Half A Century-ish Milestone!
Welcome back to the 50th post of the Audacious Aspie! Hard to believe that the blog would last that long, or even gain an audience of any kind! From the ups to the downs, from the first hiatus (not sure that’s something to celebrate but still a first for me) to the first short post for this blog. It’s been quite an adventure, and now, as if to show literally an up-and-down graph, we’ll go from celebrating the 50th post to returning, for the last time, the NPR article on Hans Asperger’s potential Nazi links. Hooray!
Celebrate good time come on! It’s a celebration (Kool & The Gang).
Will, it's no mistake that since the person who named our condition has some serious links to the late Nazi regime, we’ll want to take stalk of what that means for us. If we continue to use the name Asperger for the name of a condition that some of us (me included) insist on being (partly, along with nerd, human being, etc.) classified with, we need to be ready for the backlash by wider society. And, most probably, groups within the Asperger community who begin to distance themselves from the name itself.
How will society see us? Some of them might feel emboldened by seeing, and portraying, us as a bunch of violent, unruly individuals, as because of our discoverers (for lack of a better term) Nazi ties. Perhaps, dare I say, we might even all be painted, without any truth (not that it ever stopped our detractors form making other claims) as somehow all neo-nazis. All because of of our conditions names and it’s history. The needless fear that others have towards us, born from their own paranoid minds and media, might also take this as proof of their beliefs.
And how might the splinter groups within the Asperger community see those of us who insist on staying true to the name? Hopefully not much, as they would still be faced with the new and old challenges by society, who would not bother to try to differentiate from them and us. Therefore, they would see us as allies of convenience. But for the those who insist on seperating from the wider community? We can only hazard a guess.
Whatever the case maybe, I strongly believe that we as a community, both people on the spectrum and our allies, must stick together against all odds, either from our opponents, or from within our own community. Strength in numbers, for if we break apart because of this, or any other issue, we’ll easily fall apart against both. And perhaps, in addition to this, we could turn this situation around, steal the wind from our opponents sails if they should ever try to use this against us.
This could be them after we steal their wind and use it to propol our own glider. Wind power: environmentally friendly and very empowering.
We’ve all heard of this strategy: take the thing that your detractors are using against you, turn it around, inside out, and co-opt it for your own. It’s no longer a weapon that can be used against you, but is now something that can boost you. If we take the whole Asperger-Nazi bit, turn it around and use it to say “hey ,the person who named us may have been a Nazi, but we are not. Nor will we ever be”. We change the meaning of the word Asperger from “Nazi stooge” to “condition that gives a person, quite literally, extraordinary abilities”, or however you want to word it. It no longer becomes a negative, but a positive.
Will that has been this weeks post, a troubling topic perhaps but at least it’s alllll over...for now. Has it piqued your interest? Turned you off? Made you run to of to an isolated area (or a sound proof padded room), scream out in rage for hours on end, run inside, than type up an angry, incoherent comment on social media? I’d say let me know, but no one wants to keep angry, incoherent comments to themselves, spoils all the fun. Until than, this continues to be, the Audacious Aspie.