Our condition DOES NOT give us license

[Alaric593]

Hey guy, you have been here for 8 days and you are already behaving as if you know everything better and you have all the solutions. It's normal to get to know people a little first, before you talk trash to them and get all high and mighty. So how about you calm down and just be nice for a while? The military did very little to teach you manners, that's unusual. Are you sure it was the military you were in?

And this is not the military, it's a forum for people with autism. Can you please just stop. It's getting annoying. Who died and made you king of it all. If you have to cut through the bull and be all-knowing all the time, can you please do it somewhere else?

How about read the entire thread before you comment. You've wasted both of our times with this post. And again, time in forum has no relevance to anything related to communication in honesty.

 

[Aspychata]

Hey guy, you have been here for 8 days and you are already behaving as if you know everything better and you have all the solutions. It's normal to get to know people a little first, before you talk trash to them and get all high and mighty. So how about you calm down and just be nice for a while? The military did very little to teach you manners, that's unusual. Are you sure it was the military you were in?

And this is not the military, it's a forum for people with autism. Can you please just stop. It's getting annoying. Who died and made you king of it all. If you have to cut through the bull and be all-knowing all the time, can you please do it somewhere else?

I support @Forest Cat post. It doesn't seem sincere this newbie apology. We are all entitled to our opinions.

He totally disregarded what l said. He used red herrings in his argument.

 

[SpiltPaint]

How about read the entire thread before you comment. You've wasted both of our times with this post. And again, time in forum has no relevance to anything related to communication in honesty.

Apart from you calling him a degenerate and to fix himself, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. They were in the wrong initially by posting some completely unconstructive and dismissive reply. Did it warrant your response, no.

But people seem to not to be able to just move on, it's done. He said he misinterpreted, and you said you acknowledged your response was wrong and apologised. You have my respect for that and it shows good character.

A mod should just lock this now and let's just move past this.

 

[tree]

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[Darkkin]

No condition is license for uncivil behaviour. There is a line between honest, civil communication and boorish behaviour.

Honest, civil communication is productive, boorish behaviour is a repeat of the 'I'm just blunt, don't mind me.' mindset, no matter the circumstances. It exemplifies what this thread is trying to talk about, which is why I tossed up the contrast angle. It is also a highlight point on the levels of ASD.

A majority of us here are ASD1, yet we represent only a small portion of the entire autism spectrum. Most of us live pretty normal lives and interact socially under our own control. We do not have aides or supervisors accompanying us on outing to the store. And are morally responsible for our own behaviour.

Tact is a social skill people practice for a reason. With some folks one interaction is too much.

 

[Alaric593]

Apart from you calling him a degenerate and to fix himself, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. They were in the wrong initially by posting some completely unconstructive and dismissive reply. Did it warrant your response, no.

But people seem to not to be able to just move on, it's done. He said he misinterpreted, and you said you acknowledged your response was wrong and apologised. You have my respect for that and it shows good character.

A mod should just lock this now and let's just move past this.

Nihilists are degenerates but it was too personal given the forum and my understanding of civilian decorum necessarily preferring sophistry rather than honesty. To that, I agree.

 

[tree]

No condition is license for uncivil behaviour. There is a line between honest, civil communication and boorish behaviour.

Honest, civil communication is productive, boorish behaviour is a repeat of the 'I'm just blunt, don't mind me.' mindset, no matter the circumstances.

What I find tedious are people who pride themselves on being
*brutally honest* and always conveying what they believe are
*the harsh truths.*

Truth isn't necessarily harsh.
And brutality isn't required to discuss it.

 

[Darkkin]

The interactions between Anne Shirley and her neighbor Mr. Harrison in the book, (yes, book not the movies or shows), Anne of Avonlea are illustrative to the topic. Both the rude and the honest civility. Social interactions were something Lucy Maud Montgomery excelled at.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

What I find tedious are people who pride themselves on being
*brutally honest* and always conveying what they believe are
*the harsh truths.*

Truth isn't necessarily harsh.
And brutality isn't required to discuss it.

Humans tend to justify their own behavour with logic, traditions and all kind of stuff. So people who like to travel will find lots of reasons to support traveling. People who prefer staying home reading will also give you lots of reasons to read at home.

So a direct-brutally honest person who gives you reasons to support that his behavour is the correct one is exactly the same that a person who is indirect and has lots of care who gives you reasons to support that her behavour is the correct one.

Both are humans who behave in some certain way that they have come to justify that is the correct one.

In some contexts and cultures the direct way works better, with pros and cons. And in some other contexts and cultures the soft way works better, with pros and cons.

The way you dislike *brutally honest* people probably has more to do with your own behavoural justifications being challenged than with the actual behavour of that person.

 

[Alaric593]

I find tedious the merry-go-round of sophistry that never solves a problem while perched on the Ivory Tower of decorum and yet is confused why nothing changes in their own lives and the world is the way it is.

