Against notions of ASC Genius
I’ve noticed a pronounced tendency on the part of some to refer to AS as a superpower or some other such term connoting exceptional ability in some way. This view is expressed by people both inside and outside of the autism spectrum. A number of studies claim that autism and genius may share a genetic link. The truth or otherwise of that link is not, however, my concern here. Here, I am more concerned with the 'popular' view of the connection between autism and high intelligence and genius. Those who express this view from the outside usually have some pet prejudice or politics they need to validate, and so will romanticize the condition as if it yields some special insight deriving from some objective viewpoint, an Archimedean Point or Platonic world of Ideal forms. I’ve heard them do it with Greta Thunberg and it doesn’t just peeve me it pains me. The moral and intellectual laziness is staggering. Thunberg is praised for her special insight into climate change, seeing something that most others can’t see on account of her AS. How on Earth does this work? What possible grounds are there for this view? Thunberg is doing nothing more than repeat the views others’ have presented, and backed with scientific research, for decades. She does it obsessively, of course, with monotone repetition. That's not a superpower, just a well-known AS characteristic. Do it with am important issue and you are hailed a genius; do it with Elvis or football and you are labelled an idiot. Being very fair to Thunberg, she did make it clear that 'given the right circumstances, being different is a superpower.' I would be more cautious and say 'can be' here rather than 'is.' But I am in broad agreement. My target is not Thunberg but the lazy and indolent who romanticize the condition, the kind of power who shouted 'the power of neurodiversity' when I made the mistake of making my ASC public on social media. People with Asperger's and ASC are to be valued in themselves, not because they are pets of a political cause and cultural crusade.
The very people who praise Greta Thunberg for her possession of special insight on climate change are, in large part, the ones who themselves have been advancing the climate message for years, many from before Thunberg was even born. I exempt, of course, those of her own age group. Thunberg herself makes no claim to be a scientist and simply says ‘follow the science’ and ‘unite behind the science.’ Such phrases hardly indicate the possession of a special intelligence. 'Follow the science' is a meaningless phrase, seeing that science in itself leads nowhere; science is a reality check, which is valuable enough in itself. The repetition of 'the science' and the message 'listen to the scientists' requires no great insight. It is a monotone repetition of an obsessive interest. Like ‘Elvis is King,’ ‘Elvis is King,’ ‘Elvis is King.’ That makes for a particularly fanatical Elvis fan, not a person of any great genius. The implications of this for the environmental movement are not my concern here. I have addressed the dangers of scientism, elitism, and conformism in other places, no doubt to the chagrin of any remaining friends in the environmental movement. I agree very much with their ends, I am sceptical of their means, although this is a fluid situation and subject to democratic alteration. My concern in this essay is with the tendency on the part of some to claim Asperger's or ASC as yielding special insight. I don’t see this in Thunberg’s case and I see it even less on the part of those ‘normal’ folk who praise Thunberg’s insight in restating what has been known for a long time. I don't see it in my case, either. I see that we have the ability to fix, focus, and concentrate which, when we obsess over an important issue, can be powerful. But I am leery of it being hailed as genius, in the sense of some extra-special power not available to neurotypical people. Thunberg is being exalted by people who like to have what they alreadyconsider to be right, true, and good repeated back to them and confirmed by an unassailable authority speaking from an objective Archimedean vantage point. I’ve heard Thunberg, I have read Thunberg, there is nothing here I and millions more didn’t already know. There is no great breakthrough. I am interested less in the scientific aspects of the issue than the messy human and political aspects, the aspects which concern class dynamics, power, social stakes and interests, and policy-making and its socio-economic impact. Far from possessing some great vision that cuts straight through the murk and bias of prevailing society, there is plenty missing with respect to institutional analysis and a critique of political economy. There is plenty with respect to power and asymmetrical power structures that is glossed over.
