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A) people on the spectrum can be cruel "for no reason"
B) "no reason" actually means "a reason I don't consider as valid" not that I am saying that cruelty is justified, just that people will have their reasons, even if they are simple as "i was bored"
Yeah this infantilization is not helping anything.
C) NT people don't instantly accept cruelty as normal and go theough the same "why did this happen" experience
yeah there are evil asshole autistic people. no group is absent some evil pieces of shit. idk how they got that way but i know if they do have a sense of justice they only apply it to themselves.
I've found a working hypothesis that seems mostly true.
"No-one is the villain of their own story."
If someone seems to be doing something evil for no reason, you likely don't understand their reasoning. It might not be a good reason, from my perspective, but they will have a reason. Once you can figure out where your values differ, it often becomes obvious why they are acting that way.
My wife cheated on me.
She said she was terribly sorry and wanted to work to save the marriage. We went to individual counseling and then tried couples counseling. She derailed that session by lying almost right off the bat.
She promised nothing would ever happen again, but never took any steps to rebuild trust, other than to say, "Trust me Bro."
Fast forward 2 kids and 15+ years. She cheated again and has twisted everything around to be my fault. She made me the villain, so she doesn't have too feel guilty. But then she really believes her bullshit. Says she wants to try and work it out, but then refuses transparency and digs her heels in when I mention couples counseling.
This sucks. She has said some shit that totally took me by surprise. Like, how could she possibly believe the things she was saying. But she did it.
So now, I am 50 years old, have a 12 and 14 year old, and have to re-figure out my life.
I was so dumbfounded when she said the things she did. Like it broke my brain it was such bullshit.
Of course, she's not toxic, I am the one with all the issues.
Hey I believe in you man. Shit like this can be hard in the moment, but youve still got yourself and your kids. There will be some hard days, but you can do it. As long as there's life there's hope and you're still here.
Saying this sucks doesn't do it justice. I hope you end up on the other side of this better than you are now.
And your wife has this same view of the situation where she's not the problem.
Damn that sucks man. I'm sorry that happened to you. Just a reminder that your feelings are valid. You'll be OK at some point but it's absolutely normal to not be OK now.
Ah, well, except for pathological issues like narcissists and psychopaths for example. There are quite a few people who do evil things and state that they do it because it's their right and privilege to do so.
But still, those are exceptions to the rule.
They might see themselves as privileged, but rarely as the villain. Narcissists see themselves as the hero, through a VERY distorted lens. Sociopaths don't get the empathy feedback making them the villain.
It's a good way to get a handle on their minds. How would it have to be twisted to make it seem either a non-issue or good.
E.g. the rich see money as closer to a score in a computer game. Blue shelling your brother in Mario Kart, just before the finish doesn't make you a villain. Similarly taking $50 dollars/month more from 10,000 families doesn't look bad. That's barely a trip to the pub! (The low income households involved would disagree massively).
*your
I wish the people who just can’t get this right would simply default to “your” and “its” and “there”. Apostrophes that shouldn’t be there are more annoying than missing apostrophes.
Yeah, my brain can't fathom how one cannot distinguish between "your" and "you're".
A large majority of everyday cruelty occurs because capitalism, a system based on exploitation, encourages it. Being greedy, cruel and self-centered is the most assured path to accruing fat stacks of cash. And once people take that path to get rich, they use their wealth to propagandize everyone else into thinking it’s actually moral to be solely concerned with yourself, which leads to all kinds of everyday cruelty.
I mean I would genuinely argue no one is cruel for no reason. People can be cruel for no immediate reason, but people do not become cruel people without reason. Or at least that is my personsal philosophical view. I believe everyone wishes to be a good person. I also believe everyone sees themself as the good person in their own story, or at least sees themself as equally as bad as "everyone else." Shit happened to them, needs werent met in their lives, and they're worldview was shaped by that. Doesnt make it right or justified, but it does help me see from their perspective. And if I can see from their perspective, it is a hell of a lot easier to spot possible solutions. Whether or not those solutions are achievable for me is a different story. But at least knowing where the problems truly lie, and what are possible solutions, helps me cope with the cruelty in the world. But like I said, this is my philosophical outlook on the world so I cant say with certainty that I am right in anyway.
There's always a reason, it's just not always a satisfying explanation
Man the broken grammar and spelling makes this annoying to read.
I see one mistake, otherwise reads fine to me
I accept that I can’t understand everything all the time, especially other people and there’s actually nothing autistic about that. However there ALWAYS a reason, and it almost always has nothing to do with me. No one does things “for no reason”. They weren’t cruel for no reason, hurt people hurt people, I don’t condone it but I’m also not going to try to reverse engineer someone else’s mind because it’s impossible, idk what trauma they’ve experienced or the context of their current lives and my time here is valuable, I’m not going to waste it on someone who’s been cruel to me.
