H
HotXBuns
Guest
It is sad to see you write "Autism carries a HUGE stigma", and to understand that consequently you have to hide your Aspergers from people because of this. Whatever happened to 'Vive la différence!'
It is a very backward approach to try to mold everyone in to the same shape; indeed, it is through deviations and deformities in our DNA that we have evolved as human beings (apologies to any creationists reading this), so the logical approach should be to use these differences to our advantage. Within the financial institutions in the city, there are a high propensity of people with Aspergers working as quantitative analysts making an absolute fortune developing hugely complex spreadsheet trading models. Now I only know one person with Aspergers IRL so I know it comes in many forms and I cannot generalise, but the above is surely a more enlightened model of a cohesive society than trying to turn out clones.
We have laws that provide protection against discrimination based on race or gender and are thankfully starting to see improvements in other areas such as LGBTQ rights. So why then is it considered ok to discriminate based on other areas we have no control over such as autism, or for that matter any form of mental or physical difference.
Getting back to communication, the reality is that a large percentage of our communication is non-verbal, so we cannot get away from interpretation, or as Bramblethorn put it "reading between the lines". But, this is where the context comes in. Of course, when dealing with people in a professional capacity we have to be extremely careful about the way we communicate, what words we use and the non-verbal pointers that are available. Being able to pick up on these will give an advantage in interaction, and as long as it is used honorably is a good thing. However, in a relationship scenario, we need to be able to drop our guard and not have to worry about every possible nuance. We should be able to apply previous knowledge of our partners so we do not end up being "chastised for things we don't believe and didn't say". This is where the trust comes in - if we can't trust our partners to "judge by intention" then we are on shaky ground.
We will never 'Fix' communication, it is a minefield, but within a trusted relationship it should be less of an issue. This was my initial take on differentiating between 'honesty' and 'transparency' within a relationship scenario.
It is a very backward approach to try to mold everyone in to the same shape; indeed, it is through deviations and deformities in our DNA that we have evolved as human beings (apologies to any creationists reading this), so the logical approach should be to use these differences to our advantage. Within the financial institutions in the city, there are a high propensity of people with Aspergers working as quantitative analysts making an absolute fortune developing hugely complex spreadsheet trading models. Now I only know one person with Aspergers IRL so I know it comes in many forms and I cannot generalise, but the above is surely a more enlightened model of a cohesive society than trying to turn out clones.
We have laws that provide protection against discrimination based on race or gender and are thankfully starting to see improvements in other areas such as LGBTQ rights. So why then is it considered ok to discriminate based on other areas we have no control over such as autism, or for that matter any form of mental or physical difference.
Getting back to communication, the reality is that a large percentage of our communication is non-verbal, so we cannot get away from interpretation, or as Bramblethorn put it "reading between the lines". But, this is where the context comes in. Of course, when dealing with people in a professional capacity we have to be extremely careful about the way we communicate, what words we use and the non-verbal pointers that are available. Being able to pick up on these will give an advantage in interaction, and as long as it is used honorably is a good thing. However, in a relationship scenario, we need to be able to drop our guard and not have to worry about every possible nuance. We should be able to apply previous knowledge of our partners so we do not end up being "chastised for things we don't believe and didn't say". This is where the trust comes in - if we can't trust our partners to "judge by intention" then we are on shaky ground.
We will never 'Fix' communication, it is a minefield, but within a trusted relationship it should be less of an issue. This was my initial take on differentiating between 'honesty' and 'transparency' within a relationship scenario.