Another important quote:

[xiphias]

From beccastareyes: "The autism spectrum and the jackass spectrum are disjoint."

I know some jackasses. I know some people on the autism spectrum. The overlap between the two sets is only as much as would be expected by chance. Having Asperger's, or any other autism-spectrum trait, is neither an excuse for being a jackass, nor a reason to be one. Autism doesn't make you a jackass, and my friends who are autism-spectrum aren't jackasses, nor does their autism push them toward jackassery.

If you act like a jackass and then say "it's not my fault; I have Asperger's", you're just plain wrong. Having Asperger's doesn't make you a jackass any more than being left-handed does.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

My impression was that people with autism don't get any fun out of malice, though it's still possible to be a jackass by having a policy of letting one's desires override other people's too much.

Is my impression at all correct?

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I know a number of people who when presented with evidence of their own assholery will give the "I have Asperger's" excuse. I don't think any of them have been diagnosed with Asperger's, and, well, I have my doubts. (In fact, one of them will deny having Asperger's under other circumstances.) I tend to think there's a distinction between being an introvert and having not developed particularly good social skills and being on the autism spectrum, but I also don't think I'm in a position to identify which is in play.

Hm. I know folks on the spectrum who have committed assholery. But it's mostly an isolated instance sort of thing. In one case, the... I'm not even sure it's assholery, exactly, but there was some repeat creeping (particularly, hitting on women who had just been assaulted and were obvious upset) that bothered me enough to change how I dealt with the person* but the circumstances are complicated enough, and the individual socially idiosyncratic enough that I don't feel I can really pass judgement.

* I wasn't upset when he hit on me a few hours after I'd been raped - even under the circumstances it struck me as darkly funny, if not welcome - but when I found out that he did this to other people it seemed much most disturbing in retrospect.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, being a jackass does tend to correlate with seeking obnoxious excuses for one's jackassery. ;)

(Says someone who is autistic, and has thus far noted that allistic people seem far more prone to self-centeredness/lack of empathy and jackassery than my compatriots...)

[ron_newman]

nitpick: that isn't really what "disjoint" means

[paper-crystals.livejournal.com]

I find most people when they get to a certain degree of asshole require special social skills in order to rise to that level of asshole. You need to be able to read subtle facial expressions very quickly and calculate from them very quickly as well as be a good liar. Typically people with Asperger's syndrome are far too worried about getting through everyday interactions without building up new and special skills for assholery.

At least, this has been my experience. I am not saying that people who have Aspergers as immune from being assholes but they do often lack some of the basic social skills sometimes to be one as part of the condition. Mostly I find people with Aspergers want to talk my ear off about a particular topic for hours on end which is usually find with me because they are usually quite knowledgable about said topic.

Also, another big difference between people who have been assholes to me and people who I know with Aspergers is that people with Aspergers tend to have very little to no interest in physical contact and assholes tend to spend a lot of time figuring out how to get into my personal space.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

I have definitely met people who have acted like a jackass when it has been in some way related to their Asperger's condition. I don't think either of them would want to say "it's not my fault; I have Asperger's", but it's just so blatantly connected that they don't HAVE to say that.

One friend of mine said to a transgendered friend of mine "I have views about people like you". I don't know why he said it. We were in a group of people who all liked to do that social activity of saying little comic zingers at one another. I can't do that so I try to stay out of it, but my friend clearly didn't want to be left out, so he was getting it wrong - and generally annoying everyone as a result. But that comment towards my transgendered friend in particular really did NOT go down well at all.

Now the next time I saw him, he seemed very very sorry for what he had said. He clearly recognised there was no excuse for that kind of comment and wholly regretted it. I absolutely think it was issues with handling social interactions, particularly in big groups, which led him to saying something he hadn't fully thought out without considering the rammifications for other people's feelings properly. Naturally Asperger's is always going to make that sort of thing more difficult.

That being said, he knew he was to blame for what he said. There was no suggestion that saying "oh I have Asperger's" would be to excuse anything.

As a teacher, I'm aware of a similar thing with dyslexia. (Bear with me, the parallel will make sense eventually.) To a certain extent you have to make allowances for dyslexia, but it only goes so far as an excuse. Dyslexia doesn't mean that you cannot write English properly. It simply means that it will be more difficult for you. There are people who are no damn good at English who don't have dyslexia at all. As a teacher I shouldn't accept dyslexia as an excuse for bad spelling and grammar. People with dyslexia still need to learn to get better, just as much as anyone else. (Moreso in fact. They need more support in getting better.) But nevertheless dyslexia may involve a slightly different approach to the issue.

Um, do I need to explain the parallels now? To sum up, Asperger's makes it harder to deal with social situations, but not impossible. It's not a complete excuse for acting like a jackass and people with Asperger's need to learn from social mistakes moreso than anyone because it's always going to be harder for them. Still, someone with Asperger's does need a different approach. That doesn't mean you are excusing their behaviour, but just recognising that their cases may often involve a genuine mistake rather than spitefulness, arrogance or things like that.

I've spent a while talking here, so I'll finish by noting that I am not an expert and I'm happy to be corrected on any of this. This wasn't supposed to be a sermon. Just my own subjective observations.