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#autism and authority - a thread about, well, autism and authority. Please share, as it may be useful to people outside of my followers. Thank you! /1
So this will be a two part thread - firstly, #autistic attitudes towards those in authority, and secondly, how #autistic people handle being in a position of authority. /2
I've discussed before, in one of these endless threads I do, how #autistic people often struggle to know how to act around authority figures. Actually, that's not true - we don't seem to *care* how we act around authority. /3
I think this is a vital distinction. It's not that we're deficient, after all - more that this 'authority' business is a neurotypical concept that we don't seem to share, and thus we tend to ignore it. /4 #autism
Let me give you an example. #autistic children in school famously find the authority of teachers hard to adapt to. Not because they're evil little ragamuffins, as some teachers would have it, but because their natural state is to assume equanimity. /5
#autistic students (and I speak from long experience) will not bow to authority for authority's sake. They will respect it, if respect can be had, and they'll do what they're told if it makes, sense, but they won't blindly accept authority. /6
By this point my teacher followers are wincing in pain as our main tool is automatically accepted authority. But what can I say? #autistic people are different! /7
This is *not* a deficiency, in and of itself. I believe its an offshoot of our particular brand of empathy that we excel at - it is used to find the common ground between people, rather than the differences. I'm aware I may be romanticising #autism a bit here - not my intention/8
So when presented with an authority figure, #autistic people seek out what makes us the same and in doing so obliterates the arbitrary (to us at least) difference of their 'authority'. We automatically seek to be on a level with *everyone* we meet. /9
This is subconscious and not controllable, unless we really need to. It occurs throughout our lives from childhood to old age. It makes us *really weird* to neurotypical people, who seem to accept authority happily. /10
So another example: an #autistic person meets their company's CEO. They know who they are, but they greet them as an equal. They say hi. They crack a Chandler-esque joke. They are relaxed and unfazed by the massive authority that is shrinking their peers down. /11
This may be great! The CEO might think, wow! Here's a go getting individual, if they're nice and positive. But they may also think 'who is this worm with no respect for my status?'
Then we're screwed. /12
Then we're screwed. /12
Similarly, this trait can absolutely ruin us when the police are involved. Its bad enough in the UK, but being #AutisticWhileBlack in the USA can get you killed in altercations with the cops when this issue is occurring, and this is happening a lot. /13
I'd recommend following @BeingKaylaSmith, @kerima_cevik and @Mis_TAught for lots more insight into this than I can give. /14
So, to recap, #autistic people (I think) don't recognise authority as a thing in itself. They will bow to greater expertise, experience, morality and creativity, very happily, but not just to 'authority' alone. This is a very good and a very bad thing. /15
Because sadly unearned authority is a big part of human existence. From police and the armed forces, whose authority is granted by an abstract "State", to random adults in the street telling kids off - it's everywhere. /16
And these institutions need to realise that there is a *significant proportion* of the population who will not accept blind authority, not because they're baddies, or naughty, but because their brains are wired differently. This needs to be accepted now.
I'm not excusing #autistic people of bad behaviour, by the way. There are always people willing to interpret my tweets in the most negative possible light. I'm simply stating its a factor that needs to be understood. /18
Firstly, unless you're literally the Queen, there will always be further authority above you somewhere, so all the earlier stuff in the thread applies. /20
But when it comes to dealing with our 'subordinates' (don't even like using the word) we perhaps tend to be very accepting, reasonable and fair? Is this a thing? /20
I know from my experience of being a manager/leader that I just wanted to let people do their job, and assumed they'd do it well. I wasn't happy issuing diktats to them or punitive messages from higher up, and tended to try to shield them from all that crap. /21
But this is not how managers are meant to behave. I couldn't handle the 'telling off' side of the job (like telling people of for being ill and absent - wtf?) so I handed in my notice and went back to the classroom teaching. /22
I feel that #autistic people might struggle with the expectations of holding authority, but ironically that we would 'wield' authority fairly and well. /23
Anyway, I need to tidy the house and play Ghostbusters (which is amazing, by the way). Check out my Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/pwharmbyautism
And if you fancy, I'm always in the market for a cup of coffee and life is too expensive. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/UfTVnRY