I used to fall into this trap until I realized it’s a fools errand and my autistic brain thinks running fool’s errands is illogical.
I am brain
Nobody thinks themselves the bad guy. People have reasons that you don't understand or think are valid, but that doesn't make them not valid to them.
"My value as a person is tied who my ability to dominate others and this person looks like an easy target" is a reason why it happens. Doesn't mean you have to deploy mindfulness for the situation.
You can just dismiss the person if it makes it easier for you to comprehend. Alot of times those people are insecure because they were bullied, or beaten or because an authority figure told them they were worthless. And you're on the receiving end of that angst. Which is unfortunate, obviously you don't deserve it. But we need to build a new world. Our current world is divided.
Your attitude creates only enemies. In a divided world, the best path forward is solidarity. So sometimes that means forgiving someone their flaws.
I'm a Pakistani American Muslim. I've been subject to racism in airports and elsewhere. I've been called Al Quaeda in school. I've had guys tell girls I was dating that I was going to kidnap them. I have been subject to numerous "random" checks in airports. My fiance is a Hispanic Christian and some of her family told her they weren't going to attend our wedding just because they couldn't support her marrying me. I could have just dismissed these people as racist and forgotten about it. But instead I invited them over to my parents house for dinner. And they changed their tune and now they are planning to attend.
You wouldn't be wrong for dismissing people. But in order to build a better world, we need to try to connect with people. Sometimes it means forgiving people who wronged us.
I don't create enemies, if anything I fail to identify them in time to protect myself. I can't be a builder of the perfect world anymore because most of everyone's idea of a perfect world is one where uncomfortable, frustrating, friction-causing, people like myself are either gone or suffering to fulfill some end or another.
Sorry about your in-laws though. Fuck those people.
Hey man my vision of a better world includes you in it.
I'm sorry you feel rejected by the world. I love you tho.
Also my in laws got over it. They're on my team now.
Hitler thought he was the hero of his story. How valid it was to him doesn't matter at all.
Idk enough about Hitlers story, but I do think most current day Nazis feel pushed into this belief system by a crumbling economy that doesn't value them. They feel insecure about being able to raise a family by the same standard their parents raised them. That fear and insecurity is coopted by MAGA in order to focus their ire towards some other. Oftentimes they lack access to other worldviews, either by reading books(due to a crumbling education system) or by meeting people(living in a homogeneous town).
This world was created intentionally by the elites to prevent progressivism/socialism from taking root. Most of these Nazis could have been Bernie Bros if they had a better education system or if they had been raised in towns that had minorities around.
Is argue that some people absolutely understand they are doing "bad" things, even by their own criteria.
They choose to do them anyway, because the payoff is larger than the ethical and moral cost.
Hah, I just made a comment to similar effect on another of your posts before I saw this one.
I get it. Because I also don't get it.
Do not attribute to malice that which can be adequately described through ignorance.
The older the get the more I hate this quote.
Some people are just both.
Me my entire life!
Thats just it though, a lot of the time there are reasons.
A lot of those reasons aren't immediately apparent, Some of those reasons might never be understood even by the person themselves.
I also want to make clear that a "reason" isn't always an excuse it's just the preceding experiences/events that lead up to an outcome.
Someone with a non--standard set of tools for reading context has a non-standard chance of seeing and/or understanding those reasons. Because the outward facing signs of that context are geared towards a typical form of communication that is commonly less accessible by the neurodivergent.
I say "non-standard chance of understanding" on purpose, because it's not always a case of better or worse and can vary over time, with skill acquisition and learning.
There are neurodivergent people who are very attuned to specific types of tells that wouldn't typically be seen. They might not understand the relevance or context, but they can notice a difference.
There are people who acquire a learned (as opposed to natural) form of this type of assessment of others.
That skill(or skills) can be it's own set of problems, but it's possible.
Sadism.
Yeah.
Hard to get ones head around.
Ultimately it's a kind of stupidity or foolishness.
The psychology of narcissism (and "cluster b" / dark triad / dark tetrad, etc), should be a class availed and encouraged for all neurodivergent people. ... All people really. But especially us.
Causality is still a thing so there is a reason but it's probably not going to be surface level or honestly worthwhile enough to understand. Some people are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, some were abused, some were never taught empathy and compassion or developed it themselves for whatever reason, the list goes on and on.
That isn't directly an autistic trait, is it? Isn't that just empathy, or a conscience?
I can’t see this as a blanket statement about how other’s actions are viewed. I can absolutely see people being cruel and a whole host of reasons why they might be, but I don’t understand why they don’t see that this is what they are doing and choose to not be that way.