The Standard Review

Individuality & Respect

 

This is cross posted at Turner & Kowalski

Individual people and individual thoughts are very important to recognize and respect in order that a civilization that still includes ethical boundaries is protected from corruption. No group can effectively fight for the civil rights of some at the expense of the civil rights of others. The number one concern of any civil rights group needs to be the encouragement of individuality. Otherwise their message will contradict itself.

The denial of civil rights is based on exclusive standards that empower some at the expense of others so in order to combat this it won't work to discourage individuality and individual expression. Individuality is validated when it is seen as diverse rather than being ranked by typical hierarchical standards.

A society that discourages regulations can allow power that does not need to be earned and the corruption that follows it to exclude and even destroy those who cannot or choose not to defend themselves by unethical means. This denies people their civil rights by encouraging people who have attained and established power by unfair means to continue in their oppressive ways.

Those who are considered disabled have often had their rights denied because others chose to (in a way they often call charitable) reinforce the standards by which disabled people were oppressed while at the same time claiming to be helping them. Doing this seems to suggest that somehow oppressive means are not systematic in nature and that what needs to be overcome is simple. It is also a way of validating the standards that exclude most disabled people by showing how their favored few are worthy of the elite's acceptance. This ultimately excludes more people than it includes.

Oppressed people are exploited and otherwise used to support a very few with their excessive consumption. The only way that this consumption is ever justified is by how people who would not otherwise be employed are given the opportunity to benefit by serving this insatiable apatite.The justification isn't valid because this servitude displays and promotes a class system that continues to oppress the majority. People are formally and subtly educated to believe in revering specific symbols of class status that are unattainable to them. They are not taught to be the best that they can be and to accept themselves as valuable. All they see are unattainable images that discourage their security and self-worth.

Once people understand and are educated in the way that they unknowingly promote standards that exclude and demean them, they will hopefully stop fighting against each other by either claiming they deserve assistance while someone else doesn't, or that they are further up the ladder of being someone that deserves respect due to status they have fairly achieved. Either way, this is reinforcing standards that exclude all of us.

In the US where commercialism is king, celebrities and the commercially advantaged are our royalty.The disability community has recognized that oppression is the result of a set of values and has attempted to assert themselves as who they are rather than attempting to present themselves in ways that compliment exclusionary standards. This unapologetic expression is done as a sign of unity and respect for each other.

Since autistic people have now been recognized for being able to assert themselves against their own oppression some seem to want support from the disability community while at the same time separating themselves as better than "those" people.

The disabling ways that society treats autistic people are now being fought in commercial and political arenas by a movement defined as (you guessed it) neurodiversity. It is an unfortunate trend among some within this movement who not only don't want to be associated with any type of disability, but they don't want to be associated with other autistics whose abilities are less respected.

They use words like Aspie, spectrumite, and spectrum people, which show (in ways they may not be fully aware of) how some autistics are more worthy of respect than others in a similar way that broader exclusive standards show admiration and respect for one group at the expense of another. Anyone without a valid societal classification is often seen by the majority as deserving of charity and sometimes even unethical treatments.How society interprets these terms is most important in how they are publicly used.

I can't imagine any other group defined by their classification of disability aligning themselves politically with groups that encourage a treatment that is as harmful and disrespectful to those within that classification as ABA is to the autistic population.

When such a group also demands absolute solidarity and will target and exploit any individual who is seen by how their questions and concerns may compromise the momentum of this group, they are hurting themselves and their cause. Individuals who are only seeking validity often have their valid concerns dismissed and/or attacked by those who are seeking power and who will only regard any dissent from their following as a threat to that power.

A civil rights group that goes by the name Neurodiversity and yet discourages individual expression along with only listening to people who have attained celebrity status (in their group or the broader public) is a bit of ironic to say the least.

Exclusion is no more advantageous for a civil rights group than it is for an exclusive broader public. Exclusion is not practical and the few that may be served originally will ultimately be hurt just as bad.

If people allow for and participate in unregulated and unethical methods of thinning the herd and promoting exclusive and elitist standards they need to be very careful to recognize, they too will ultimately be rejected by the set of values they have encouraged.

Supporting Your Own Oppression

(I am posting this video here again because it is so representative of so much that I want to discourage, and I'm discussing it again in this post)

Autistics Speak Video

Obviously there certainly is a great deal of new thinking about autism that is very important.The problem is that the exclusivity and ablest views that have made teaching others to respect autistic people so difficult are too often being blatantly (and even proudly) reinforced by those who claim to be advocating for us. The video is an example of that.

ABA should never be confused with what neurodiversity is. That doesn't mean that anyone who agrees with one can never agree with something about the other, but they are contradictions. Neurodiversity means liberating people who think differently by discouraging exclusive standards. ABA endorses a brand of psychology that demands a type of hierarchical standard of behavior that compliments what autistics are typically not. The video does the same thing but glorifies an even broader and even more exclusive set of typical standards.

