As an autistic person, my problem with authority figures throughout my life has always been that authority figures were generally incompetent for the role they were fulfilling and they behaved in arbitrary and capricious way. Ironically, my best relationships in my childhood were always with adults who were competent authorities in their particular field, and I had zero issues whatsoever following their instruction, but I was labeled as "oppositional defiant" and "having a problem with authority" because most of the authorities in the school system and elsewhere were low IQ petty tyrants.
At no point have I ever felt that authority or hierarchy or rules are meaningless, in fact I revel in the clarity of well-written and reasoned rule sets and often wished for some clearly documented guidelines of behavior in many situations. I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment. The problem has always been that authority is mostly exercised for authority's sake, to stroke the ego of petty tyrants who are incompetent and mean.
For me it was that those types of people didn't follow the rules, changed the rules, or couldn't explain why the rules existed. It wouldn't make sense because a system of rules were logical (or supposed to be), but they seemed to be acting "arbitrarily". Only later I realized that the arbitrary actions/rules weren't arbitrary once viewed through a political lens - they were violating the rules for their own power or safety. But yeah, I was always pointing out the inconsistencies and being called a smart-ass or future lawyer.
Yup, the "because I said so" type really isn't worth respect in the first place.
Authority figures are fine when they act with reason and respect. When they don't, that's when we have a problem. I will never understand why neurotypicals tolerate inept and abusive authority figures. They don't even question it most of the time!
As I've gotten older, my level of tolerance for disrespectful people in general has dropped off dramatically. If you disrespect me while demanding I respect you, I'm just gonna ignore you entirely. You are literally not worth the brainpower it takes just to hear you.
> I will never understand why neurotypicals tolerate inept and abusive authority figures.
Neurotypical people tend to pick their battles. Especially in the workplace, incompetence is quite often not your problem. I’ve seen autistic coworkers raise hell over perceived incompetence, eventuating in a lot of stress and ultimately losing their job. I tried to explain “who cares if they are making a bad decision that could affect the company. You don’t have any exposure to that risk, it’s not your problem if something goes wrong”.
As well as the fact that quite often it isn’t even incompetence from leadership but a failure to recognise that these leaders are often operating with more information or different incentives. They don’t to let you rewrite the product from php to rust because their incentive is to make the most money, not to build the most technically impressive program.
> authority figures were generally incompetent for the role they were fulfilling
The problem is: who judges competency? If you make yourself the sole judge, you're setting yourself up as the authority (meta-authority?) which can seem "arbitrary and capricious" to others. I say this because I've been there. I almost got fired once for using the exact phrase "arbitrary and capricious" too many times in a big public meeting. I've had feelings like you describe, and it often led to unnecessary conflict. One thing that reduced that conflict was the recognition that calling people incompetent - and particularly saying so to their faces - was a form of escalation. It literally never helped. See: almost fired.
> they behaved in arbitrary and capricious way
I think this is the part that really matters. They behaved. Not were. As you say, rules have value. Rules can even provide a level of comfort, if they are well justified, if they are applied fairly and consistently. The problems come when people act like they have the unilateral right to change or reinterpret the rules. Doesn't work for them, or for you, or for me. The productive response IMO is not to pit self-assumed authority (or meta-authority) against self-assumed authority, but to focus on the rules and the system and what needs to happen regardless of who is in what position relative to those.
Autism is not something you have - it's something you are. It's not an illness, it's just a set of characteristics that mean you understand and interact with the world in a way that's not the most common.
Honestly, that sounds slightly questionable. AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind. It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness. As to whether it's an illness or not, I suppose it's not but I've worked with an autistic/Asperger's person and was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us. From that POV it's a terrible debilitation.
> AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind
This is become more and more a dated belief, especially as autistic voices are getting greater privilege to convey their own experiences. Autism may present as processing difficulties around interpreting body language and facial expressions, as a result of, or in concert with, sensory overload. These challenges don't exclude being able to empathize, but they do present obstacles. An autistic person might be confused for being self-absorbed as they're often dealing with these hidden struggles. I think also a lifetime of being misunderstood could manifest in either a combative or inward disposition.
