A Response to a Critic of my Aspie Posts II

I admit that I have very mixed feelings in regard to the issue of Aspie rights and tolerance toward Aspies. I feel like a Democrat who denounces Republican tax cuts but then insists on getting his refund. There is nothing unreasonable about this. You may believe that such tax cuts are a mistake and even an absolute disaster but if they are being given out then what is wrong with getting on line and demanding your share. I oppose multiculturalism and diversity at least how they are practiced by the left today. I believe in protecting people’s physical well being. I do not care if people’s feelings get hurt or if they do not feel validated by the rest of society. The very notion that people should be protected from the emotional trauma of being exposed to beliefs they oppose strikes me as a mortal threat to the free society. If race, skin color and sexual orientation really do not matter then they should not matter. If no one can suffer for these things then no one should benefit from them either. If society is allowed to give benefits to people for these things then they should also be allowed to discriminate against those same people. For me, a free society is one in which everyone can say offensive things to everyone else and everyone has to learn to be tolerant of everyone else.
Of course, once we are going to be playing the diversity game then I want to get every possible benefit. If the government, schools, and businesses are, in the name of diversity, going to give certain preferences to people because of their race, skin color or sexual orientation and do everything to make them feel validated then I want those same preferences and validation for the type of diversity I bring. I am an Aspie I have my own unique perspective, therefore, I should be given preferences and made to feel validated.
I am not some sort of Aspie radical. I do not believe that Aspies should be allowed to do whatever they want without any societal interference. Man is a political animal, we are not autonomous beings living on desert islands. This applies to Aspies and to everyone else. Many people may find Aspie behavior offensive and I am not saying they are wrong. Many people may find homosexual behavior to be offensive and I am not saying that they are wrong. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes. When you say that Aspies have to listen to what other people tell them how are you different than the people who say that homosexuals have to listen to what other people tell them.

On a side note. I admit that I often lack due diligence in regards to my grammar. Feel free to point out any mistakes that I make.

A Response to a Critic of my Aspie Posts I

Your sense of humor is remarkable. The following is a quote from your tongue in cheek essay."Anyone who uses the term “Asperger Syndrome” should be viewed as a bigot. They are implying that my state of being is somehow less than completely human and are robbing me of my humanity. Any attempt on the part of the psychiatric community to “cure” us or make us less Aspie like should be viewed as Nazism. Furthermore, society should be made to be more tolerant of us Aspies. We should not have to act in a less Aspie fashion."

You have taken me out of context. What I tried to do with these two pieces on Asperger Syndrome was to take the same logic used by the Gay rights movement and apply it to “Aspie rights.” I believe that the arguments used presently by the Gay rights movement, particularly the notion that homosexuality is a state of being and that any opposition to a homosexual act is, therefore, a denial of being and therefore bigotry, to be fallacious. I have therefore offered a reductio ad absurdum argument against this belief.
I am a supporter of Gay rights simply on libertarian grounds. I believe in keeping the government out of people’s bedrooms. A person should be able to sleep with another consenting person without the government’s interference. (I suspect that I am far more consistent in this belief than most people on the cultural left, but this can be something for another time.) The limitation of the libertarian argument though is that it does not extend outside of the government into society. The same government which I want kept out of people sex lives I also want kept out of people’s religious taboos and their petty likes and dislikes. People have the right to follow religions that ban certain actions and they have the right to find certain types of behavior repellent. They may not have the right to enforce those beliefs on others, but, on the other hand, they have the freedom of association to choose to have or not have dealings with such people and they do not have to give them jobs.
People should be free to follow religions that say that homosexuality is a sinful act. They should be free to find homosexual behavior abhorrent. While I have no intention of allowing our government to be turned into an anti-homosexual theocracy, I have no intention of making social conservatives like homosexuals or give them jobs. If someone does not want to give a homosexual a job then that is his concern. By the same token, no one has to like Aspies or give them jobs. If you find me annoying then you are free to openly dislike me. If you so happen to be on the hiring committee at a university to which I seek employment feel free to reject me.
Ultimately I think we are in agreement that it is my obligation to adapt to society; society does not have to adapt to me. In the future, when I have to go in for a job interview I will do my best to make sure that my clothes do match and that my shirt is tucked in. All the years of my mother prodding have to be good for something.

