Autistic bigotry

Autism often comes with traits of determination, passion for justice, fixity of purpose, intense concentration and ability to absorb huge amounts of information. That can be a huge benefit, for example in terms of Civil Service Integrity, Honesty, Objectivity and Impartiality. If I have the bit between my teeth – as I do regarding raising awareness of autistics in professional workplaces – I can get a lot done. But equally those traits can be turned fairly easily to the dark side.

There’s nothing inherently good about being autistic – some of us are prats. And the traits that can make us effective can make us effective in doing harm as well as good. I’ve said that I have a passion for justice, but suppose that my perception of “justice” is wrong? I might, for example, have internalised a prejudice – which is a very human thing to do. My passion for “justice” might then express itself as trying to repress and marginalise another group of people because of the prejudice I held about them. I don’t mean I’m any more or less likely to be prejudiced than the human average – just that if I were, I could use all my autistic focus to cause a lot of trouble about it.

Similarly if I have decided I’m right then I’m likely to go all out for the cause of what I believe to be right. I don’t have any special access to knowing what’s right just because I’m autistic – I might be totally wrong and cause harm. For example, imagine I had bought into some quack conspiracy about a health treatment such that I really believed it worked. I might use a huge amount of time and effort trying to persuade other people of something that was deeply harmful, not because I meant harm, but because I’d misidentified what was right.

Autistic people can be quite binary – we tend to see things as either good or bad. You only need to spend a fairly short amount of time engaging on social media with us to find out that that’s the case. In particular I find that if I feel I’ve identified the “right” answer then I cannot or will not let it go, and may find it impossible to compromise. In the workplace that can lead to the best being the enemy of the good – I may find myself fiercely opposing something that will deliver 90% of our objectives because my instinct is 100% or 0%. Again, this is pretty common on social media and not only among autistics. How many people nowadays say they’d rather not vote for any political party (even when one’s pretty close to their views) because none of them exactly represents their views?

Inability to compromise and letting the best be the enemy of the good can be a recipe for nothing ever getting done, or for the unintended consequence of a lot of harm. Very little in this world is going to be 100% perfect and by insisting on that perfection I could end up opposing everything and being really difficult to work with. I mean, I may be really difficult to work with, but I try to avoid it being for that reason.

I’ve written this because there’s a fair amount said about autistic “strengths” (including by me) and we certainly do have qualities that can be used for good like fixity of purpose, focus and determination. But those qualities aren’t innately positive – they’re just tools that can be used for good or ill. Autistics aren’t angels with marvellous superpowers any more than we’re dangerous villains, or helpless children – we’re people who have immense potential for good or bad. Just like everyone else.