Justice, equalityEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes… More, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions.
AutisticAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If… More Black & White Thinking… Autism & Relationships * Morality & Justice *
Autism Life: *Communication & Morals* Truth & Lies & Autism
This is the clincher. You have to live up to autistic standards of honesty if you are to convince us to follow a different path or to change our minds.
If you aren’t willing to make sure that what you ask of us or want us to believe is reasonable, fair and true, then you won’t have our respect and the relationship is doomed.
The influences that distort the morality of those around us simply don’t penetrate our conscious minds.
Society feels thoughtlessly and consistently sub-ethical and uncurious compared to our very grand emotions, which contributes to burnout.
“Being autistic has always given me a strong sense of justice and fairness, and a burning drive to do the right thing and to fight for it, even when it seems like struggling against the weight of the world. This seems very related to my extreme empathyEmpathy is not an autistic problem, it’s a human problem, it’s a deficit in imagination.We all need to work on imagining things we have not been through.Empathy, Imagination and Autism… More, which is also tied to my experience of being autistic.”
“Knowing that injustice or violence exist anywhere is deeply painful for me, whether it directly targets me or not, and I believe that I must do anything within my capacity to work for a world where none of us have to be afraid anymore. If I were not autistic, I am certain I would not have the same drive as I do now.”
This heart rate graph shows my average restingWe urgently need a society that’s better at letting people get the rest they need.Fergus Murray WIP by Kristina Daniele I’m in pain. Mental. Physical. The result’s the same. Retreating… More heart rate before and after confronting injustice. My heart rate trends higher by 25bpm for 5 days on this graph. The trend continued after the confrontation concluded.
This is a hyper empathic autistic’s heart under the stress of injustice. My resting heart rate rises for days and weeks at a time, contributing to meltdownMeltdowns are alarm systems to protect our brains.Without meltdowns, we autistics would have nothing to protect our neurology from the very real damage that it can accumulate.I don’t melt down… More and autistic burnoutAutistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being… More. I started trending higher the day I knew I had to confront injustice and start writing and organizing against it. This is constant adrenaline poisoning that goes for long periods. I feel it all through me from the moment I wake to the moment I finally pass out from exhaustion and into my stress dreams while sleeping. It’s a hell.
Striving to be popular is incompatible with being creative. This is either the truth, or it is a case of autistic black and white thinking.
Autism is a crucially, vitally, urgently needed human variation—a powerful corrective and counterbalance to the hierarchicalThe belief in the existence and relevance of social hierarchies must be suspended.The Beauty of Collaboration at Human Scale: Timeless patterns of human limitations The extent to which a community… More, dominance-based mentality currently driving human society and the planet off the rails.
Autistic/neurodiverse thinking and collaborating styles have a critically important role to playThere is nothing more human than play. Humans were designed to learn in play. In fact, nearly all mammals evolved this way.Play’s Power At our learning space, we provide learners fresh… More as an antidote to the currently dominant neurotypicalThe existence of the word neurotypical makes it possible to have conversations about topics like neurotypical privilege. Neurotypical is a word that allows us to talk about members of the… More social-ranking/dominance approach—a critically important role to play in bringing modern society back into some kind of sustainable balance, functionality, social justice, and sanity.
Autistic people are best understood as the agents of a well functioning cultural immune system within human society.
Autists are essential to the future of homo sapiens.
Justice, equality, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions. Those are emotions which serve the Greater Good. Those emotions are the mobilization of Love… Information-sharing is a love language of autistics, as Knowledge is a “very grand emotion,” indeed. It has potential to inform Progress, to humanize and de-pathologize neurodivergentNeurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite… More existence, …, to help inter-neurotype couples and loved ones understand each other better and have more rewarding interactions, and to re-frame the conceptualization of neurodivergent people.
Solidarity is why when you tell an autistic something, we share with you our closest relative experience. We aren’t one-upping or implying we know how you feel… because we truly can’t. It would go against what we can know is empirical Truth to claim to understand your emotions through your perspective and in light of your experiences and history. It would be disrespectful to you, a platitude or a lie.
We are saying, “This is how I share your path.” There is a question implied, too. “Have I come close to your experience?” To neurotypicals, this reads as egotistical in the same way that neurotypicals, estimating our feelings in response reads as egotistical to us.
We want to hear if something was Fair or Just, if our secondary emotions are in-line with the “very grand emotions.” Or, at least we want you to troubleshoot with us and help us explore the angles beyond our limited perspectives.
To know about these differencesOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals… More, though, is empowering. It’s why Knowledge is valuable as a “very grand emotion.”
