Is being moral to a extreme degree an aspie trait?

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twinsmummy20
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03 Apr 2011, 12:09 am

I was reading a thread below where being moral was mentioned and it seems it was common among alot of posters. I am wondering if this is something because of the way aspies think. My husband and his twin brother are 29, never smoked, drank, or swore, including crap or any other word that may resemble a bad word (frick or something to that effect). I would ask my husband to swear when we first started going out and he wouldnt. Not even with me telling him it wasnt AT me, it was just a word. He wouldnt. The smoking, drinking, drugs thing is a good thing, but it was to a degree that most people dont take it. They wouldnt be around it, wouldnt see it, wouldnt buy it (my husband was of age and I was underage but he would never have bought it for me). In fact, they would make fun of their step dad who would steal and lie. They would never cheat, steal, lie, or any other action that is morally wrong. To a degree that even I, as a self proclaimed *good person* for the most part wouldnt go to. I guess I just never thought this was something. They have a sister who is not like that though, she has done everything. She is also not aspie.

Anyways, is anyone else like this. Is this something that is common? I guess it was almost like an obsession with being moral.



simon_says
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03 Apr 2011, 12:25 am

Ive always had a strong moral code but it's of my own making to some degree. Ive certainly done things that violated the codes that are laid out by society. I don't really respect society or it's judgement so it's difficult for me to care about what society might think.

My reasons for not drinking, using drugs or smoking as a teenager came from a complete immunity to peer pressure. It just washed off of me. I wasnt like them so what leverage did they have? None. I didnt really see it as a moral issue. But I did feel that kids who did those things tended to be on a losing track in other ways and I didnt want to emulate them. My resistance to peer pressure was so extreme that after I found myself being chided in junior high school by some music nerds (big subject at that age) for not knowing the details of some popular band of that era, I turned my back on music. I militantly avoided the subject and didnt collect or listen to music for 10 years.. Trying to get me to join the clan usually left me with the instinct to go the other way. But in my 20s I loosened up and tried many things.

My militant moral lines are more tied to not lying, fidelity, etc.



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03 Apr 2011, 1:12 am

twinsmummy20 wrote:
I was reading a thread below where being moral was mentioned and it seems it was common among alot of posters. I am wondering if this is something because of the way aspies think. My husband and his twin brother are 29, never smoked, drank, or swore, including crap or any other word that may resemble a bad word (frick or something to that effect). I would ask my husband to swear when we first started going out and he wouldnt. Not even with me telling him it wasnt AT me, it was just a word. He wouldnt. The smoking, drinking, drugs thing is a good thing, but it was to a degree that most people dont take it. They wouldnt be around it, wouldnt see it, wouldnt buy it (my husband was of age and I was underage but he would never have bought it for me). In fact, they would make fun of their step dad who would steal and lie. They would never cheat, steal, lie, or any other action that is morally wrong. To a degree that even I, as a self proclaimed *good person* for the most part wouldnt go to. I guess I just never thought this was something. They have a sister who is not like that though, she has done everything. She is also not aspie.

Anyways, is anyone else like this. Is this something that is common? I guess it was almost like an obsession with being moral.



Not really an aspie thing I don't think.

I also don't smoke or drink or do drugs.

I do swear when I am upset and I have known plenty of aspies who have sworn. I have tried smoking a cigar and I hated it. I have had wine coolers in the past. But I am not a fan of drinking because I can't stand how it tastes. I don't smoke because it's bad for your health and I can't stand the smell. I don't do drugs because they are also bad. I swear when I mess up or when I am very angry but I don't swear often. To me when people swear too much, it bothers me and I think they are angry a lot. I also don't steal or cheat. I also didn't party in my teens and do bad things other teens did.



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03 Apr 2011, 1:26 am

twinsmummy20 wrote:
I was reading a thread below where being moral was mentioned and it seems it was common among alot of posters. I am wondering if this is something because of the way aspies think. My husband and his twin brother are 29, never smoked, drank, or swore, including crap or any other word that may resemble a bad word (frick or something to that effect). I would ask my husband to swear when we first started going out and he wouldnt. Not even with me telling him it wasnt AT me, it was just a word. He wouldnt. The smoking, drinking, drugs thing is a good thing, but it was to a degree that most people dont take it. They wouldnt be around it, wouldnt see it, wouldnt buy it (my husband was of age and I was underage but he would never have bought it for me). In fact, they would make fun of their step dad who would steal and lie. They would never cheat, steal, lie, or any other action that is morally wrong. To a degree that even I, as a self proclaimed *good person* for the most part wouldnt go to. I guess I just never thought this was something. They have a sister who is not like that though, she has done everything. She is also not aspie.

Anyways, is anyone else like this. Is this something that is common? I guess it was almost like an obsession with being moral.


I have some amount of morality but no obsession with it......I mean I have to be careful with typing on this site so I don't accidently throw in vulgar language because when I talk I tend to use it unless I'm talking to someone who would get angry about it. I drink, smoke ciggerettes and have done other drugs. But I don't do anything that horrible, my morality kind of consists of my belief that people should do as they choose as long as they are not harming others.



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03 Apr 2011, 1:29 am

I have high morals and I remember when I was younger when I wouldn't even use rude slang.
That's all changed now though. Swearing brings real meaning to my words.
There is some degrading humor that I do not tolerate though.


