So if you think about it, is my Land Rover. It is a Land Rover no more and no less.

You will curse it if you are stuck behind it on a single track road cos it can only go so fast, but then again offroad it can go places that no other car can.

We each go our own way in our own way at our own speed

I do sometimes speak of the kind of strengths that you report, mostly in a context of illustrating differences, and do so without fear of being thought either gravely mistaken or elitist, since such discussions have nothing to do with the mechanisms described and criticised in Lisa’s article.

Elitism is one particular problem. And I talk about particular problems in particular snippets because that’s how I can talk. If I happen to talk about the misuse of autistic strengths at one point, that does not mean I am against autistic strengths or mocking autistic strengths or anything else. Any more than when I talk about the routine underestimation of autistic people, I am somehow saying that autistic people have no difficulties in the world.

This is how I talk. I can’t (with a few rare exceptions) talk about all these things at once. If I happen to talk about the problems of elitism on one day, that does not mean that I think that autistic strengths do not exist or should be made objects of mockery. If I happen to talk about the problems of underestimating autistic people on another day, that does not mean that I think that autistic people do not experience difficulty or that autistic people should be pushed to do things we cannot do. I have been accused of both of those thanks to people who assume both when I try to talk about either.

And I really apologize for dealing with this on other people’s blogs (I’m not sure whether I’m being asked to apologize, but I screwed up, so I am apologizing). There is a comment board set up by my boss Ralph which has the specific purpose of discussing stuff like this (which is of really limited interest to most people), and I should have kept (and will keep) my views confined to that space.

My view is that replacing one kind of inaccuracy with another kind is not helpful, however creatively and compellingly it’s done.

There is an important problem in the science, re autistic strengths.

I would not feel able to discuss it in the current atmosphere, in which “strengths” has become a bad word (accompanied by automatic gales of mockery). In contrast, I can discuss this in a few corners of the research community, because, contrary to popular presentation, there are at least some researchers concerned primarily with accuracy.

Michelle: If you have not encountered autistic elitists before (and I never said or implied that you were one, or that talking about autistic strengths made anyone one, or I would be one too, and I don’t consider myself one), then consider yourself lucky. I have.

I have encountered people who insist things like:

1. That we are the next step in human evolution (yes I know that with the way evolution works that is a faulty concept in itself), and that NTs will and should simply become obsolete.

2. That all NTs should be destroyed because autistics have these superpowers of being able to control our emotions at all times and assorted other things like that (things that are not even universal to autistics), and that we are just overall better than they are.

3. That “AS/HFA people” are, let’s see, great at language, unemotional, great computer programmers, and other skills like that, and that they, at least, are assets to society, unlike people they consider “LFAs” and many other autistic people (who are not assets to society according to them).

And so forth.

If you haven’t said things like this, which as far as I know you haven’t, then maybe you ought to be aware that you are not the kind of person, at least, that I am discussing. And I am not sure how to make it clearer than that.

Hi Michelle,

I didn’t think I would have had to put the word Boring in quotation marks throughout the essay to indicate irony, meaning *I* don’t think any autistics are boring but *others* probably do (or worse, hence the term “retard” in the story) if they can’t identify anything *of conventional value* in the autistic person they have met or seen up on the screen.

You wrote:

If autistics had no strengths relative to typical people (versus relative to our weaknesses), then there would be no significant results to report, versus the large quantity (with replications) that now exists (across decades and continents).

Another consistent and salient point throught this essay was the idea of marketing and making something that will be popularly viewed, *and* who is doing the marketing, and through what preconceived notions about what they are documenting. Even if all autistics have strengths relative to NTs, that doesn’t mean NTs will find certain of those strengths *interesting*…which was my point. The “conventionally interesting” things are hand-picked and fed back to us, and the “noninteresting” (“boring,” or things that appear to be unenviable by the NT viewer) are not. My son David can do many things that NTs can’t, such as tell me the exact order of the play list on the back of his CD box, regardless of length, but while that is indeed a skill, if it were put into documentary form by today’s standards, that would be seen as something kind of weird and tragic, whereas if he were composing symphonies, it would be celebrated as genius.

I don’t find this boring at all,

Neither do I. That wasn’t the point. I would not find a reality TV show called Autism House boring…*at all.* Do you think it would get good ratings?

or deserving of mockery or ridicule, or something to hide when we go out in public, or to deny because it doesn’t fit in with various beliefs about what autism is allowed to be in this society.

Again, the point was *all* people should be allowed (for lack of a better word) to be as conventionally “boring” or as interesting *to others* as they are or care to be, but there is a double-standard when it comes to autistic people, which I have amply pointed out already.

This is not about winning or losing this argument. I stand by my essay. If you want to have the last word on it, that’s okay. I never asked you to go away. I said I welcomed a dialogue with you.

I used the word “controversy” on Ballastexistenz because initially I thought you were saying that the entire piece was condescending, etc., but you were not saying that.

I still believe, without denying your valid arguments, that you are missing the overall point of the essay.

I don’t really feel okay or welcome posting anywhere but on my own comment boards, so it’s easy to make me go away.

I’m willing to change my position if someone provides me with evidence that it’s inaccurate or unethical.

Criticism isn’t “controversy”. Without excellent criticism, my own work would be worthless. I get terrified (in fact, am currently terrified) when I have work out there which I believe has not adequately been criticized.

I have persistently annoyed my colleagues when they have failed to sufficiently provide criticism of my work. And I have in some cases gone far and wide to find the toughest criticism available.

But I accept there’s nothing I can do about someone who says “I’m right because I feel really strongly about this, and if you don’t agree with me, you are just generating controversy” or words to that effect. “

I just had to post my first rebuttal right on the heels of yours, but I’m willing to defend my position for as long as it takes before I become too overloaded to continue. I would not have bothered to write this piece if I did not feel passionate about the topic.