My gal A and I love to have Spectrum Fests at a
nearby lake where we talk feminism and injustice (our shared special interests)
and our boys try to work out how to play together when their special interests don’t match. These are special times for us because once the school year hits the fan we both get pretty buried. A is a single Mom with a son
on the spectrum. She used to be a student of mine at the
Community College and is now about to graduate from a Seven Sisters college via
its 100% full-scholarship program for non-traditional students. Go, A!
Last summer, A told me about a study she’d read
claiming that logical people actually have more interest in justice, and tend
to act more from the impetus of justice than do less-logical people. This made
sense to US, as logical, spectrum-y, eggheaded, highly empathetic people. But
it flies in the face of a lot of allistic ideas around autism.
The article, “Concern for justice linked with reason, not emotion,” contends that those of us who are “cognitively
driven” tend to make the sorts of
“sophisticated analysis and mental calculation” that lead us to act
based on logic rather than desire.
In other words, we don’t do kind things because
we feel we should because it would
be “good,” but because we know we should
because it is right. That type of motivation has been
shown to be significantly more compelling
than emotional incentives. It leads naturally and inevitably to increased
justice-orientation – and, thereby, to an increase in just actions.
Reason – a.k.a. logic – is the enemy of moral
relativism as it is often used: as a tool for justifying asocial desires and
actions. By asocial, I refer (perhaps somewhat polemically) to desires and
actions that increase inequality and injustice. I contend that my logical
nature, and that of most of the other spectrum-y people I know, precludes
judging such actions as acceptable.
One of the many, many benefits of being a
Professor of Ethics is learning to distinguish empathy from moral relativism.
I’ve always felt that the gross disparities in peoples’ lives were unfair – and
resented the attempts of people I saw as privileged to equate their problems
with those of others who clearly – to me – had harder lives. Empathy means
having compassion – literally, with-feeling – for someone; it means understanding
them as best you can and, to a reasonable extent, acknowledging their concerns.
It does not mean acting as if all struggles and challenges are equivalent – or
accepting cockamamie, hypocritical excuses for what basically amounts to doing
whatever the heck one wants. As Albert Einstein (a beloved Aspie role-model and
ethicist, among other things) said, ““It is abhorrent to me when a fine intelligence is paired with an unsavory character.” Logic precludes using intelligence to
justify selfishness, or to equate the inimitable.
Mundane example: I recently mentioned to
someone that there’ve been times when I’ve gotten upset in the grocery store
because of money issues. They were sympathetic but then added, “Then, once you
have enough money, you might start to feel guilty about having more than
others, or have a hard time choosing what to buy!”
Um…no? Not. Equivalent.
It seems...logical to assume that if one has more than one needs one should do something about that rather than "feeling guilty;" and that the luxury of choice is a gift, not a burden (and, if the latter [?], not one that should be publicly bemoaned).
When A and I sit around discussing -- and, okay, sometimes bemoaning -- our
situations, I know she, as a single mother, has it harder than me. We
both know if we were Black or transgendered or more differently-abled than we
are (or any of the other ridiculous things that can label one around here and
make one, therefore, to some, “less-than” or “weird” or “automatically criminal
and/or stupid and/or degenerate and/or inferior and/or, at the very least, suspect” in ways that limit opportunities and inclusion) it would be harder. That’s just logical!
I think I have said this before: the only people who ever say stuff like “it’s
all relative” are those privileged enough
to have that belief and clueless
enough to express it. Most of us know
better – and we’ve learned the hard way.
I make this point not to punish all the
annoying people who think they have it sooo hard and don’t. What I want to do
is draw a link to the sorts of persistent economic and social injustices that
are fundamentally grounded in these types of self-rationalization – and that
are typically unavailable to deeply logical people, including many on the
autism spectrum.
Logical people just can’t get around numbers.
If Person A has a salary of $200,000 and their “lifestyle” demands a new car
every year and Person A is not logical, Person A can say to herself, “I need
this new $30,000 car,” with no qualms whatsoever about those in need, such as,
say, Person B, who makes $10,000 a year and is struggling to feed her family
and has a car that barely functions. Person A can tell Person B, “It’s all
relative.” But Person B, if she is logical, logically knows this is not true: A
working car is a working car. $1=$1. $30,000 can feed four families for a year.
…Logic.
I like to believe that a logical Person B, if
she somehow secured a job making $200,000 a year, and was in the same situation
as Person A, above, would use that $30,000 to help those in need rather than to
buy a new car because it is reasonably
the right thing to do. A and I sure would. We don't just bemoan. We also plan for the day when we will be better able to help others. Those are our Special Fantasies.
…Logic,logic, logic.
Truly logical people cannot ignore the fact that torture is torture:
When Dick Cheney calls torture ‘enhanced interrogation,’ it doesn’t make us understand torture in a different way; it’s just a means for those who know they’re doing something wrong to find a phrase that doesn’t immediately acknowledge the wrongdoing…
Whatever name Cheney’s men gave torture, they knew what it was. A grotesque euphemism is offensive exactly because we recognize perfectly the mismatch between the word and its referent. It’s an instrument of evasion, like a speeding getaway car, not an instrument of unconsciousness, like a blackjack.
“Word Magic,” by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker
Ostensibly, the more logical you are, the more you recognize this sort of internal, mutual and/or institutional subterfuge; ideally – and in fact – logic thus makes one less prone to evasion, rationalization, justification….
Truly logical people know, logically, that
there is plenty for ALL on this planet, if we omit greed on the micro (personal
wealth hoarded and/or spent on thing after thing) and macro (nationalism,
imperialism, huge corporations oriented primarily toward profit) levels. I am
aware that’s not going to happen right this very minute – tho A and I wish
it would! – but what if, bit by bit, people and institutions became more
logical, and thereby more justice-oriented? What if empathy was linked primarily to real-life actions
and choices that actually promote justice (rather than to a nice-seeming attitude)?
It makes me bonkers when allistic people assume
that autistic people lack empathy. Here’s just ONE reason why: for many of us,
logic is linked to empathy as a value that must
be enacted, rather than as a feeling that may be ignored – or rationalized
away. Some people on the spectrum may seem self-centered, focused on their
Special Interests and/or socially inept, but their literality and logical-tendencies
typically make them among the most fair, just, unselfish, empathetic people
around.
Love,
Full Spectrum Mama
P.S. This is the Second NEURO-MOMENT. Read the
first here.
