Autistic Blogger calls Temple Grandin ableist and classist

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http://www.autistichoya.com/2013/08/cri ... andin.html

Basically says Temple doesn't care about low-functioning autistics that much

I sometimes like things that Lydia has to say, but often dislike the academic/critical theory/polemic/political-correctness-police dressing the thoughts are packaged in.

There is a way some of that reminds me of:


Endless in-fighting and making near-allies into enemies for the sake of the movement, and because it's much harder to fight the real enemies.

In the end, it's simplistic, reductionist, polarizing, offensive and inconsistent with her stated aim of being "affirming of all bodies/minds."

Temple Grandin is a complicated person, like most people. Picking out little bits here and there from decades of her work and using them to build a bogey man with her name is kind of disgusting to me.

Really? Is that language really necessary or OK?

This is an approach to thinking that kills nuance, subtlety and complexity. It does not sit well with me.

Seems manipulative to write "trigger warning: ableism" in an article about Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is right to encourage autistic people to get jobs. Why should we not be contributing to society? It seems like the author of this article is being more ableist by implying that autistic people are unable to have jobs.

That blog is horrible.

Looks like this blogger is twisting Temple's words against her. She's basically created a strawman to argue against.

That blogger is master of twisting words, the comments are sheeple like on most articles

Honestly I can understand why she would feel that way. Temple is pretty biased about treatment for ASDs and us learning social skills so we can live a successful life and she thinks any ASD person can be successful and turning their interests into a career. I like video games, she would probably tell me to go to tech school and do computer programming and work in that field to get a job in that area. She might tell me about social networking and say I needed to put my mind to it. That is what she did to one of my online friends about his interest in maps. Not everyone on the spectrum likes her. She still thinks there are only three types of autistic thinking which I think is not true. Back in the 90's she thought all autistic people were visual thinkers like her but she found out how wrong she was. Some blame her bias views on her autism.

I don't know how she feels about the LFA. I have only seen her express how she feels about aspies and HFA. I take everything the author wrote as a grain of salt because it's just her opinion.

I see some who are disagreeing with the author.

Temple Grandin should not be above critism for the sake of Autistic unity or any other reason. She does not speak for all autistics or is 100% correct. But the blog is not the way to do it. It is just throwing around a bunch of isms and is a personal attack. There is no mention of anything specific she said at all. Ableism, classism are serious accusations. You better have evidence of 1. Actual ableist statements 2. That the ableist statements were made because the person is actually ableist.

Beware of "tumblr autistics", that is, someone who was not so popular at school and therefore decided that "autistic" would be a nice special snowflake identity and thereby went ahead and self-diagnosed themselves. Never went to see a professional for evaluation. Kind of like the woman who decided she got PTSD from twitter. Bunch of loons.

These outspoken people taint the image of actual autists. We're not like those unpleasant weirdos!

First off, I am a big fan of Temple Grandin. I have read several of her books and have watched several online videos where she spoke (some involved her being interviewed while others were her simply speaking to a group of people about her experiences). I think she is an amazing person.

Generally I disagree with the blog post. I did find the following quote interesting:

Based upon what I have read, it seems that Temple’s upbringing, particularly the role her mother played in that upbringing was crucial to her becoming who she is. And it’s this message that I think is critical. That each of us comes into this world with things that are good and bad. And we can all become productive and worthwhile members of society, whatever that means (to the individual). But, it may take some help. And, it’s the role of the parent to help facilitate this process.

I think the blogger wants autistic people to take her word as gospel instead, but I find that Temple has much more useful things to communicate. Temple is not authority on all things related to autism, but she has said many useful things that truly encourage autistic people like me, I put some of Temple's advice in her books and interviews into practice, and this helped me a lot.

What does this have to do with Temple Grandin or the blogger?

It has everything to do with the insane social justice rambling we see on a lot of blogs.

"This person discriminates so and so, the world owes me everything now because I self-diagnosed with autism, please accomodate."

These are the attitudes connected to neologisms like "sexist", "ableist", "ageist", "racist" and all this newspeak these incessant conflict-mongerers spew out non-stop. Fault finders, problem creators and people who want an eternal victim identity; professional victims.

Alarm bells went off full force when I encountered "problematic" in the blog. It's the latest trend now among SJWs. "Problematic". It doesn't actually address anything. It's just a nice pavlovian trigger to throw in for good measure.

I loathe what internet has done to associations to autism. If I tell someone I'm autistic IRL they are unlikely to take me seriously because their associations with the term "autistic" is tumblr blogs by social justice warriors who thought "autism" was a nice excuse to act inappropriately and blame it on something.

Same with the daily whine threads over here. It has nothing to do with autism. Pessimism and complacency is not exclusive to autistics.

These people will find a problem with anyone being autistic and speaking out. They are professional victims and when someone who is actually autistic represents themselves in a way that conflicts with their perception of autism as an edgy identity label, it becomes "problematic".

That's quintessential of the homogeneous thought collective that afflicts the most stringent adherents of the neurodiversity movement (including autistic/aspie supremacists), they always discard the lower functioning autistics by the propagation of the anecdotal paradox; when you consider the intellectually articulate cases, Amelia Baggs, Dora Raymaker and Amy Sequenzia etc. For me this article implies nothing but in order to stipulate rhetorical SJW/Critical Theory hegemonic social conditioning towards readers while masquerading as "critically independent freethought" in the pertinence of ableist and socioeconomic concerns.

While the concurrent manifestation of nonverbal expressive deficiencies and unprecedented intellectual and cognitive abilities are not mutually exclusive in a minuscule proportion of the severely affected end of the heterogeneous ASD spectrum, they predominantly use this as one of the many insufficient excuses (others include the high functioning/low functioning dichotomy) to prevail on parents (who are not credulous) not to consider significantly treating their children whose developmental profiles generally correspond to the research writings of Leo Kanner, not Hans Asperger.

I don't remember Temple saying any of those things about people who are LFA. All I remember is her saying that all children who are on the spectrum should be raised and seen by their parents to be the best that they can be.