This confusion between autistic and 'allistic' people is described by the "double empathy problem":
> AIUI it's an absence or deficiency of theory of mind
I'm not sure what that means.
> It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness.
Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
> was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us
Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
>Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
Part of what problem? Frankly, this rebranding of mental disorders and disabilities as mere "neurodiversity" is incredibly frustrating an insulting to me, as I struggle with ADHD. My condition definitely stems from something I lack, it's called executive function. I lack, among other things, a sense of time, the ability to prioritize, the ability to concentrate without drifting off, and many other things that affect my life and relationships daily.
>Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
>From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
I'm sorry if my comment was somehow triggering to you. It was never my intention to rile up anyone.
> Part of what problem?
Good question! I mean the problem of dividing people between non-autistics and autistics. The problem that causes autistics to mask sometimes painfully in order to not get picked on by non-autistics, but doesn't require non-autistics to behave "like an autistic person" if they're ever faced with such a situation.
Note that I'm not saying I think everyone should mask around people who are different from them. Hopefully the neurotypical behaviours that push autistics to mask can become more obvious and avoidable so the need disappears.
> this rebranding of mental disorders and disabilities as mere "neurodiversity" is incredibly frustrating
Agree. I think ND is too broad a concept to signify anything meaningful.
> insulting to me, as I struggle with ADHD.
Again, fair and I agree. I don't think ADHD should be classified together with autism. ADHD can have advantages if kept under control but generally can be quite debilitating - and keeping it under control can become a full-time job and a very demanding one.
I also think "autism" is too broad a concept. There are too many possible traits, each different in each individual, that aside from certain high-level characteristics.
> > Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around.
> > From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
> This doesn't make any sense to me.
GGP said person A's autism was debilitating to their working relationship with GGP.
I was demonstrating that the reason it was debilitating was because of a lack of understanding and the need for person A to mask behaviour, and that need arises from GGP's and colleagues inability to comprehend person A. Which in turn is the very reason why person A masks: they don't understand the behaviours of the others, and try to mimic as best as they can given certain observed behaviours, actions and reactions, body language, etc. - all of which don't come naturally to person A, in the same way that simply answering to questions rather than avoiding them even when they might affect their social position probably doesn't come naturally to GGP and peers.
This might have been confusing - it's early morning for me. :)
If we stick to the OP, why is the autistic's behaviour in responding to authority problematic? Why is it not the unwarranted authority that's considered the problem?
>> It's something you haven't - it's a lack, like deafness.
> Erm, no. At least not necessarily. If you can't accept that, you're part of the problem.
Just saying No is not a response I either accept or can start to understand. Please explain why No, then maybe I can start to learn.
>> was truly horrified when I started to understand the extent of how it affected him, and negatively, in his working relationships with us
> Guess what, relationships are 2-way. Your behaviour as a neurotypical was just as debilitating in your working relationship with him as the other way around. From that POV, being neurotypical is a terrible debilitation.
Of course relationships are two-way, and he couldn't understand enough of other people to modify his behaviour i.e., the office was freezing every morning, don't come in and open the windows in winter, people don't like that. But he wouldn't change, windows opened, people freezing, rinse, repeat. As such, it wasn't really a proper two-way thing.
Or with a different person, thank you but I'm not interested in talking about your bicycle. Or with another person who would walk you backwards into a corner while unloading her problems on you, unable to appreciate that she was messing up other people's evenings, and that she was being shunned for it.
Autism is a disability. Society should definitely be more tolerant of it and more understanding, but regrettably we weren't and the guy suffered for it. He suffered, we didn't. That makes it his disability, not ours. In hindsight I hugely regret the way he was treated, but he didn't try to 'mask'and I don't believe he had enough insight to be able to. It is a terrible thing and I do not wish it on anyone. Don't try and make out that it is our problem because it wasn't, it was his.
