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Sunday, April 8, 2012

Aspergerian thinking

Look up "liberal arts" at Dictionary.com and they give this definition:

"The academic course of instruction at a college intended to provide general knowledge and comprising the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, as opposed to professional or technical subjects."

I was talking to an Aspie the other day who insisted that a college education was meant to make students more liberal, and that "that's why they call it a liberal arts education." He explained this to me in a tone of voice which implied that I was a moron for not realizing this. 

I then challenged this Aspie, who is rigidly leftist, to name one position on which he took the conservative side. He answered, "I want to conserve the environment. See? I'm more conservative than you on that issue." 

Sadly, in neither case was he joking. 

This is how an autistic's brain works: they are just incredibly, pathetically literal. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is childlike thinking - the sorts of comments I might have made at primary school. I swear Aspies just assume what something is instead of looking it up, asking someone, or having the common sense to say "I'm not really sure what that is, sorry".

John Craig said...

Anon --
Yes, I've seen that inability to say "I don't know" many times.

Anonymous said...

Are you sure that no aspergics would be able to grasp why this is incorrect?

John Craig said...

Anon --
I don't think I said in this post that *all* Aspies would resort to arguments this asinine. But this particular Aspie did, and the literalness of his interpretations is something that Aspies in. general are often guilty of.