something that is attracting a lot of curiosity (it has for a few years now, in fact). So a mother writes quite a damaging book about bringing up an autistic child, and it gets published and released to the world, available in most bookshops and online at Amazon (where, if you don't know the title, you can find it very quickly by typing in the search term 'autism', or even just looking up another book like 'Neurotribes' and seeing 'To Siri with Love' suggested as another book you might be interested in). To add to the sell, the cover of 'To Siri' talks about the author's 'emotional intelligence', and calls the book 'moving', 'touching', 'warm' and 'wise'. It's quite likely, therefore, that it will pique the interest of an autistic person. What the book presents to the world, however, is something quite different, quite offensive and denigrating to autistic people. So the author uses the cop out 'This book wasn't really written for an autistic audience'. Define an audience? The book is public property. Autistic people make up members of the public. By saying this, therefore, this author is essentially saying we aren't classed as members of the book-buying public. Who is she to determine who and who isn't an appropriate reader of her book? Is she really bothered if she's getting the sales? I don't much like cooking. Does that mean a cook book isn't written for my kind of audience, and that therefore I shouldn't be buying it? If I'm a gay person, and someone publishes a book about bringing up a gay child and then says 'This book wasn't really written for a gay audience', then I'm going to want to read it to find out why. Why I, as a gay person, should not be reading a book about a gay child. I want to know why the author thinks I shouldn't read it. What is she afraid of?
I think I have nothing further to say on this particular subject now because it seems the more I say, the more you seem to want to pick my words apart or twist them to suit your own definition of what you wish to believe I'm saying. I believe that we're essentially on the same side and agree on the same things. Perhaps we should really be looking back to the main topic of the thread. I've tried to stay with that, but this feels like a diversion that will just go on and on and probably lead nowhere.
For example, you say you think it would be beneficial for a non autistic person to experience what life is like for an autistic person, which to me, implies that all autistic people are the same and all non autistic people are different, but the same as each other. Because if you think we’re all different, which autistic person would you choose to show a non autistic person what their life is like? And how do you know the non autistic person doesn’t already experience the world similar to the autistic person? It sounds like it would be very complicated and I’m not sure why anybody would want to do that?
All autistic people being the same and all non autistic people being the same, isn’t my reality. To me all people are different and one nt person might have more in common with a nd person than other nt people so I’m not sure how you would work out what to show an nt person about what life on the spectrum is like because it’s different for everybody and our experiences often change as we grow and change.
Actually, I don't think all autistic people are the same. I think I said that there is no one model for autistic people in the same way that there is no one model for non-autistic people. It's a spectrum condition, and each autistic person is unique.
Rocinante said:Just as not all autistic people are the same.
It was a bit of a jokey point to make really, the cats and dogs thing. But it ties in with what the thread is broadly about in that it's one of the ways I've heard people use to try to explain to a neurotypical what it's like to be autistic. it's probably not the best analogy, although no two cats or dogs are entirely the same either. They're entirely different species for one thing, of course. But they're broadly similar in lots of ways. Both have paws, claws, tails, whiskers, etc, and both are commonly kept as household pets. But in terms of general personality they're quite different. Cats are much more independent and self-reliant, and in my experience they like attention and fuss but strictly on their own terms. Dogs can be quite different that way. Perhaps a better analogy to use would be with computer operating systems, so that you get a Windows system and an Apple Mac system. Both systems do the same thing, but operate in quite different ways to one another. Different processing and storage methods, and different inputs needed to perform certain functions. I was trained on Windows and find it very hard to get on with the Mac OS. Similarly, I was thrown when Windows first changed the standard interface to the tiled one more commonly useful on Tablets and touch screens. They've tweaked it now in response to complaints, but when it first came out I was really frustrated by the changes in functioning with the Start button and the need to toggle between screens in order to do what I used to do in a couple of button clicks. Most people I know regularly use one system or the other (Windows or Mac), and struggle if they have to swap systems. On the NAS Asperger's page, there's the analogy used of a boat and a bike, which is also a useful way perhaps of trying to explain the differences. It's still difficult, though. Really what is needed is some kind of virtual experience to enable a non-autistic person to understand how to view the world where some of the inputs they rely on are no longer available. If no one had a face for example, there would be no way of judging feelings from expressions. It's interesting how the Slenderman meme from a few years ago caught on and became so popular in the annals of digital folklore. Partly it was the ambivalent nature of the whole thing. The man had no face, so there was no way of knowing in any particular context whether his intentions were benign and protective or much more sinister and malevolent. It was a classic take on the mythological shapeshifter archetype.
That’s interesting that you think all autistic people are the same and that all people born with a nuerotypical brain are the same and that all dogs and all cats are all the same as well.
I guess categorising people into groups, helps you process the world and I’m sure deep down, you can appreciate, to some degree at least, that we’re all different, no matter what brains or whatever we were born with.