Your constant view that it's a shared problem is about a helpful as a zebra complaining to a tiger that things really aren't equitable in their relationship. True, but...
> If we stick to the OP, why is the autistic's behaviour in responding to authority problematic? Why is it not the unwarranted authority that's considered the problem?
> immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment
I have the same tendency and it almost stopped me from earning Eagle Scout. My project was building a cabinet for my school and we were able to use on of the other scout's father's woodshop to do the work. Once there, I, without thinking, basically stepped aside and let him direct. I knew basically nothing about woodworking, and certainly nothing about his shop. Unfortunately for me a big point of an eagle project is to demonstrate leadership, which is hard to do from the sidelines. Fortunately I managed to make the case that I demonstrated enough over the course of the project, but it was definitely an obstacle to have deferred to the competent authority in that case.
> I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment.
This, along with your "low IQ" comment, makes me wonder whether you have been easily swayed in the past by mid- to high-IQ scam artists or ideologues pitching intricate schemes.
Why are you so unwilling to accept the extensively documented phenomenon of an autistic person being more intelligent than average?
Some autistic people are genuinely ahead of the curve. Some individuals develop extreme talent/intelligence in certain areas. There is no question of whether this happens or not, it's a demonstrable fact.
Your quote illustrates something that self-aware and reasonable people do: recognize their limitations and yield to someone with more expertise.
If you think that's somehow a bad thing, you should have a really long think about what that says about you.
When you throw computers into the mix and have them control people's lives, then authority is no longer about a structured relationship towards a common goal and facilitating social behaviour.
I remember spending significant effort on a creative essay in highschool. I had been a high performance, motivated student who was willing to jump through every hoop and do the work.
My english teacher took the essay, gave it a C.
I asked them for clarification about the logic of how they gave me the grade. They simply couldn't answer. There was no explanation. It seemed to me that they just picked a random grade out of a hat and couldn't explain why (probably more than likely).
My teacher blew up and accused me of "grade grubbing."
At that point I realized that the grading criteria was arbitrary, probably based on how they felt and if they like you personally and decided that school didn't matter since there was no actual standard for grading.
I never recovered my ability to care about school and stropped trying.
My reasoning was: "Well...if I try really hard and do all the work, they will give me a random grade based on how they feel anyways so this is a waste of time."
It was entirely a disagreement and disrespect for institutional authority.
Likewise, I have had constant struggles with VPs and Directors and CEOs I have worked with, challenging them on their behavior and lack of analysis, strategy, deep thinking.
Pretty much I need to work for myself, it is usually only a matter of time.
God help you if you try to tell me what to do from an authority position and I don't agree with your plan. I just start fighting with people, can't stand it.
I think this really depends on the quality of the school.
I went to a Catholic school (in Australia). We had to write a year 9 religion essay on a moral issue. I wrote this lengthy essay on why drug prohibition was immoral, with copious references. Our religious education coordinator was some hyper-conservative Catholic, when he saw my essay, he took it off my religion teacher, and in his rage at it he gave me a mark of 1.5/20 and accused me of plagiarism. I appealed to the school principal, who was a religious brother (De La Salle brothers). He upheld my appeal, dismissed the plagiarism allegations, and ordered my mark changed to 19.5/20
I totally admit that my essay was designed to cause controversy-it was an expression of my anger at the school, by deliberately choosing a topic they would dislike. This was not a new thing for me - in year 2 I was asked to write a short story about a clown. I hated the task, so in my anger I wrote one about a clown that gives primary school children cocaine. At the end of the story, he was executed in the electric chair. The school was so disturbed by this they called my parents in for a meeting-why is an 8 year old writing stories about cocaine? My parents assured them they were respectable people who had nothing to do with drugs, and my knowledge of the topic came from watching the evening news
I had a college professor change my first grade in the class from a B to a D and give me a lecture about “subjective versus objective grading”, after I asked him for feedback. Apparently my B was supposed to be one of those and the D the other one. His rant didn’t have anything to do with subjectivity or objectivity so I’m not certain which was supposed to be which, but he acted like giving me the B was doing me a favor. This guy clearly grade-grubbed through school and assumed everyone else is just there for the grade too. I just wanted some feedback other than “B”, so I could, you know, learn.
