"there didn't used to be all this autism around" no, what there USED to be were literal printed volumes on social etiquette because everyone was expected to know when it was rude not to offer a handkerchief or weird to reply to a thank you note. For no reason. Those books just, happened to exist!
1/2 Those books were written because of money (old vs. new) not neurodiversity. The moneyed folk only wanted people like them near them. Social climbers wanted to know how to fit in with the moneyed set so they could enter "society." That's why those books were written -- and still are.
2/2 There are more diagnosed with autism today because the rules changed. In the '90s and in 2013, the definition of autism was broadened dramatically. Also in the '90s, there was a push to go into special ed (paid more), and school systems starting understanding how to get more IDEA $$.
Wait! There's a Part 3! What used to be called "best teaching practices" was rewritten as "accommodation" and parents have been pushed to get their children diagnosed where they probably wouldn't have been pushed to do so a generation or more ago. I used to be a teacher. I witnessed the change.
My niece was DXed at 4. This means she got to enter school with 1-on-1 support. There's very good reason to get your kid DXed now. 100%.
That's awesome. I'm glad she's getting the support she needs.
Huh
This also explains a lot about the sort of women who run still (barely) extant finishing schools
My engineer grandfather who always ate the same exact foods for lunch, learned to read at three but didn’t speak until six, and could monologue on train timetables like nobody’s business was known as “an odd duck.” His grandchildren have autism.
are you saying autism was less visible because of ettiquite books or that these types of rules were generated by undiagnosed autistic people? I don't really follow your point
i think it’s the former - these books were made *for* autistic people, not *by* them because they don’t pick up on social cues, so they need to be taught. it could be the latter though… like arbitrary rules were made according to one person’s idea of the Order of Things. but i think it’s the former.
this doesn't comport with the historical use of these books and conflates social cues with ettiquite
i think there may also be the point of 'the social rules were not unspoken in the past and were literally written down which made it easier for autistic people to go along with the social code'
this vastly overstated the use of ettiquite texts and effaces the class basis of these texts, it also implies that if we only educated autistic people more autism would disappear, a backward beleif that many of us would take exception to
thats cool, i am also autistic and woukld fucking love a typed out manual to deal with NT people these days
writing on social mores is more available, more nuances, and more culturally sensitive now than at any point in history, but there will never be a universal manual to deal with people and longing for the days of cottilion classes and finishing schools is idiotic
okay i literally didnt say any of that, but you do you
i'm not taking umbrage with you, I just don't know what the fuck the original poster is on about
they were tomes! this is amy vanderbilt but emily post was also super popular
Humans tried to be “perfect”. It doesn’t work. You can make a $5 million dollar French garden and one of the leaves will simple be brown. You can’t tame humanity this way with forced manners. We just all can’t mask this much for something that sucks.
This always drives me nuts! I know plenty of older people, some over 80, who are definitely on the autism spectrum. Back in the 50s and 60s they were just called weirdos or nerdy!
I always come back to this scene from WarGames. youtu.be/GfJJk7i0NTk?...
This is how my youngest son and interact with Lego. I will be in a build but he keeps trying to take over. Or, when I finish, he will analyze the build, look at instructions and tell me where I messed up. My ADHD doesn’t work like his.
Wow! (Light dawns) I'm a baby boomer. My mother gave me one of those etiquette books when I was I think 12. Now I understand.
Maybe RFK Jr can study what causes bigotry next, because going by what pass for American history textbooks, it sure as fuck didn't exist then either.
also if we're keeping it 100 people used to pretend women and black people for example couldn't be autistic which like, what lol
There also used to not be all of these autistic people roaming around because we were locked in asylums where no one had to see us.
Silicon valley would be empty without neurodiversity.
I was non-verbal; went to a special school to learn how to walk; pissed in bottles bcuz was too afraid to leave my room; couldn't do basic math; failed all my classes; had no friends; missed half of my school days School staff & docs said I was "shy". Autism was here, they just didn't address it
Excellent point.
No no no, you don't understand! The FAIRIES took our perfectly normal babies and REPLACED them with FAE CHANGLINGS that asked strange questions and stopped making eye contact and became obsessed with collecting shiny rocks and--
my favourite example is there being like 20 different kind of spoons and a “right and wrong” time to use each.
The existence of terrapin forks strengthens this argument.
The right spoon is 100% a subjective vibes based decision
No, you're wrong. There is no spoon.
so did the autistic person write the book, or were they written for them to read?
personally think it’s highly likely they were written specifically for and dictated by royalty. i expect there’s been plenty nobles who were very particular about polite address and how they liked things ordered. what likely started as a well-intentioned caregiver manual just became prescriptive.
Isn’t the rule of thumb to work from the outside in? (In regards to the order of use per food course)
honestly, i'm not sure, i'm a heathen that puts their elbows on the table so i haven't been allowed a seat at one in a while.
RFK got methed up with Elon Boy.
Heroin. it was heroin, not meth.
I guess you can tell because of the color of his face.
Because we didn't understand that aspect of human behavior, and dismissed it, doesn't mean it wasn't there
It was also often called 'eccentricity' back then. Even now, there are no autistic people over 60, but there are quite a few that are quirky and eccentric. A rose by any other name ...
Is a flower?
True. Partial Shakespeare quote implying that you can call something by another name, but its still that thing.
Do you bite your teeth at me, sir?
No, but I have seemed to attempt to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. :)
*seemed to attempt* is a phrase i have not encountered.
You have now 😀
I forgot already.