Not only does sophistry not solve problems. It can't. Because it's designed to placate and give excuse to confirm that which others believe in themselves to be True yet is objectively incorrect. It's a confirmation bias machine.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Flipside of using autism as an excuse...How many of us use it at a reason we seek validation and have a tendency to be people pleasers?

How many of us set our standards ridiculously high because we think we need to atone for the deficits of our neurotype? With female autistics this is a very common feature. We don't use it as a license for poor behaviour, but as a catalyst for a huge amount of masking. Our behaviour becomes very formal and polite. Stiff to the point of breaking, but it allows us to pass unnoticed.

So true! To borrow lines from a Brian Fallon song:
I lost most of myself pleasing everyone
I had to learn how to begin again

I understand. Despite how positive I feel about myself in many respects, I feel that I need validation for some things that have been missing and for which I felt deserving of. Sometimes I feel like such a loser and have to cheer myself up with reminders of what I have managed to accomplish.

 

[tree]

The people I know who pride themselves on being "brutally honest"
believe the only truths are, by necessity, negative and painful.

I am not talking about people who are *direct*/*forthright*/or blunt.

I am talking about people who glory in negativity and
equate cruelty with strength.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I am only brutally honest with people when it’s necessary and something that they need to hear such as a serious issue that I’ve noticed is happening and that person needs to be aware of it or they say something offensive and needs to be called out about it.

 

[Thinx]

Well, I think some of the military can be pretty sophisticated too, in ways that can be good as well as irritating sometimes. But totally agree the directness really works for some where there is trust and respect, I guess where there's a meaningful bond already?

Re @Darkkin s point, I am not sure at all that everyone with Aspergers /ASD1 has all in place to manage social communication adequately all the time, think it varies. Some are quite unaware of sounding too direct or rude, or are oblivious and will say that about themselves, but not really getting how that affects others they may be communicating with.

Plus we have some ASD 2 and 3 people here who are far from oblivious and who manage communication better than many of us. We are varied and uneven, so are NTs.

 

[Au Naturel]

"Do you think there is some kind of pride to be had from pushing through life with a delibetating disability and not giving up?"

Absolutely. What you pursue despite difficulty is the only source of pride with any meaning. Taking an easy or lazy path or having innate skills that you do not work to improve on may not be wrong but it certainly offers nothing towards enhancing self-esteem. Insisting that others meet your needs without trying to meet theirs is just narcissism.

Empathy is the basis for moral guidance. Those who lack empathy and have no sense of right and wrong are sociopaths or psychopaths. A bit of empathy for even those who wrong you goes a long way towards peace of mind and happiness.

When I look back at my youth I see a lot of self-deception. I completely missed friendly overtures and did not value the good things I had. There were very many bad things going on and that is what I focused on, leaving me blind to the good. Eventually, I became invested in victimhood as part of my identity and without realizing it, wore it like a badge. Of course, that's like wearing a sign on your back saying "Not worth talking to." and "Bully here."

That didn't make me a bad child. I never had that desire to take out my own pain on other people. It did make me a messed up child. The other kids I didn't get along with weren't bad either and except for the occasional bully, I never thought of them as such. At some level, I understood that the problem was not "the world" but rather something inside me that made me different and I just didn't fit in.

 

[Au Naturel]

I agree that autism/Aspergers doesn't give a person license to be intentionally uncivil, hurtful, etc. I would argue that the vast majority of autistic people are not inherently hurtful people, however. This brings us to: Intent.

Autistic people are often known to ask direct questions and to ask questions about things that NTs typically don't ask about. If the autistic person intends no harm and no offense but ends up offending anyway, sorry, but that's different than saying something with the goal of offending or hurting someone.

Here are a few questions off the top of my head that illustrate my point:

• To a co-worker or boss: "When are you going to retire?" Imagine the person asking has no ill intent and does not have any underlying reason such as "When are we going to be rid of you?"
• "Why do you wear that perfume?" Imagine the person asking has acute sensitivity to fragrances. Imagine that person genuinely wanting to know why the other person wears the perfume if it has such a strong fragrance. It's ok for NTs to talk about what upsets or offends them at will, but not autistics?
• Being asked if you want to hear the retelling of some seemingly innocuous event the other person experienced and you say: "No. That doesn't interest me at all and frankly I find it disturbing on many levels."

^None of those examples involve the autistic person intending on hurting the other person's feelings. The examples above are different than a person saying something like: "I hate you and I hope you die penniless." < That kind of statement directed toward anyone involves intent to hurt the person's feelings. It's knowingly unkind.

It all comes down to intent. Otherwise should autistic people only speak when spoken to? Should autistic people always ask to be told what to say and what not to say as dictated solely be NT conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc? The world is made up of many different kinds of people.

In a world that's increasingly accepting of and tolerant of fractionally small groups, it's interesting to me that there's still such an opposition by the many to be more aware of the difference in being direct (and not be offended by it) and being intentionally hurtful.

An autistic person should make every effort to be aware of "NT conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc" such that they do not unintentionally violate them. Not to do so is to say that other people don't matter and that makes you a narcissist. This knowledge instructs us on how to avoid conflict and ridicule. That is a good thing. It is not the same as masking which is pretending to be something you are not. It is more akin to understanding traffic law and following it even when it seems irrational.

