Aspies For Freedom

B"H

Hello.  Thank you for reading my thread.  I appreciate all of you who take time out of your busy schedules to consider what I have to say.  Today I wish to discuss the issue of oppositional identities, particularly among involuntary minorities.  In particular, I want to discuss my opinion as to how the term "oppositional identity" helps to define some of us on the Spectrum, myself included.

Let me begin with a brief discussion of "hating Autism, loving Autistics."  This mantra has been promoted by an individual with curious political connections.  While some have believed that Mr. Best is a rightist, I have strong reason to believe that he might be an unreconstructed Old Leftist.  Many of his tactics resembles those of the Communists, in particular his lambasting of all opponents as being reactionary tools of Pharmaceutical corporations.  The Communists will often lambaste their opponents in this way, while being curiously silent about the role of Big Business in the build up of Soviet Russia and Red China!  The Communists also hate anything that would suggest independent thinking of any kind.  (1)

Hating Autism while loving Autistics is impossible.  It is not that I "love" Asperger.  I would rather not be bound by any neurological prison, be it Autism, Asperger or Neuro-typicalism.  However, I accept that I am in a physical body at this time.  And, as such, I must accept the physical/mental state that I am in.  Hating my physical or mental condition simply recycles more hate in to my life.  It makes love impossible.  

Hating Autism, however understandable it might seem to some parents and Autistics, is really a dead end.  I understand that some of you hate your own lives.  I would encourage you to think about the fact that he or she who overcomes their own hatred is the one who has mastered life, including "understandable" hatreds.  

Those of you who are parents must also understand something else.  You must understand that some of the problems you experience with your child come from "oppositional identities."  An oppositional identity might arise whenever someone is in a situation in which there is an involuntary condition of subjugation, servitude, or an attempt to alter someone's core identity.  It is the last one that has interested social scientists when studying poorer minorities in America.  Most nations have minorities within themselves.  Most nations have attempted to forcibly assimilate their internal minorities at some point in their histories.  And, most nations have failed to assimilate their cultural minorities because those minorities develop what are called "oppositional identities," or strong points of resistance to the general culture that they have incorporated in to the very constitutions of their social being.

A minority with an oppositional identity will refuse to assimilate as a point of honor.  Voluntary minorities, primarily immigrants, will assimilate with alacrity.  They will do well in school.  They will behave according to the rules of society.  They will "succeed."  Involuntary minorities will often be resistant to "success" because it means assimilation.  "Success" means adopting the norms of the dominant society.  As such, the retention of their identity becomes "oppositional."  This distinction between voluntary and involuntary minorities transcends race and culture.  Each country defines these roles differently.  The distinction is cultural, not racial.  The same group that is an involuntary minority in one nationals setting becomes a successful "model minority" in another setting.  

I believe that some people on the Spectrum may be the functional equivalents of involuntary minorities, at least in our perceptions of ourselves.  I do not claim to speak for all who are on the Spectrum.  I only speak for myself.  However, the sense that I get is that this perception is shared with many others.  It might go a long way to explaining why some of us, myself included, feel as though we have been working at below our educational levels.  There is another person on this forum who consistently writes about how he feels that he has not succeeded in life.  This person discusses IQ levels a great deal.  I have had a great deal of difficulty in figuring out why he was doing this---until I considered my own position in life, and found that I too have felt as though I was trapped in a certain "Reservation" status.

The feeling that one is living one's life on a Reservation is a feeling that involuntary minorities will often experience.  It helps to form a sense of oppositional identity.  Many of you who are parents have heard the term "oppositional behavior."  The educational and behavioral experts love that term.  However, the term "oppositional identity" is harder to understand.  Why is it that I love mathematics, but seem to be so ignorant about computers?  I have always had some kind of resistance to computers, for  reasons having to do with an alienated sense of myself in relation to the general society.  I now believe that I developed an oppositional stance toward computers for deeply seated reasons, among them an association of computers with certain things that were, in my opinion then (not so much my opinion now), at odds with my innermost structural being.

As a child, there were certain things I just would not do.  I would study hard as a young child, but I wore mis-matched socks in the Sixth Grade.  To be honest, I reveled in the fact that I could wear mis-matched socks.  The fact that other children wore matched socks while I wore mis-matched socks gave me license to be who I was.  It became part of my internal constitution.  So did my seeming inability to accomplish certain tasks become part of a structured identity.  Mind you, an inability became a part of a self-constructed identity!  I developed a philosophy of who I was that required being incapable of doing certain things as well as other children, an enigma that is only illogical for those who are not part of an involuntary minority.

So much of the behavioral analysis of the experts our schools is superficial.  They look at behaviors.  However, they do not treat the children they are analyzing with the respect afforded the whole person.  Complex psychological issues are trivialized by the "experts."  Declarative statements of philosophy are reduced to simplistic and moralistic stances. This does a disservice to "oppositional" children.  It is not enough to understand that a child refuses to work, or refuses to study a certain subject.  If you want your child to succeed, you must understand how it is that a child can adopt patterns of belief or behavior that are deliberately at odds with a society that the child believes has repressed his or her being.  This is especially important when understanding non-verbal Autistics, or even verbal Autistics.