A neurotypical person is not wired to be rewarded by our brand of interaction and emotional Solidarity. Our method of relatedness doesn’t translate our heart accurately with neurotypicals. Our direct, blunt, and sometimes-brutal honesty is offensive to neurotypicals; and in turn, their roundabout, indirect, suggestive language reads as confusing, manipulative, and patronizing to us.
I wish I could find other people who have it, and live among them. A biological conscience is better than no conscience at all.
Maybe it’s like my sharing: One more weirdness“Weird Pride Flag” by Ferrous and Autistamatic Be proud of what you are.We’re weird, and we’re glad we are.Weird Pride Promo 2021 Autistic Pride is inconceivable without weird pride, and… More; one more crazy, deep-rooted delusion that I’m stuck with. I am stuck with it. And in time, I’ll have to do something about it. In spite of what my father will say or do to me, in spite of the poisonous rottenness outside the wall where I might be exiled, I’ll have to do something about it.
To retain their sanity, autistic people consistently work against in-group competition, and they often suffer the consequences for doing so (Dexter 2020b].
Autistic people within human societies counteract what Steve Silberman has fittingly described as the “truth dysfunction” in non-autistic people.
But that’s okay, our intensity can be a positive thing too: Neurodivergents can be more creative and more passionate. That creativity and passion can drive us to take action where others may not, and our cognitive rigidity can give us a strong sense of morals. These features combined make us more susceptible to a variety of sensitivities, including justice sensitivityTaken together, extensive research has revealed that justice sensitivity is a valuable construct for the description, prediction, explanation, and modification of individual differences in justice-related emotion and behavior. Justice sensitivity… More.
For example, in 2015, researchers found that participants with ADHDADHD or what I prefer to call Kinetic Cognitive Style (KCS) is another good example. (Nick Walker coined this alternative term.) The name ADHD implies that Kinetics like me have… More reported significantly higher justice sensitivity and greater perceptions of injustice than those without ADHD.
That same year, Schäfer & Kraneburg did an interesting study in search of a deeper understanding of why neurodivergents are prone to Justice Sensitivity, which is what I will discuss here.
According to Baumert & Schmitt, “justice-sensitive people’s information processing should be guided in a way that raises their probability of experiencing injustice compared with less justice-sensitive people,” and their “emotional reactions to injustice should be stronger the more justice is endorsed as a fundamental value.”
In other words, people who experience high justice sensitivity have a stronger tendency to notice and identify wrongdoing and have more intense cognitive, emotional, and behavioural reactions to perceived injustice.
Additionally, “justice-sensitive people should ruminate longer and more intensively about experienced injustice than less justice-sensitive people” and should have an “inclination to restore justice and undo injustice”.
Those of us with justice sensitivity have a harder time letting these things go and have a strong desire to make right that which we feel is unfair or morally wrong.
Neurodivergents are more likely to experience justice sensitivity, in particular children, but adults as well.
“Kids with ADHD tend to have a strong sense of justice, sensitivity, and of course, energy. When they feel wronged, disempowered, or unheard, they can become quite mad.”
Results: Participants with ADHD produced higher valuesRemind yourself that shared values, rather than shared beliefs, are what matter when it comes to interacting with others, and that there is no replacement for doing the hard work… More in observer and profiteer sensitivity than the control group. There were no differences in perpetrator sensitivity. Questionnaire results reveal that the inattentive subtype exhibited higher justice sensitivity than the hyperactive/impulsive and combined subtypes and the control group on all dimensions. Conclusion:The results confirm that justice sensitivity is indeed more pronounced in people with ADHD, particularly in the inattentive subtype. It is suggested that pronounced justice sensitivity may be a coping strategy for inferring appropriate social behavior.
I know I've ruined a night or two
I couldn't hold back my views
Family dinner turned off the news
Stuck in a silent room
And I'd rather die by the truth
And hide away feeling shades of blue
I've ruined a night or two
'Cause it's hard being hardcore
I'll cut the lights and cry in the dark more
If you don't feel, then what the hell is a heart for?
'Cause it's hard being hardcore
Everybody's got the same blank face
Tough roughing up the place
When you're not putting up a front
Now you're the crazy one
Leather jackets line up at the bar
Good at hiding who they are
Everybody's got the same blank face
So I'd rather die by the truth
And hide away feeling shades of blue
You want tears, I've shed a few
'Cause it's hard being hardcore
I'll cut the lights and cry in the dark more
If you don't feel, then what the hell is a heart for?
'Cause it's hard being hardcore
--Hardcore by Allison Ponthier
Related readingThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and… More,