this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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Why is some who's "demanding respect they don't deserve" an asshole as opposed to just someone who's suffering from mental problems that make them act that way?
Free will and responsibility.
So the mentally ill have no agency? A person with autism is no better than an animal, unable to rise above their condition in any way?
It seems to me that proclivity is an explanation, not an excuse. The same way that upbringing or bad influences are an explanation, not an excuse.
A person with autism is not mentally ill, first of all. We have a few functions reduced or working differently, but in general autistic people are, ahem, kinda stable. You can live as an autistic person without treatment for all your life and be kinda adequate. Though one could also say that about narcissists.
People do have agency, but if a person is disabled in some way, their agency is reduced in those specific ways. A person with schizophrenia paranoid type has reduced agency when they are falsely accusing someone of taking their stuff or trying to poison them, for example.
Similar to how it doesn't make sense to hate a blind person for not seeing something or a person without a hand for not helping someone out of a pit, I dunno.
Getting back to autism, yes, I don't think it makes sense to expect social respect or conformism from autistic people and get angry for not getting them, or try to put autistic people in a hierarchy. Autistic people simply exist outside those. Seeing that something exists and being able to imitate it consciously is not the same as being capable. Autistic people should not be expected to obey common hierarchy or group dynamics, because it requires too much effort with nothing good for it.
And getting back to narcissism and schizophrenia, read the article again if you need - the description of her behavior seems very similar to those.
Okay, first, autism is in the DSM. It's just as much a mental illness as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or any other thing in the DSM.
And to be clear, as with literally any other mental illness in the DSM, you can be affected by it to different degrees. The autism banner isn't just the people who struggle with social cues. It covers everything from that to people who are non-verbal and can't leave their house by themselves.
All that said, it feels to me like you're drawing the lines in the sand where they make you feel good, not where they make objective sense.
It feels like you're saying that we shouldn't hold autistic people accountable for being a particular type of asshole because they "just can't understand." That's dehumanizing my guy. I know a lot of autistic people. The vast majority of them have learned good social etiquette. Is it harder for them? Sure. Are they always perfect? No. But they recognize that to be a good member of society they'll have to work harder in some areas to overcome certain things.
It's not about hating a blind person because they can't see. It's about hating a blind person for repeatedly and unapologetically kicking you in the shins. The solution to reduced capacity isn't to ignore and excuse it. It's to be understanding and patient as they do the work to overcome it.
There are plenty of people with narcissism or schizophrenia who are excellent, fully functioning members of society who are just as good of people as you or I. Who love their friends and neighbors and don't lean on their condition as an excuse for their behavior. Is it a god-aweful amount of work and introspection to do so? Absolutely. Is it easy? Absolutely not. But they have agency the same as you or me. The same as someone with autism. But some people choose to overcome. Some choose to embrace the treatments and therapies needed to allow them to be a good neighbor and friend and citizen. And they have the agency to do so.
Because certain kind of assholes have conditioned them to do that.
No, I don't think your analogy is applicable to the post this started with, and I think mine is.
I'm well aware of that.
I don't think you are going to come up with anything to change my mind on the person in the post, and the commenters' reactions. So let's not continue this.