Do not assume that your children are not deep thinkers or deep philosophers.  Do not assume that they have not thought the issue over.  Many of them have come to conclusions that you do not like.  However, they have still thought the issue over.  And, they may have valid reasons that you have not considered.  I am not saying that I agree with them.  For instance, I understand the felt need for some children to abscond from environments of constant "socialization," socialization of the type that attempts to conform people to standardized modes of behavior.  You would abscond from such a forced pressure cooker too!  However, I certainly do not agree with eloping.  Rather, I believe in understanding the urge to abscond, and in remodeling these programs to better suit the children being served.  

The issue of "oppositional identity" means that there are going to be some behaviors that are the conscious adoptions of a counter-culture.  You will have to understand them as such.  Recently, I have freely "stimmed" in public.  I do so, in part, because I no longer wish to repress myself.  However, I also do so, in part, because it is a way of marking who I am.  My "stimming" is not oppositional, not in the way that I experience it.  However, you might consider the possibility that some people do "stim" in order to mark their psychic territory.  

I believe that oppositional identities are the beginning of a dialogue.  They are not attempts to close a conversation.  Rather, they are attempts to build a bridge---one initiated from your child to you!  In essence, an oppositional behavior is a philosophical statement, an invitation for you to respond.  I believe that your child is capable of philosophical dialogue.  How to respond to that invitation to dialogue will be your call, as I do not know your child.  However, I do know one thing; if your child did not want the dialogue, they would not be doing everything to promote it.

I would suggest that you begin by assessing what you believe.  How much of what you believe could be described as "fundamental," and how much of it is a superficial ingraining of some form of oppression in to your own thought processes?  If the latter, do you really want a dead thought process weighing you down?  Do you want it weighing your child down?  How successful is this philosophy if it is only going to create an oppositional identity, even if the belief system in question was how you were raised?  

These are questions for you to consider.  I cannot answer them for you, because I am not entitled to tell you how to raise your own children.  What I can say is that you do not want your children to feel as though they are imprisoned on a Reservation, captives in the very land that they once hunted and roamed upon freely.  And, as a parent in this day and age, you cannot afford that.

I hope that I have inspired thought.  We may disagree, but as always, caveat lector.  

All the best.


(1) An authoritarian position at odds with the more libertarian-leaning "New Left."

Interesting idea - at least, the oppositional identity part was.

Back in High School, I used to wear mismatched shoes (one black, one white) as something of a point of pride - it's possible that this came from some similar sort of other-identification process. I compromised back down to mismatched socks when I started looking for work, and I still wear one black and one white sock everywhere I go.

Some people do seem to have the opposite reaction, though (i.e. going to extra effort to fit in, rather than self-identify as being "other") - my guess is that autistic people tend to one extreme or the other with regards to this.

Word.  I was the other extreme - would have done anything to fit in, and never did... it didn't actually OCCUR to me not to - and my first real introduction to the Aspie community was Wrong Planet, where there was a lot of voiciferous oppositional self-identifying (can I just call it odd-sock-wearing?  It's easier to spell) going on.  So I felt deeply out of it over there.

Mum seems to think I was always a bit oppositional in some ways. Generally, I would follow the rules but if I thought they were stupid and nonsensical I wouldn't. This tendency has probably intensified since I found out I have Asperger's and might well have led to my demise on Wrongplanet because the moderating style has become ever more rules driven and you can be banned for relatively minor "offences" now.

Oppositional identity formation is a normal, healthy stage of minority identity formation. It isn't the be-all and end-all of a minority person's sense of self, but there is often a rather extreme stage that should be understood and accepted. There will also, of course, be points of opposition throughout life that a minority person must maintain in order to have integrity as a person.

ATM,
Good Evening and thank you for your post.  I am so happy that you still share on the forum.

I will print this out and put it in my file.  I can only hope my sons' school will not again try to label him as non-compliant. (next step oppositional) I think you know I respect the rights of children, regardless of any classification, and my three, have our (parental) support in seeking to be who they are meant to be- (at their "core"). Their higher purpose is surely found within and not without.

(P.S.  Marriage and that kind of committment is important, but I don't think that weddings are.  My husband and I did not elope, but I had my betrothed ask my parents if we could get married not in their presence - like eloping - but we sent out announcements so everyone in the family could think of us and pray for us at the allotted time. I could never abide by a "wedding".  I am glad my husband could see it my way, and my parents, knowing me, were not surprised. Don't worry, there was clergy involved.)

ATM: Oh, by "elope" I simply meant to abscond from the classroom, not a secret marriage ala Romeo and Juliet!  I think that some parents would love to see their children on the Spectrum develop that level of social skill!    

All the best.

I wore mismatched shoes for a few hours on the way to a store to buy new shoes (1995 age 25).  It got a negative reaction from an ex roommate.

Even when it reaches the point of codifying violence, misogyny, and criminality?  Adaptive (mis)behaviors often become pathological when taken to an extreme.

I meant extreme in the sense of its being inordinately important to their sense of self, not extreme in the sense of miscreant behavior. Oppositional identity need not involve overtly anti-social behavior at all.