It's not the climate issue that concerns me here but the praise that has been given for sweeping statements and ambitious climate demands issued without responsibility. It is the idea that Thunberg possesses special insight here by virtue of her Asperger's that has disturbed me, in the same way that some critics have referred to her as having a mental illness and as being disturbed also on account of her Asperger's. That's the nature of this kind of beast, with the sanctification comes the demonization. This is lazy indolent drivel and I bitterly resent and reject it. Because I know that I and many more people on the spectrum will ‘see’ and state ‘truths’ clearly, truths that the neurotypical people who populate ‘normal’ society can’t see and won’t articulate, only to have the people accommodated to that society either ignore the truth-tellers here or reject them. We know this because that is precisely what those on the spectrum will say. These are the people who tend to live on the margins of society, their voices unheard, their needs unmet. I can certainly speak of my own experience here, but I know that I am far from being alone. The people who hail truth the most can be very selective in the truths they hail – they come alive to the truths which they already know and with which they agree, whilst remaining deaf to those that do not conform to their worldview. Had Thunberg railed against immigrants or people of colour, she would have been treated as someone whose condition has made her obsessive and disturbed. Instead, she speaks of climate change, and is hailed. The reason is that the crisis in the climate system is the defining problem of the age, with causes clearly identified and backed by a wealth of scientific research. In other words, the position is based on sound evidence and research and has squat to do with special insight and powers. I insist on scientific research allied to hard institutional analysis.
Outsiders may project truth, goodness, and beauty on people who have Asperger's and ASC - and many in the ASC community may claim these things for their condition, but for many with autism their condition is not a beautiful difference to be celebrated - it can be a living Hell. Many people with Asperger's and autism hate their lives. I would need to find the exact figures on this, but upwards of half of people wiith autism suffer from an anxiety disorder and mental and physical illness. They are more vulnerable to depression, self-harm and suicide. These are the things that the romanticizers of AS genius tend not to want to talk about, if they are aware of such things at all.
My target, then, is the romanticization of AS. I make an issue of this because this romanticization comes with the corollary that people with Asperger's and ASC have to be, do, and say something special in order to justify their existence. That’s pure rot, and I would caution people with AS strongly against going down this route, however much the celebration of Thunberg makes them feel good about themselves. This is mere pandering to the tastes and soliciting the approval of ‘normal’ folk. The passion and support of the neurotypical here is for the cause and not the condition. It will not be generalized beyond the issue of 'special interest.' The only people who have warmed to my special interest (obsession) in Elvis is fellow Elvis fans, who are most appreciative.
I have been called a ‘genius’ by more than a few people over the years. I've been called an idiot many more times by many more people, mind. I don’t feel much like a genius, but then again I don’t know what a genius is supposed to feel like. My own view is that I have a modicum of intelligence and a tendency to obsession. Through being detached from the normal operations of normal society, I have had an awful lot of time on my hands with which to indulge my interests and passions. I more than meet Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule. I have worked hard at my researches and writing, and some of that writing, I maintain, is of a very high quality. A lot of it is verbose and repetitive, too, mind. But rather than claim to be exceptional or a genius, I will simply say that I am different, in the sense that every person has his or her own unique genius. Given that each person is unique, everyone has a claim to be different. Some just get greater time and space in which to cultivate that difference. I work in my own time and space. I have had to. I couldn't function at the pace of others in the places of others. So I found my own special way in my own place. So I will claim to be different in a special way. That’s special as in distinctive. It doesn’t necessarily mean better and, for the same reason, it doesn’t necessarily mean worse. That’s my bugbear against the romanticization of autism, the sense that a person with AS has to do something of genius or of exceptional quality to earn the respect and validation of the public.
This is a significant issue which I’ve noticed cropping up in the AS community, a tendency for the celebration of difference to tip over into assertions of superiority and exceptionalism. I have seen some people praise themselves as members of the coming race, possessing a superintelligence that sees beyond the murk and bias of normal people to found a social order on logic, reason, and evidence. I take this to express a craving for certainty beyond the frustrations of the 'yes/no' world of human beings.
I recognize the arguments of those who reject the term ‘disability’ and seek instead to emphasize ‘diffability,’ or different ability. There are two things that trouble me about this, though. The first is the invitation to elide the very definite problems that accompany AS as a condition. I know for fact, having learned the lesson the hard way, that there are things that others can do easily that I either can’t do or struggle so much to do as to indicate a practical social incapability. However much people may dislike the word, that describes a disability, and I’ll not be bullied into not using it by positive ‘can doers’ who seek to emphasize alternate ways of doing, being, and acting. Those ways are certainly possible and do exist. I don’t need to be told this, and nor does anyone with this condition. I have spent a lifetime finding workaround solutions to the problems of everyday living. I know all the indirect ways that lead me to the ends that normal people normally attain by the direct route. The second point, then, is that the effectiveness of any 'alternative abilities approach' depends at least as much, and probably a whole lot more, upon society and its members making changes and allowances for the special requirements of a person on the spectrum as it does upon that person. That emphasis on the social nature of human beings and the need to establish the appropriate habitus for human flourishing is central to my philosophical and political work. That work on 'rational freedom' recognizes that no-one can go it alone when it comes to social living, that we need each other to be ourselves. In that sense, each and all individuals are at a disadvantage and disability when they are treated as discrete self-possessing, self-moving, self-maximizing atoms. Life in a market society is a competitive struggle and it is hard and well-nigh impossible for most people, forever pushed to their limits. The point is, though, that such a life actually is impossible for people on the spectrum – the enabling others are more often than not non-existent in the lives of people with Asperger's and ASC. That leads to my third concern. Whilst behavioural therapy is good on the whole and to be embraced, to the extent that the problem is personalized and individualized, individuals are left to cope with their condition alone, having to ‘take control’ of something that is not actually in their control, certainly not when it comes to solutions. There has to be wider change, one in the relations of each to all. Only then does the ‘can do’ philosophy become something more than a glib slogan that evades the problem and saddles those who struggle to cope with the burden of guilt for their failure to measure up to impossible targets.
