Published on 12, July, 2020
I've been wanting to write this for about three years pretty much ever since I joined the forum, but thought it might be a bit triggering for some.
Now I'm on moderation I guess, IS the time to do it, because if I say anything that is wrongspeak, then at least it might get filtered before I upset anyone.
This thought was triggered many, many years ago when my child was not in her thirties, and we were watching a cartoon and the villain of the piece started to talk about his frustrating life and upbringing etc. and I recognised my own circumstances! All the things that cartoon villain (and many more screen villains before him) described had been a part of my upbringing, and I'd felt the urge to crush, kill, destroy just like they report, but in my case I found that sort of thing to be really unsatisfying and not the life I wanted to lead lead (or role I wanted to pay?) So evil villainly became a part of my character rather than the whole thing.
Now to be honest, there are some people here, who lack my ineffably sunny disposition ( Oh that's funny! One of my best..) and may actually be bad guys, but would they know it? Certainly my experience is some of the worst things I've done, I was quite convinced were righteous at the time...
Then there's the way N.T's react to us and then interact with us.
Do THEY see us as the good guys?.
I find this unsettling to contemplate, but today as I read some current events that are happening in the states, where much is being made of the perpetrators Autism diagnosis, and see the discussion starting to happen in "mainstream" (by my standards) media I think we ought to ask oursleves some searching questions about the nature of Autism and have asome answers ready for anyone who ask before we get further marginalised as a group.
The real villains of history have most definitely been allistic. This is because they all (Hitler, Stalin, Attila, Genghis Khan etc.) have shown highly developed skills in understanding, inspiring and manipulating people as individuals and in masses, skills that autistics typically lack any vestiges of.
Phew, good to know. I thought the Austrian corporal was looking a bit "spergy" to me, and I'm happy to be corrected!
So. Have there been any outstandingly GOOD Autists we can think of?
Chris Packham.
Thankyou Mark. I'm glad someone agrees with me. I sometimes think I am going insane.
What I do to resolve this is to try and uncomplicate people and understand them better so they are no longer complicating. Yes most humans are good but some are not. Evil is a strong word though I have never met anyone that was truly evil. Sometimes us autistic people think others are evil for ‘excluding’ us or not talking to us. But it’s not that people just get the wrong impression. They think we want to be left alone.
Free speech is a such a tricky one. As a liberal, I am mostly for it, but have my limits (probably the same limits as you). What annoys me is that free speech absolutists seem to be the quickest to shut down any free speech that disagrees with their views and they completely miss the irony. EM is meant to be very guilty of this. I've not read into it too much, though.
Humans are complicated. Animals too I think. I wonder if there are autists in the animal kingdom?Chris is definitely one of the good autistics. Some people will tell you that there is no good and evil in the world. Probably most people actually. But I think that humans are capable of both.
It’s a shame because Chris packham feels more connected to birds (the animals) than he does to other humans because he is so shy. How sad in my opinion. He loves kestrel birds but they’re not quite the same as people are they?
Chris packham is very shy. Did you know that he used to be jealous as a 20 something year old that all the other 20 year olds at college were going to parties and having fun but he never got invited. He felt excluded. His girlfriend said it was difficult to tell if he actually wanted anything from her. It seemed like he just wanted to be friends with her. He didn’t pursue her like other men maybe he never had the courage to do so. Poor guy. He really had a tough life.
https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/free-speech-absolutist/44213Further reading.
Yes. I no longer believe in free speech absolutism because of the way speech is used by bad actors. Absolute free speech has not existed in the uk for 50 years. I don't want to return to the 1970's where people can say anything they want with no fear of consequences. Even in the USA, you cannot shout fire in a public theatre.
One handy rule of thumb that I have to evaluate an ideology is "How many people will die horribly as a result of them getting their way?".
My point is that "having principles and standing by them" automatically attracts hate and bigotry.
A.K.A. "No good deed goes unpunished". or the military version "If you are taking flak, then it means you are approaching the target"
Since being Autistic also seems to invoke an almost instinctive revulsion in some people, (it's like they can smell it), expressing an opinion, let alone standing by a principle is a very brave thing to do indeed.
The question really comes intto focus when you consider your card carrying committed national socialist, A.K.A. "Nazi". He has principles and beliefs, which are well known and generally held to be abhorrent to all. Worse, if you try and engage with such a person, he will explain to you exactly what adolf was trying to achieve in the face of adversity, he will not only blame, but explain in great detail, why the third Reich identified a tiny bunch of people as the cause of the nations ills, and in short have a whole mindset that is almost completely alien to any rational person!
If such a person were to turn up here, (I am not he, nor have I ever met such a person in real life, but I've seen plenty of evidence that they exist) From his perspective he'd encounter nothing but hatred and bigotry.. It's all a question of perspective.
The antidote to "hatred" for me has been to excercise my right to complain about, and criticise those who I hold to be "faulty". In a free speech environment, of course there is an immediat echo chamber effect as all the other people who have that particular beef with the xxxxist's chime in, but there's always someone who makes the other sides point of view.
After a bit of to and fro, (in a free speech environment) when the facts are established the phrase, which I might utter myself, "Be careful of those XXXians they don't think like us, and don't respect our ways. if you give them half a chance they'll come back and nick your stuff" stops being "hate speech", and joins the category of speech that includes, "Be careful of that red cap on the back of the TV tube, if you get to touchy feely it'll hurt you".
BUT to get to the basic wisdom or fallacy that underlies peoples predjudices, and work towards a solution that doesn't require someone to lose their life, teeth, or dignity is simply too big an ask for most people myself included, sometimes.
I have made myself sad about being human now...
I think I'll turn this off now and go pump 100 litres of kerosine into jerrycans..
It certainly is. There's a difference between the principles of Packham and hate and bigotry though.