Or maybe you do think all autistic people are the same and that all neurotypical people are the same, and there’s nothing wrong with that either, we all see the world differently and just because I see all people as independent individuals it doesn’t mean everybody else does. I can imagine that it makes life much simpler in some ways, to see people as groups instead of individuals, it’s just not the way I see the world, and that’s perfectly ok, I appreciate lots of different minds and ways of seeing the world.
I would like to experience a simulation of NT experience too, but really think that would be impossible! We are indeed all individual. I think I will just make the most of being ‘me’ for the rest of my life. I do hope you feel stronger soon, Starbuck.
To sell a book or play, the writer needs a target audience, of course anyone in the world who has access to the book can buy it, but you can’t market to the whole world, you have to have a target audience. That doesn’t mean that only your target audience can and will read it, often books are a great surprise and are taken up by an altogether different audience. There isn’t even a publisher on this planet, apart from little ones, who would even consider reading an authors work if they don’t already have a platform because no matter how great a book is, if nobody knows about it, nobody is going to buy it. So you have to have a certain sized social media following or some kind of platform, aka, your target audience, before a publisher will even consider your work.
So she wrote it for absolutely anybody to read. I’ve never heard of an author doing that before, but there you go, we learn something new every day.
When an author publishes a book, it is public property in the sense that it is available for everyone to read. All authors throughout history, through Shakespeare, Jonson, Fielding, Smollett, Defoe, Johnson, the Brontes, Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Orwell, Steinbeck, Carver, Cheever, Faulkner, Kerouac, Rowling, Banks, Rankin, and on and on and on and on have written books (or plays) to have them published (or performed) for everyone to read (or see). Why do it otherwise? I don't understand how this could have somehow passed you by. It's what writers do. They write to communicate. And once they are published, they can't just say 'I don't want autistic people to read this'. It's out there. Which is what they want. I'm shocked that such a thing has never occurred to you before.
I have no model of autism, I don’t really know what that means, I only speak for myself, but I do have the trait that I think everyone sees the world like me, lol, but I know intellectually that they don’t, but I don’t think there’s a model of autism, I think we’re all exactly the same as everybody else, meaning we are all different, we are all different, whether we have a nt brain or a nd brain and I didn’t know I was quibbling, I thought we were talking, lol, each sharing how we each see the world. I didn’t know that was quibbling, but to be honest, I’m not actually 100% sure I know what that word means, so maybe we are, and I had the wrong understanding of that word. It’s a good word though. I like it. I haven’t heard it for years. I always thought it meant some kind of argument.
Sorry, yeah, I’m do miss the point a lot. I thought you or somebody else had said, that she wrote the book for a nt audience, but I clearly got that point wrong. So she wrote it for absolutely anybody to read. I’ve never heard of an author doing that before, but there you go, we learn something new every day. Maybe because it’s a bit of a hot topic but I still didn’t think it would be of interest to that many people, to the degree that you don’t need a target audience.
I have no interest in reading the book anyway, no matter who she wrote the book for. Reading books about kids is not really my thing.
We’ve had some good threads on this site on the humorous side of autism, but I understand we all have a different sense of humour so what one person finds funny might be anything but funny to somebody else. I know some of my traits can keep me entertained for hours though.
Oh, I didn’t realise she had abused the child. Did she get the child taken from her? I didn’t realise it was one of those kinds of books. Is that why it caused so much upset, because she abused the child, treating her like she was sub human? Yeah, I can see how the autistic community wouldn’t like that. I couldn’t stomach reading something like that.
Just as not all autistic people are the same. The argument is circular.
I'm saying that I lack the capacity to be able to cope with traveling, given the many variables it would throw up for me and that I would find difficult to handle. Which, if you like, is saying that my autism is different to yours. Which is why I also say that autism cannot be generalised about. The same as all human life cannot be generalised about.
It seems from some of your comments as if you are presenting a particular 'model' of autism that you want to understand, and that anything that falls outside of that model is somehow questionable. I don't really know why this would be. If we are to accept each other as autists, surely it means accepting our differences of perspective as autists. There is no one 'right' way of being autistic. You seem to be quibbling for the sake of it.
I don’t see it that way at all and of course she would have said the same thing if she had adopted a child or whatever. Why wouldn’t she?
I think you miss the point, again. She wrote the book for general consumption. She wrote it about an autistic child. Why, then, would it not be of interest to an autistic audience? I for one would want to read it, as I did, to see how she presented the subject of autism and how she managed the welfare of the child. You would need to read it yourself to understand the outrage that it caused in the autistic community. It was all, again, about misrepresentation. About treating autism as something to laugh at, and treat as a subject of ridicule almost. Why would this not be of concern to any autistic person? It's an absolute nonsense for her to have said such a thing. Supposing she adopted a black child and spent an entire book talking about it as if it was some kind of intellectually sub-standard golliwog? Don't you think the black community would want to know about that? Don't you think that an argument of 'I didn't write it for a black audience' would be entirely spurious?