More to follow …

I am an Aspie and Proud of it II

I wrote the previous article on Asperger Syndrome with a heavy dose of tongue in cheek. I do not see Aspies as a persecuted group, but I also do not see homosexuals as a persecuted group. Aspies and homosexuals are simply two groups of people who are seen by many, in the general society, as being deviant. Because of this, people in these groups find themselves alienated from the rest of society and subjected to societal pressure to conform.
When I wrote the previous article I did not believe that there were people with real prejudices against those with Asperger Syndrome. A comment posted on that article has proven me wrong. Just goes to teach you: be careful what you joke about, it may be serious.
To respond to some of the comments made:
"Gays can and do sometimes behave in ways that make it impossible to detect that they are gay. If someone objects to them because they are gay, that can be seen as bigotry. Aspies often behave in socially inappropriate ways. For someone to object to their behavior is not bigotry. Anyone can find someone else to be boring, rude or annoying. Given the choice, most employers would choose an employee who is not annoying."
Well, imagine this scenario. The history department at Ohio State is interviewing candidates for a teaching position. A male applicant comes in wearing an earring, and a pink shirt and to top everything off he constantly uses the word "fabulous." What would happen if a professor on the hiring committee were to comment that it would not be appropriate for such a prestigious institution as Ohio State to hire someone who dressed in such an "uncivilized" manner and behaved in such an "unacademic" manner? That professor would be crucified on the spot as a homophobe. Now I come in as the next candidate wearing clothes that do not match and with my shirt half untucked. If a member of the committee were to suggest that such a mode of dress is not befitting for a professor at Ohio State, that person would not be accused of being bigoted against Aspies even if it were known that I did have Asperger Syndrome. In fact, as things stand now, someone can decide that my having Asperger Syndrome in of itself makes me unfit to be a college professor.
Now in the case of the homosexual, by coming dressed as he did, he was making a political and ideological statement. Any member of the committee who does not share those beliefs should, therefore, be justified in turning this candidate down. Would anyone scream bigotry if a Structuralist member of a committee turned down a Poststructuralist candidate? In my case, when I wear clothes that do not match and have my shirt half untucked it is not because I am making some sort of political or ideological statement. The way my mind is structured is that I do not care if my clothes match or if my shirt is tucked in. I have far more important things to think about and it is likely that I will not notice how I am dressed unless someone points it out to me. So when someone objects to how I dress they are attacking my being. The way I dress has no bearing on my ability to teach history. The fact that my mode of dress bothers you is simply a sign that you are a "close-minded bigot," who is not willing to tolerate alternative modes of dress.

"Your tirade is itself a symptom of Aspergers Syndrome. Your brain works in a way that makes you believe that you can pronounce your extreme views and get others to change to your way of thinking. See if you have any luck with it over the next several decades. The world doesn't need more teachers who are aspies. It needs more aspies to listen to the sound advice of others. Consider, at least once in a while, that maybe the rest of the world is correct and that you are wrong."

There are tens of not hundreds of thousands of blogs out being written by people who have "extreme" views and who wish to get others to "change" their way of thinking. To the best of my knowledge, most of these people do not have Asperger Syndrome. Why is it simply Aspies who have to sit down and listen to what everyone else has to say? We are human beings too and we have the right to our own opinions. We are a part of the fabric of society, which we enrich by being ourselves. I question and challenge myself all the time. I firmly believe that I am capable of being wrong. This is one of the reasons why I speak out. I want someone to point out the flaws in my reasoning.

Coming Out of the Closet: I am an Aspie and Proud of It.