The goal of ABA is normalization or the promotion of societal standards. It is often mistaken as an educational approach. It is not and because it's popular to call it that doesn't make it true. It is the presumption of behaviorists that all human actions can be categorized as behavior. The idea that "When you're a hammer, everything can look like a nail" describes a marketing technique that is used by the industry of ABA. If all actions can be described as behavior then each behavior can be judged by how a behaviorist defines it.

With enough power companies are able to create demands rather than just catering to the demands that already exist. Wherever there are few or no regulations a company can prey on peoples fear and insecurity by displaying images and sound that show that if they don't look or act the way that the purchase of their product will better enable them to then society will exclude them and severely devalue their existence.

What's the difference between the term behavior modification and the term manipulation to promote exclusive standards? The answer is that the difference is that the term manipulation to promote exclusive standards is not as effective at promoting ABA.

You see misunderstood or alternate forms of expression are how ABA is shown to be less valuable so the standard expressions they promote must be very narrow and must appeal to peoples emotion rather than reason in order to sell the ABA product.

A product that is used to control others is much easier to market than one that takes time and effort to understand and encourage people. This is how impulse fear-based buying is promoted.That is part of the frantic lifestyle of the modern society that considers itself sophisticated and how fear-based marketing is justified. Psychology as something that claims to aid people in countering their dysfunctions often has a built in justification for products that can be of used to control and herd groups of people. Ridding yourself or your children of what society views as dysfunctional is very fashionable and the over-emphisis is often very destructive.

Of course this is the way that the brand of psychology known as behaviorism was bought by public schools and the schools have further justified this controlling "psychological" tool by describing it as "educational support". This controlling tool aids teachers as well as further allows them to better herd children, exclude many of them by glorifying a narrow set of typical standards, and justify how they continue to not take the time and effort to understand and empower unique expressions and unique individuals.

Once a company is resourceful and powerful enough to create a demand rather than find one to fill the cycle that leads to them having more resources and power will include political backing and the right to use pseudoscience to prove what doesn't exist otherwise.

All this begins by selling people on a narrow set of exclusive standards that can then be used to control them. Unregulated commercialism sells people on the idea that a narrow set of exclusive standards is how people should be controlled by encouraging them to have aspirations that promote products and corporations who then buy their rights and liberties.

The ABA supporters who made this film not only showed their support for a set of values that inspire this type of oppressive and exclusionary elitism and ableism by the way the film was made, but they stated clearly in words that the marketing means they were using were justified by what they hoped would be the result. Claiming that the ends justify the means is a short term impulsive emotional decision at the expense of the long term more important but more complicated goal.

As a political group ASAN who is aspiring to advocate for the neurodiversity movement (who has also shown their support for ABA )and who helped to make and promote this video needs to be careful of how they might promote ableism so as not to offend the broader disability community to which autistics belong. It's important that they show a willingness to understand the views of as broad of population of disabled people as possible so that it doesn't appear that their political aspirations as a group outweighs the needs of the people they aspire to be helping (since so many other political groups are doing just that).In other words, it's important to show that you are not impulsively claiming that the end justifies the means at the expense of those you're advocating for.

Behavior modification has always been a tool used in marketing to create demands for products and services that the public would not otherwise see a need for. The more sophisticated marketing techniques become the less subtle they need to be. That's how behavior modification and conditioning works. Once the demand has been established for a particular product or service the marketing means don't need to be nearly as subtle for people to accept them and the values that are being sold along with the product or service (no matter how corrupting) don't require nearly as much justification.

The following comment by Sadderbutwisergirl on my last post concerning this video put so much of what believe in so few of her own excellent words:

"Sadderbutwisergirl said...
Vector: The whole point of this post is that the Rethinking Autism people are speaking up for neurodiversity, which is a good thing, but they're only using people who can be confident, sexually appealing actors for the video to spread their message. It's a few non-autistics speaking for a large population of autistics who have lots of needs. You could argue that they don't want to stereotype autistics as being less than confident, but I say that that plays right into the hands of people who believe that autistics are just a population who should be kept around so that they can learn appropriate, non-autistic ways of behaving from their non-autistic peers. And, to bring up the Animal Farm analogy again, if a small elite is given the power to speak for the many, it has the potential to turn into that elite becoming our new oppressors. We'll be left outside in the cold and stables while the elite of our non-autistic spokespersons are in a comfortable house, playing cards with our old oppressors. And it'll be hard for us to tell which is which"

It has already been shown how elitist values that ultimately serve a minute portion of the population who can actually meet the standards these values promote can and do lead to harsh methods of excluding and disrespecting disabled people as well as even eugenics. This set of values cannot go unchallenged. Autistic people will not be liberated or empowered by showing that some will be able to meet already established unreasonable standards. The arrogance of believing that anyone other than the already established elite will ultimately be able to survive the ever-changing demands that large corporations are given the power to make is very self-destructive. I hope the people will be careful to not promote someone's agenda that ultimately does not empower or promote them.