Of course there is a need for care and sensitivity. But the whole area is a PR nightmare. Pull your punches and the things that need saying get left unsaid, for fear of upsetting people who mean well. I don’t write these words in order to upset. The words may well be provocative, but my concern is to provoke serious thought and further inquiry. And if people are indeed sincere in their offer of help, then it makes sense to give them some further insight into the AS predicament and thus render that help more effective.
In objecting to the ‘can do’ people who emphasize the positives of different ability to the negatives of disability, I note the dangers of an ‘aspeism; which holds those on the spectrum as being blessed with special powers. Here, the notion of ‘diffability’ transitions easily into the idea that aspies are better and hence advantaged in some way. I have seen this with respect to claims of having a superior intelligence. It is more true to say that those who are detached from society and people and hence from social concerns and interests may well tend to emphasise reason and logic, a truth that trumps the considerations of social practice. Any 'super-intelligence' here, then, merely measures the distance of the super-intelligent from the society of others. Entirely missed by this intelligence, however, is a social and emotional intelligence as to how things actually work and human relations are maintained.
Worse, though, is the potential for the claims of super-intelligence and superpowers to be taken as face value. From which it would follow that people with Asperger's and ASC are not needing of the concern, care, and help of others. That’s rot, and dangerous rot, and risks the loss of support that those on the spectrum most certainly need. I know I do, the fact that I am a genius with superpowers notwithstanding.
I am arguing forcefully here in order to check tendencies to elitism and superiority in those views which maintain AS as some kind of special condition that bestows those who have it with privileges and powers. This will rebound badly upon those many people in the AS community who need help. I note the extent to which particular situations and issues come to be reframed so that a righteous light comes to shine on a person presented – or presenting themselves – as a "misunderstood genius." I’ll openly admit that I may well have done some such thing in my AS autobiography with my extended passages on and comparisons of my condition to Wittgenstein, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Weil and such like. I like the odds. I am one of the odds. But the arguments I present in my philosophical work are concerned to undercut notions of elitism, superiority, and special insight to offer a thoroughgoing democratisation based on the relational unity of each and all.
But point taken. In my personal interaction with others, I will resist being questioned and will react haughtily and even aggressively against those who ask for reasons for the various positions I take. I do not like to be held to account for my views. In exchanges I will close my ears to the arguments of others, either ignoring them in the hope that they will fall into silence or, if they insist on pressing a point, becoming short, contemptuous, even angry. To be fair I have argued back at length with people, in the hope that they will understand and finally accept that I am right. But in no time I usually find that I am accusing them of either ‘not understanding’ or ‘completely missing the point’ in order to end debate. I like to state my fundamentally correct views on all things. Since I know this happens, I do my level best to avoid such situations. 'There are forums for this kind of thing,' I have been known to say, which is my polite, if pompous, way of telling people to shut up since they are self-important bores who are nowhere near as clever as they think they are. If I was to actually say that, it would possibly sound a tad elitist, somewhat dismissive, and plenty rude. So I don’t say it. Not in so many words. I prefer deeds and practices to words.
I have a view that people, regardless of the daft things they say and the ridiculous views they hold, have a tendency to do the right thing by others. So I try to develop a philosophy of practice, praxis, one that is embedded in the way society is organised. Rousseau had a view that in a corrupt society the only thing you learn in discourse with others is their errors. He shunned the salons, and so do I. But maybe that is evidence of my elitist sense of superiority and the dismissive disgust I have of others. I notice it on social media. I keep out of arguments and don’t really engage with others. At a distance, though, I note the comments that people make on social media and feel disgust at the levels of assertive stupidity, ignorance, and self-confirmation. A lot of people are basically just massaging their pretensions and prejudices, soliciting approval, seeking reassurance and praise. I used to do it myself, but soon noticed that people were not really understanding or were missing the point …. It’s not a place where I am comfortable. I am better than that, and have a view which is far ahead of others. Being so superior and all that. I do need to keep telling them, not on a daily basis.