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03 Apr 2011, 1:35 am

Definitely not an Aspie trait. It's following rules given to you that's the Asipe trait, and sometimes it's expressed through morality.


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03 Apr 2011, 1:38 am

I only started really swearing in the past few years. I did swear before that but fairly rarely - infrequent enough to shock my friends when I did. It's not about morality, I've just been somewhat unwilling to accept certain "colloquialisms" as a regular part of my vocabulary over time.

I don't smoke because the smell of cigarette smoke overloads me. Cigarettes are also, as League_Girl says, unhealthy. Too many people around me smoke, especially when we're all in a confined space (cars).

I used to drink, but I realized I would drink too much and stopped. Also, I have concerns (mild) about my liver and medications I do take can already cause a strain.

I feel I have strong ethics. I am not sure about describing things as moral, although I do have morality.



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03 Apr 2011, 1:40 am

TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Definitely not an Aspie trait. It's following rules given to you that's the Asipe trait, and sometimes it's expressed through morality.


I used to follow all the rules, now I can't bring myself to care much about them.



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03 Apr 2011, 1:42 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Definitely not an Aspie trait. It's following rules given to you that's the Asipe trait, and sometimes it's expressed through morality.


I used to follow all the rules, now I can't bring myself to care much about them.


Same here, but I had to learn how to break the rules first. That was no easy task.


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03 Apr 2011, 1:49 am

TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
TeaEarlGreyHot wrote:
Definitely not an Aspie trait. It's following rules given to you that's the Asipe trait, and sometimes it's expressed through morality.


I used to follow all the rules, now I can't bring myself to care much about them.


Same here, but I had to learn how to break the rules first. That was no easy task.


I had an actual meltdown on a forum last fall because I felt that a particular person was not following particular rules and that the moderators were letting it slide.

I actually am not always a stickler for rules, but it's really easy for me to fall into that mindset. I sometimes have to consciously set rules for myself to avoid it, and to do that, yeah, I had to learn how to break the rules first.



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03 Apr 2011, 2:14 am

Children with AS have a tendency to cling to certain utopian notions of right and wrong instilled in them by their parents, and tend to utilize binary logical thinking. If things can ultimately be sorted into a right and wrong bin, and there is never any ambiguity, it makes life a lot easier....or theoretically it should anyway.

When I was very young, my parents told me...
Never lie, lying is wrong.
Treat others as you would want them to treat you.
Never steal, stealing is wrong.
Don't talk to strangers.
Don't go with strangers

And so on.

I followed these rules to perfection until one day "Never lie" failed me and I got sent to my room for answering a question honestly and bringing a relative to tears over it (I still maintain she shouldn't have asked if she didn't want to hear the truth). I figured I shouldn't have told the truth in that scenario but I then again, I couldn't get over how silly it seemed to lie about the obvious. It was only years later that I devised a work around for these situations in which I didn't have to lie, and could still manage to be not quiet as offensive to people asking trivial questions.

"Treat others how you would like to be treated," resulted in me being ultra-altruistic. "Nice" was high on my list of desirable traits, and I thought the most important thing in the world was to be a nice person. Because I thought nice people made the best friends, I thought if I was a super nice person, people would become my friend....WRONG.

I realized too late that it doesn't work like that, not so much because people are evil, but because people are only so good at detecting the boundaries of others and calibrating standards.

I still do cling to those ideals above, only I'm more pragmatic about them today. I do talk to strangers on occasion, in the proper context, and I do treat others how I would like to be treated, but I also treat others how I think I would deserve to be treated if I did something inappropriate.

A person with AS doesn't have to be particularly moral. A person with AS is simply more likely to be rigid in what they have been told at some point is right and wrong, and this might not be morally right, but legally right, or not legally right, but morally right, or not legally or morally right, but ethically right.



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03 Apr 2011, 2:22 am

I was definitely a rule follower when I was in school. I wouldn't swear, smoke or drink, and honestly, I didn't understand why any of my peers did. I would sometimes get quite upset when my peers broke these rules. I don't understand why I felt that way, but I don't remember thinking of it as a moral thing. I felt that we were all supposed to behave a certain way, and they were breaking it. I think it may have had something to do with my wanting to maintain a good relationship with the teachers and other adults who wanted us to follow such rules. That mindset is a mystery to me, because i'm not such a rule follower today as I was then.

Anyway, when I was in college I picked up swearing (couldn't help it, I heard it so much). I still don't do it socially though. I've tried, and it always seems too awkward.



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03 Apr 2011, 2:36 am

Thank you Chronos, that makes a lot of sense.



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03 Apr 2011, 3:08 am

I have never smoked, consumed alcohol, or done drugs. I rarely swear.

I don't consider it a moral issue (although, I do also have very strong morals). I don't do those things because the first three are unhealthy (except drinking alcohol in moderation apparently), and I just don't see the point in doing them.



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03 Apr 2011, 3:35 am

I'm having a beer and a smoke now!

Is that immoral? Really?

Wouldnt hating on someone, or stealing fruit or something from a store, be an immoral activity?



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03 Apr 2011, 3:47 am

Surfman wrote:
I'm having a beer and a smoke now!

Is that immoral? Really?

Wouldnt hating on someone, or stealing fruit or something from a store, be an immoral activity?


It's not immoral at all.

I wonder, if you're starving and penniless and you steal a fruit, is that immoral?

If the person you hate had harmed you in some profound way, provoking the hate, is that immoral?