It is often impossible to catch the more subtle rules or the ones that are situationally dependent but you still make the effort.

If I did not try to follow NT conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc. I might be out mowing my lawn in the nude right now. How would that work out in a conservative community? Even though if it were technically legal, (until the city council passed an ordinance against it) would it lead to my own long-term happiness and well-being?

You can scale that down to fairly small conventions, like not butting into private conversations, grooming oneself enough not to look like you're homeless, not waxing on rhapsodically about a special interest unless your partner expresses a strong interest in what you have to say, not insisting on being right in a conversation, etc. That isn't masking. It is charting a course through rocky waters. It is also considering that the other person's comfort level is as important as my own.

Nobody is perfect. Sometimes you step all over those conventions either without knowing it or maybe even intentionally. You try to learn from it for future encounters. And then you forgive yourself - as well as anyone who dissed you for it.

 

[Knower of nothing]

An extreme example of where it doesn't apply doesn't negate the plethora of where it does. There are many tall Chinese people that doesn't change that there is a norm.

What these examples show you is that it's not a rule to live by. And if it's not a rule, there's no reason to state it as one to try sell to others either. It's not valuable.
The logic is that you should generally prioritze recognizing and resolving your own responsibilities before pushing others to do the same. Seems ok right? But think about it, why would these need to be in sequential order? Can't you do both at the same time all the time? Get the best of both worlds. Live only by rules that actually do what they intend to do which is make us all better people.

 

[Magna]

An autistic person should make every effort to be aware of "NT conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc" such that they do not unintentionally violate them. Not to do so is to say that other people don't matter and that makes you a narcissist. This knowledge instructs us on how to avoid conflict and ridicule. That is a good thing. It is not the same as masking which is pretending to be something you are not. It is more akin to understanding traffic law and following it even when it seems irrational.

It is often impossible to catch the more subtle rules or the ones that are situationally dependent but you still make the effort.

If I did not try to follow NT conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc. I might be out mowing my lawn in the nude right now. How would that work out in a conservative community? Even though if it were technically legal, (until the city council passed an ordinance against it) would it lead to my own long-term happiness and well-being?

You can scale that down to fairly small conventions, like not butting into private conversations, grooming oneself enough not to look like you're homeless, not waxing on rhapsodically about a special interest unless your partner expresses a strong interest in what you have to say, not insisting on being right in a conversation, etc. That isn't masking. It is charting a course through rocky waters. It is also considering that the other person's comfort level is as important as my own.

Nobody is perfect. Sometimes you step all over those conventions either without knowing it or maybe even intentionally. You try to learn from it for future encounters. And then you forgive yourself - as well as anyone who dissed you for it.

I agree with a lot of what you say. However being direct, being literal isn't of itself being narcissistic. NTs make up the majority of people. In general terms they share "conventions, preferences, behaviors, etc". I make an important distinction: Just because NTs make up the majority of people doesn't mean "their way" of communicating is the only way. It doesn't mean it's the only "right way" to communicate. Being "aware" of NT conventions, etc? Sure. Remember that a key component of autism is having difficulty or being outright incapable of reading non-verbal communication. I won't be ashamed of that and I'm not ashamed of that at all.

Inasmuch as NT conventions are also not the only "right" way to communicate, it must be said that there are aspects of NT communication as well that are objectively problematic and flawed. While there's a time to be diplomatic and a place for "sugar-coating" something to avoid hurting someone's feelings, the world would be better off in a lot of ways if people were more mindful to "say what they mean and mean what they say" (something which is often lacking in typical NT non-direct communication).

Do I think it's important like you said to be "aware" of NT conventions, etc.? Definitely. But not at the loss of one's own thought processes (ie literal) or personality (ie inquisitive). I don't strive to change the fundamental way I think so I can become as NT as possible and exhaust every effort to do so in hopes of NTs approving of me. I'm not saying that that's what you're saying in your post, @Au Naturel , but I'm forever cautious in adopting any way of thinking that could remotely or obviously enter into the realm of thoughts like: "They're right, I'm wrong. Be like them.", "Be ashamed of who I am. The only way I'll be "right" is if I spend my life rejecting myself and replace the way I think, act and speak to instead be pleasing to NTs.", "I should Defer to them. I should ask them to show me and teach me how to be like them. It's the best way. It's the only "good way."

No.

 

[Au Naturel]

"being literal isn't of itself being narcissistic"

No, it isn't. However there's a caveat. If you think that NTs are somehow at fault for everything or that you shouldn't need to allow for other people's sensitivities, that is narcissistic. It is the I'm ok, you're not ok position that is problematic. And I see a lot of that.

 

[Fino]

It's a strange feeling, but I feel like at some point in my life I have behaved like every single person in this thread. I think I've been in everyone's shoes at some point during some conversation. I feel empathy for everyone here, especially the first two posters.