You are a disagreeable person. I love working with disagreeable people, but I avoid them after work. On Saturday, I don't feel like being lectured to on how hamburgers are supposed to be cooked. Other guests find it rude to called out on their own occupation.
"Your problem is being such a punchable face and you can stop being autistic and get 99% of your problem solved instantly"
^ process this in warm peroxide for 15 minutes to obtain an analogue for GP.
That said, software engineering had moved away from praising "autism", towards a model of warm and communal, wall-free workplace, over the past decade or so. That had supposedly improved (averaged)throughput, overall productivity, and turned software field into a more mature and modern space. It should be generally a good thing that innocent regular people are less likely to be psychologically, or sometimes physically, harmed engaging in software work.
At the same time, it seems that it shifted power held by independent kind dictators to monopolistic corporations amplifying power by herding those people, accelerating techno-feudalism. And as such, maybe it's just me but, I'm not sure "autist go away" attitude is good for the future of computing, and also future of the human society by extension.
It was said that the person has the “disagreable” personality trait. Not that the comment itself is disagreeable. (But maybe that’s what you mean by “disagreeable” in this context.)
No damned idea if I’m autistic, but I do view humanity like an alien anthropologist.
I have had the misfortune of spending my school years in the company of many people who are now politicians, captains of industry, princes, doctors, lawyers, and all the rest. I say misfortune, because it means that I absolutely distrust all of the above, as every exemplar I have personally known has been one variety or another of common-or-garden idiot.
Doctors - I cannot fathom how people put their faith in these unimaginative individuals who followed a default career path and squeaked their way through medical school on charisma alone.
Politicians - every one a self-serving charlatan.
Captains of industry - daddy bought me a newspaper.
Lawyers - see also: doctors.
Princes - thankfully harmless, but good lord, what they used to have run countries. Pudding between the ears.
I can’t trust any authority, as I have seen behind too many curtains - although I never did, even before the denouements - I never respected any rule or order which couldn’t be reasonably and justly explained.
I wonder how others look upon you. Especially from your school days. And what they say about the entirety of the populace who've chosen to enter your occupation, on the basis of you as a teenager...
My chosen occupation is hermit, and I honestly don’t give a damn. Why would I care about the judgment of someone who I deem contemptible?
Unfortunately, my life since my schooldays has only exacerbated my cynicism - I have yet to encounter a competent medic, a lawyer whose work I didn’t have to check and correct, tradespeople who know the first thing about their erstwhile craft, or a business leader I didn’t run rings around. When I see people who I knew on television talking about the glorious future for their party and the country, and recall their proclivities for self-aggrandisement and shameless dishonesty, my toes curl.
When I do encounter competent and able people, they are invariably being used by someone with more Machiavellian tendencies than themselves.
The world is almost entirely run by blowhards - not the most competent or qualified people, yet those who shout the loudest.
So I am a hermit. My world is 20 hectares of woodland and endless projects, where I am well away from the ship of fools, and have scarce dependence on the competence of others.
At no point have I ever felt that authority or hierarchy or rules are meaningless, in fact I revel in the clarity of well-written and reasoned rule sets and often wished for some clearly documented guidelines of behavior in many situations. I appreciate when authority originates from competence, and I am brutally introspective about my own areas of competence or lack there-of, and immediately submit and cede control if I encounter someone significantly more competent than myself in the situation of the moment. The problem has always been that authority is mostly exercised for authority's sake, to stroke the ego of petty tyrants who are incompetent and mean.