Aspies For Freedom

You would have to ask someone stupid enough to considered pedophilia a culture.

DogBrain,
If you truely want to know, perhaps you should take a sociology class.  I'm sure you're aware of the inflamatory nature of your comments; the statements you make are too extreme to be merely "aspie gaffs".
The sociology class I took was very poorly done so I cannot fully answer your question, but I do know that in order for groups to be subcultures:
a) there must be a significant population involved;
b) they must be distinct from the general culture in some specific ways, eg, mores, folkways, values, certain shared traits.

3. Culture has to be learned, not innate (so it can't be instinctual).
4. They have to see themselves as a group.

Andrew is right.  Wasn't martin luther king, jr.'s dream a fantasy?  And yet it led to activism that led to a reality.

We could develop an Aspie culture over time.

And maybe one or more of us eventually could write a book about it.

isnt there a "deaf culture" thats actually reconised? well when i read the wiki article on aspie  culture it makes alot of references to this, so if they have a culture why cant we?!

Hey guys I am only recently back and have struggled through this thread. What is the deal here. Maximilian wants a hand with something. Suddenly the thread turns into a battleground about pedophiles. WTF?

Dogbrain this was you again wasn't it? Why do you use this forum to launch into pointless arguements over *** that really doesn't matter? Mate I don't care if I am right or wrong about a point but I won't put up with being attacked over something innocent or non-consquential. You seem to thrive on that *** though - why? Do you really have trouble contributing positively? Do you feel that it is in the best interest of the person you attack? Are you just trying to demonstrate some "higher intellect"? Do you think threads ought to go off on pedantic arguements and that the posting of a thread is just passing time?

I encourage you to do a bit of a re-think about why you are here. I am not saying you neccesarily should go, but maybe "playing nice" may actually make your and everyone else's experience of being on threads with you a little more enjoyable.

Maximilian, I'd be happy to help but unfortunately don't live in the UK.

While I don't believe in an autistic culture as the ultimate answer, it would be nice to now that there's a group you could fall back on in stead of facing merely b yourself when you're going through a rough period.

An autistic culture would gain us more recognition. That may not have an instant positive effect, but at least it'd make it easier to make ourselves heard, instead of having institutions like CAN 'be our voice'.

But before we can begin to denominate ourselves as a coherent group, we have to grow into it. Ie, learning how to interact with eachother in such a way that helps us to achieve our goals. Before we're going to educate the world on AS, we're going to have know ourselves first.

(the words in bold were omitted in my original post)

I hear you Max, and I am positive for the future. With the growth in knowledge of autism as well as the continuously advancing ways of communication, it might even take as less as 2 or 3 generations before this process can commence.

Makes you wonder though, if our generation (or the generations before us) could find ourselves in such a situation. It would certainly alleviate my time in high school, that's for sure.

An even more positive thing about such a mini-society is that we could set an example to the rest of the world of how people of several colours, sexualities, genders, religions and whatnot could work together to achieve the same goal. In our own way of course.

Maybe that's too much positivism hidden there in that last paragraph, but if we want to distinguish ourselves from the mainstream social codes, the last thing we want to do is bring in some negative aspects, which will lead to segregation in one way or another.

You have a point there Dogbrain, hence my last paragraph. We have to learn from the past and try to avoid making the same mistakes or going through the same kind of difficulties like other (failed) activist groups.

I do remain optimistic though, hoping that most people will learn that the main goal is that we're to be accepted for who we are instead of being mocked, condemned, etc for it. That's really all there is to it - and no such things as Aspie Superiority or a Secular Aspie Society. Or, in contrast, Aspie Victimisation.

The key word is to find a balance between Aspies and others with the intention that both parties profit from it. If we can't manage to find this within our own group, this will not happen. But I don't think that achieving this will require a lot of input from us; bad experiences in life are already (indirectly, but still) leading us towards time & space where we can be ourselves.......not necessarily, but more likely to be found amongst people with the same condition.

However there's no doubt that sociological factors will remain an issue. As we are embedded in every layer of society, I'm not as blind to think that there's no such thing as a terrorist/fundamentalist with AS, or a white-collar criminal, a murderer, a racist and so on. It shouldn't be a threat for the abovementioned goal though, as long as we are able to point out (while obvious, some people still need a little help to see things in the right perspective) that their actions have nothing to do with their AS.

That's why I believe - while it may form a hindrance - that any division within the group of those who strive for understanding of AS will not be the end of the activism.

Unless of course, a cure for autism pops out and it turns out that many Aspies actually want it. Then it might be damaged beyond repair.

6: The wider society needs to accept them as a valid subgroup.

Hey Packrat I like the new picture!

thanks