I have a condition known as Asperger Syndrome. It’s a type of low-level, high-functioning autism. I see the world from a very different perspective than that of most people and process information differently. Because of this, despite the fact that I am, by most accounts, very smart and working on a Ph.D. in History, I have trouble dealing with social situations. I tend not to be able to pick up on body language and other sorts of social cues that others take for granted. Alternatively, one could say that there is nothing wrong with my social skills. I am simply someone who operates on a different but completely equal plane of thought. I imagine that if most of the world were Aspies then we would label all non-Aspies as being socially awkward.
There is another group of people who live their lives in ways that many people would find odd and even disturbing. These people were, until the early 70s, labeled as having a psychiatric illness. Nowadays thanks to a very successful social campaign these people have been brought into the social mainstream and it is no longer acceptable, in polite company, to imply that these people are in any way inferior or anything less than completely normal. I am of course referring to homosexuals. Supporters of gay rights argue that homosexuality is a state of being and that any attempt to place any legal or social constraints upon them would be to deny them their humanity. They would argue that homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle and that it should in no way be viewed as being in any way inferior to heterosexuality.
I bring up the issue not to attack the gay rights movement, but to simply point out that the same logic should apply to those who have Asperger Syndrome. I see being an Aspie as part of who I am and it is something I would not want to change even if I could. Being an Aspie is at least as much a part of my being as homosexuality is for a homosexual. I have an even better claim because in my case there is no defining action involved. Being an Aspie is solely a matter of how my brain functions, not of any action that I may or may not do. In the case of homosexuality, one could at least make the argument that the objection is to the act of sodomy and not to a person’s state of being. This argument cannot be made in the case of Asperger Syndrome. If you have a problem with me as an Aspie then it must be because you have an objection with my very state of being.
If it is bigotry to label homosexuality as a disease and to impose social constraints on homosexuals then the same thing should apply to Asperger Syndrome. Anyone who uses the term “Asperger Syndrome” should be viewed as a bigot. They are implying that my state of being is somehow less than completely human and are robbing me of my humanity. Any attempt on the part of the psychiatric community to “cure” us or make us less Aspie-like should be viewed as Nazism. Furthermore, society should be made to be more tolerant of us Aspies. We should not have to act in a less Aspie fashion. People need to recognize that although we are different, our way of living is just as acceptable as theirs. Anyone who implies that we are in any way shape or form less than completely normal should be expelled from polite society. In order to facilitate this, the government needs to put Aspie tolerance into school curriculums and actively seek to hire Aspie teachers so as to provide good Aspie models for children.
If it were to happen that at some future date I should be denied a job because my Aspie personality proved disagreeable to someone on a hiring committee it should be viewed as no different than if that person on the hiring committee were to deny a job to someone merely because that person acted in a gay fashion. Society should not stand for such bigotry and should immediately rectify the situation by making sure that that person is never again in a position to promote his bigoted agenda. I, of course, should be immediately be given the position I so richly deserve.
Anyone who supports the concept of gay Civil Rights must be willing to apply the same logic to the cause of Aspie Civil Rights. Anyone who fails to give us Aspies the same rights as homosexuals is a bigot. Anyone who supports gay rights and does not support Aspie rights is a bigot and a hypocrite. Of course, if we were to reject the gay rights argument then none of this would apply. If society has the right to look upon those who live differently as being deviant and force such people into choosing between being true to themselves or being accepted then I, as a proud Aspie, will, along with all other social deviants, have to make a tough choice.

How to Practice Discrimination Against Homosexuals

One of the problems that I have with the gay rights movement is that they have, with great success, built a campaign that rests on intellectual blackmail. Anyone who opposes them is by definition labeled a homophobe, a bigot and as being no different than a Nazi. This worries me on a number of levels. As someone who believes that the salvation of the human race lies in our ability to conduct a free, honest and open rational dialogue with each other and ourselves, the fact that we have a generation that is being taught that you can win arguments simply by calling your opponent a bigot. I have no idea what will happen to the issue of gay rights, but one way or another life is going to go on and there will be new movements, with new issues, and new debates. Does anyone really want this to be the legacy of the gay rights movement? The other cause for concern is that there are real bigots, racists, and Nazis out there and these labels need to be saved for them.
So where should one draw the line between opposition and bigotry? I would link it to discrimination. As I see it discrimination is an opposition to being; it goes beyond actions.
Imagine this. Mr. Fabulous walks into a government office to get a marriage license so he can be married to Ms. Straight All American Gal. The official opens up a file and says: "Mr. Fabulous, we see here that you are a fan of Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand. Our psychologists, therefore, believe that you are in fact gay. As such we refuse to give you this marriage license. Now, this would be discrimination and evidence of bigotry. Stopping Mr. Fabulous from marrying Ms. Straight All American Gal would be no different than stopping a black man or a Jew from marrying her. The government would be excluding someone from something given to society at large on the basis, not of an action, but on a perceived state of being.