The Minority's Voice is the Loudest

It may seem odd to some that anyone would claim that speech is being discouraged when they themselves appear to be exercising their freedom by addressing such matters. However, talking or writing about freedom of speech is pointless around people who somehow believe that some written law is what provides them that right rather than belonging to an influential group who is less likely to experience intimidation for stating their opinion.

The silent not talking about how situations affect them is not due to a lack of written law that allows them to do that. As a matter of fact, it is the written law that promotes the false idea that this freedom extends to all people in the same way.

Intimidation can have a very strong hold on the population of people that have experienced a great deal of oppression. Abuse cuts people deep in the heart and soul and wounds their courage to express themselves more than anything else. The message of intimidation is a constant reminder to them that freedom of speech is never available to all parties within their culture.

 

The law regarding freedom of speech is a clever disguise that prevents needing to deal with the population that is oppressed for reasons that liberate the elite who oppress them. Rights are often stolen from abuse victims many times before they comply with a dull subservient existence. This is a very sad state indeed.

People who have learned to identify methods of intimidation and are willing speak up about them continue to be silenced by the claim that they are complaining, not providing criticism that is constructive, or not giving alternatives to the oppression they speak about.

This is the main reason that autistics are not being provided a voice. Those who continue to speak on behalf of autistic people continue to find new and creative ways of validating their intimidation.

The worst offender of this crime is not the cure and fix autism crowd but is instead those who are in the position to address that crowd and empower autistics but choose to comply with the majority mainstream so that they can gain power by sacrificing the voice of those who have been oppressed and forced to comply with the majority against their will.

I sincerely hope that groups such as ASAN will consider removing the burden of proof from those who are experiencing intimidation and stop their intolerance of criticism so that they may feel free to simply empower and listen to the voices who are not being heard.

The Movement

With the recent publicity in the mainstream media regarding Neurodiversity as a movement that would counter what has been the typical description of autism, how any such a movement's common ideals are described is even more important. Unfortunately too often when people get a taste of the rewards of selling something they tend to become more concerned with acquiring more of those rewards at the expense of forgetting what made the product valuable and how to keep it that way.

In this post of Gonzo's, there are some very good references as to how disability activism and human rights can too easily be made less important to advocates than praising the attributes of autistics or clinging to medical references that attempt to devalue our experience. She makes some excellent points about why healthy discussion can help to create a refined understanding of our goals and why that's important.

Behavioral therapy is not a political football in that there is very little resistance to prevent the abuses that have been caused by such therapies. Behavioral therapy is sold by a very large corporation that intends to create a backing for their enterprise within the federal government of the United States.(How this is happening in the United States is what I'm most aware of. It's not that such things aren't also happening in other countries).

In order for this a corporation to acquire a monopoly (one that is endorsed and even demanded by the government) it would seem advantageous for them to show to everyone that they had the support of the only known group that resists the popular current medical model of autism.

Certainly, groups such as ASAN and any one else daring to redefine the medical model of autism with contemporary terms/ideals known as Neurodiversity  are in a position to show a very strong advocacy that is unwilling to accept any of the types of abuses or methods of abuse that have been acceptable in the past. While it may be advantageous for a political advocacy group to make compromises in the beginning in order to be seen and accepted among the major decision-makers, the expectation for their willingness to compromise will become greater over time. They're sustaining power will instead come by continuing to show that the word neurodiversity stands against what has known to be a method for abusing autistics.

Whenever a political group sacrifices the ideals of those who supported and propelled their political decision-making position in the first place (which allows them to be seen as a team player by other politicians), their position will ultimately show a weakened and diluted state as they will ultimately lose support.

The majority of autistic people who have had any type of treatment for their autism would certainly have a very firm stance against any treatment that even had the potential for being abusive. The elite few who are advocating for the rights of autistics have been given this privilege and responsibility as the result of being in the luxurious place where people will listen to their views.

Most autistic people are not listened to. This is not due to lack of ability to communicate but rather the unwillingness of society to give credit and understanding to a population without political support.

Any part of the mainstream media's view of autism that doesn't support treatments that are abusive is involved in silencing the voice of autistics in other ways such as treating them with condescension and pity.

If a movement such as Neurodiversity is at all successful, it will encourage more autistic people to openly speak up about what they believe.(This is something that all autism's political advocates including those claim to support Neurodiversity are working to discourage). If and when more autistic people do speak up it will be obvious that no political advocacy group has been willing to listen.