I don’t think all nuerotypical people are the same, so I would have to ask each person the question, individually, of why, if indeed they do, do they have problems understanding the inner landscape of neurodiversity even though they’re well travelled. I’ve never seen that connection made before, between travel and understanding the inner landscape of somebody else.
Most people don’t understand their own inner landscape, let alone somebody else’s, but are you saying, travel increases the capacity to be about to understand somebody else’s inner landscape for human beings but for some reason, it doesn’t work like that for people who have a neurotypical brain? Is this knowledge based on some specific research?
I don’t see it that way at all and of course she would have said the same thing if she had adopted a child or whatever. Why wouldn’t she? If I’ve got no interest in fishing, I’m not going to buy a book on fishing, so if somebody is going to write a book on fishing, she’s probably better to write it to an audience of people who go fishing. That doesn’t mean the views of people who are not into fishing, don’t count, it just means they won’t be interested in a book on fishing. My mind works differently to the mind of a nt person, so the chances are, that books written with them in mind, aren’t going to interest me, so I’d appreciate knowing that before I picked a book up.
It’s just different ways of seeing things that’s all and like I said, it’s not the type of book I would normally read anyway.
I for one do not have a problem in the normal way with metaphors and jokes.
This may be because I have 'learned' how to appreciate them. I have my moments that it takes a long, long time for a joke to sink in (sometimes years!) but there are many which I do understand. Same goes for metaphors, and I love language which is full of metaphors and similes.
However, I also visualise metaphors. I see them in pictues as to what they really are. And the same goes for bad language. If someone refers to something as a (obscene word for sexual intercourse) something, I visualise the thing as actually being in that state, but in not a nice way, as a violent unwarranted act, with all the images that conveys. Even if someone is referring to a box using such a word, I still imagine the box being violated in a pornographic way. I cannot simply see it as an intensifier and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Most people who would ask me to a party know I won't go, but I often get invitations like 'I know you won't come but I am having a party at ....' I don't really know what to make of that! I don't really know whether I prefer to be asked and refuse the invitation, or not receive the invitation, in which case I think I have been overlooked. I think it is nice to be asked really, even though I will refuse the invite. Someone just stating that they are having a party which they know I won't come to suggests to me they don't want me there anyway!
Yeah, I told you I’d never met anyone like me and if I had a pound for everyone who’d said that to me, I’d have a nice stash by now. Now you can see, almost the entire human race, autistic or not, sees themselves as separate from each other. You can see why I don’t do casual conversations very well, lol, I literally live in a different dimension to almost everybody else.
And for me, I felt more connected to society once I got my diagnosis, because instead of feeling different, like an alien, this was proof that I was a human being just like everybody else, and it has made me closer to people. I don’t feel like I’m in a minority, I feel like part of the whole of the human race. The diagnosis made feel like one with everybody else. I don’t see myself as being in a minority because of the way my brain is wired up, how would you even break it up? Unless you’re bunching all autistic people in one basket, as if they’re all the same and nt people in another basket as if they’re all the same. But that doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t work like that. Just because our brains might be different to people who are nt, that doesn’t mean we’re separate to them. That would be like saying, people from different races are separate, or people in wheelchairs, as if everyone who is in a wheelchair is the same. I don’t really get all those categories, they don’t make sense to me. But I understand lots of you do like those categories, and like Temple Grandin says, the world needs all kinds of minds, so it’s good that we have some variety.
I would love to travel, but simply wouldn't be able to cope with the changes of culture, weather patterns, and so on. I need things to be known and predictable. I need a set routine every day and to know exactly what I'll be doing. For me, traveling is something for the NTs. And if an NT is so well-traveled, why is it that they still have problems understanding the inner landscape of neurodiversity?
No, it's the other way around! Cats are much more independent creatures who will do things on their own terms and spend lots of time alone. They aren't always demanding our attention like dogs. They aren't as servile as dogs either. If they don't want you, they'll just walk away.
It's nice to see that this article has resonated with others as well - I would like to contribute to this conversion further, but I have had a rough day and I am recovering from a seizure.
I think making NTs experience things from our perspective could be a start like the VR experience videos, but I think it would help if people could interact with a simulation rather than watching a video as it still allows the viewer to observe more than interact and experience. This could be a good start, but again because NT experience things differently, it still might not convey everyday life that we experience as it is too individual and still requires theory of mind - which as discussed earlier, seems to be lacking on both sides to varying degrees.I would definitely like to experience a NT simulation!
That's all I can muster for now.
I haven’t read the book ‘To Siri, with Love’, but if it was written for a nuerotypical audience then it wouldn’t really be for me anyway, so I probably won’t read it.
That isn't really the point I was making about it. It was written by a mother bringing up an autistic child. Surely then an autistic audience might have some interest in it. Why would she say such a thing, anyway? Why would anyone write a book for general consumption and then say that it perhaps wasn't written for an autistic audience? Would she have said the same if she had been bringing up an adopted black child or a gay child? it's incredible arrogance. It's saying the views of autistic people don't count when the book has an autistic person at its very centre.