So, following up on my post, and discussing more about how my autistic traits influence my political views. And now I'm going to focus on why I dislike the social justice movement as an autistic person.
I'm going to be honest, my views do not speak for all autistic people here, but I find in my own experience, discussing these issues with other aspies I know, that there some seem to be some validity to them. The autistic community seems very divided on the social justice movement, and I guess it depends on your other characteristics. If you're like me, a cis straight white male, you may not go for these politics very much. If you have certain identity quirks like transgenderism, which seems overrepresented within the autistic community, well, you might think differently. I guess it depends on whether these politics are "for you."
As a straight white male autistic person, I don't believe these politics are "for me." If anything, they're very anti me. First of all, social justice movements come off as ableist as heck. Many of us aspies lack social skills. And social justice movements require a very adept, constantly evolving set in order to navigate the movement's politics. I need things set in stone. I need very clear instructions, that make sense, for how to behave. But that's the problem with social justice movements, everything becomes a minefield. Everything offends someone, and as such, words, terminologies, and behaviors that used to be acceptable can become unacceptable overnight. Mild faux pases can be treated as great social offenses worth castrating someone over. I can be fine, have a conversation with someone, but because I said the wrong thing, I end up offending them. This happens to autistic people all the time. But then add in the outrage culture SJWs have, and yeah, everything becomes a potential point of offense.
Dating mechanics are almost completely un-navigable, because autistic behavior is often defined as "creepy" for not conforming to typical social norms. Because we don't know how to behave, we seem to be put in darned if we do, darned if we don't scenarios in which everything we do is wrong. Oh, we don't make the right amount of eye contact? We must be creepy or alternatively uninterested. We're not supposed to approach people in certain situations? So when is a good time? I didn't get any feedback at all, why is it bad if I ask for some? Feminism often confuses a lot of these things. I get it. I'm not some guy who longs for the 1950s in which a guy asks a girl out, the girl can't say no, and that's all there is to it. But at the same time, a lot of the changes feminists want to help women be more comfortable, make crap exponentially harder for us. I'm not saying we should give up all progress, rather we should look at what makes sense and isn't horrifically one sided. That's kind of the problem with feminism, and why men's rights movements exist in opposition to them. When you have groups who only care about women, and are outright hostile to men and their concerns and needs because "privilege", why should men care? Now, to be fair, MRAs have their own problems. They often end up going full neckbeard, and incels (overrepresented among aspies due to our romantic failures) end up being the opposite extreme and literal woman haters. I'm not advocating for hating women. I'd actually rather treat people like people and cut the crap of all this identity stuff as much as possible. And that involves having social conventions that are fair to all parties and make sense. Nothing sucks worse than trying to force aspies to serve a structure of social conventions that makes no sense and is hostile to our existence, speaking of which.
To go on more about feminism, I feel like a lot of feminists are outright hostile toward male aspies. I mean, we're the stereotypical "creep" or "incel" in a lot of cases. And they often don't care about us. If anything some of these guys are just like "screw men, they're privileged, they'll adapt." Well, you know, we're autistic in this case, remember? We have limited adaptability. Thanks for making our lives harder.
Another thing that really doesn't rub a lot of us the right way are social conventions related to virtue signalling. Virtue signalling is a social activity, or a circlejerk. It's a bunch of people going on about how virtuous they are for showing how much they care about certain issues. It's something that NTs seem to do, to gain the approval of others. "Look at me, I support BLM, im part of the club, ain't I cool?" Well, this once again puts us at a disadvantage. Aspies often have limited social energy. We can only put so much on our plate and care about so many things. Like me, with politics, as you guys notice I tend to be obsessed over the whole basic income thing. That's my thing. Basic income and medicare for all are my top priorities. They're the top 2 priorities I litmus test candidates over. But, the democrats do social justice stuff. And a lot of social justice people hate "bystanders". They like to force people to participate in their circlejerk or social activity, and say stuff like "it isn't enough to not be racist, you have to be actively anti racist." They have to show how much they care about these other issues. They have to constantly apologize for being white males, if they're white males. It's not enough to be a passive supporter, like I've tried to be over the years, if you're not an active social activist, you're crapped on by these people. And god forbid if you actually want to vote for a candidate that serves your interests and top priorities, if you're not entirely selfless in giving up your priorities for the social justice stuff, you're a bad person.
Honestly, this is actually why I end up being so ANTI social justice politics these days. It ain't even about the issues. Even above, pointing out the difficulties I have with a lot of this stuff as an aspie, I do see some academic value to it. Women do face a lot of crap from men who won't say no or are flat out dangerous. Some language might be patently offensive these days while it might have been acceptable say, 15-20 years ago. But, these dynamics often do make life harder for, in particular, white male aspies who other than their autism, are considered "privileged."
And honestly? I would go so far to call social justice movements extremely ableist. These movements preach intersectionality, and even are doing the autism awareness stuff as of late, but all things considered, how aware are they of aspies really? Not very, on the whole. Even other aspies who are into that stuff (since other aspies who are say, female, or of alternate sexualities can be attracted to this stuff) can be very not understanding of our social difficulties. They will get extremely hostile over people saying the wrong thing, even if not intentional, not acting the right way, not virtue signalling, or, like I'm doing now, calling these people out.
And this is why I've had my patience wear thin with these people. On a pure intellectual level, they often make valid points, but the movement as it exists is a toxic mess that is very anti...me. They do all the virtue signally stuff about autism awareness, but push comes to shove they're very hostile toward a lot of autistic people, and very not understanding of our actual issues. I'd go so far to call them ableist.
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