Because I am, of course, not merely different, but exceptional. The problem with seeing things that others cannot lies in finding the language and terminology which translates that vision into a form comprehensible by all. People will understand things in their own terms, and translate your words into their own.
It’s best to plod on in your own special way, in the hope that here and there some people will pick up something or other and take it on board. I reject this notion of special insights and powers thoroughly, though. At least in others. I can’t throw coins into a vending machine from a range of one hundred feet. Heck, I can’t even use those machines at all and hence keep well away from them. I see them at airports and railway stations. They are another world to me. I can’t quadruple my considerable muscle mass to lift a car into the air. I can’t even drive a car. I’m being stupid, but these claims of special powers and insights is seriously annoying, because it invites responses that are unhelpful. The pretensions to exceptionalism on the part of some cannot but affect all in the greater scheme of things. If some can overcome the notion of disability to embrace the idea of different abilities with such enthusiasm, then it follows that all others can too. If those different abilities also take the form of exceptional and superior powers, then it follows that those claiming to be in difficulty and in need of help need to do more, work harder, and engage in more positive thinking. Whatever it is that ails them, it is all their own fault.
I have a feeling that a lot of aspeist elitists are really reframing their past struggles as achievements, their past frustrations as failures on the part of others to understand. The elitism is an "offence mechanism", which is the overt form taken by the more familiar “defence mechanism” that Aspies exercise in order to protect themselves in a world that conspires to misunderstand them. It’s a preemptive strike which presumes continued misconnection and miscommunication in relation to others. The behavioural pattern is not altered but inverted. People who are inclined to be withdrawn and defensive owing to bad experiences with others in the past can become overly assertive and aggressive when attempting to go on the front foot with people, entering the society of others as if anticipating the blows that have been received in the past.
As folk are different, but not thereby exceptional. They can be. But it’s not obligatory when it comes to considerations of worth. It’s not a requirement to be valued. I wish I could do half of what the exceptional people can do, because I have spent a lifetime doing courses and passing exams in the hope certificates will serve a licences for me to finally enter ‘normal’ society. Instead, the endless studying has functioned as an alternate world for me, giving me some kind of identity and self-worth.
There is a need for understanding here. The character traits of AS are such that AS folk can take somewhat odd directions and deviations. Odd as in ‘oppositional defiance disorder.’ I am being deliberately odd and defiant in my comments here.
AS people are smart in certain things. In fact, they can be very smart in the things they are interested in. This is where an AS person’s ‘gifts’ lie. But it doesn’t make AS people generally smart, and certainly not smart in all things. For my own part, I developed an interest in philosophy and took it to a very high level. So much so that very many have urged me to embark on an academic career. I investigated the possibility and made a bit of an effort. But I could see from the start that the things I was expert in were the things I am interested in. A professional academic has to cover a range of subjects, not only those of his or her specialist interest. I have no interest in subjects other than my own. With AS, that ‘no interest’ can mean no ability. I am expert in my obsessions. When those obsessions are particular philosophers, such as Kant or Plato, that can strike both academics and non-academics as most impressive. The test, however, is the ability to range beyond one’s own interests. Here, I am dead.
Aspies have a hard time relating to others. It is easy here to go from deficiency to overcompensation. There are difficulties in opening up with others and showing trust, for the very reason that Aspies have often been pressured into being something they are not. The way others interact, communicate, and learn doesn’t quite work with Aspie brains. Many were told that they were stupid at school, as a result of poor scores and low grades. I had this. Whilst many fall behind at school and become dropouts, I managed to hang on in there, pass exams, earn certificates. But I still ended up as a dropout of sorts. Endless studying was my dropping out of the social world of work, responsibility, marriage, and mortgage. I avoided that indebtedness by embarking upon a life in debt at the margins. I looked upon my academic achievements as if they would resolve my past problems. I resolved nothing this way. Passing exams and earning certificates was a continuation of my problems in a seemingly legitimate form. I never quite came out of that ‘student’ mode.
I can only speak formyself, in an attempt to convey how it feels. It’s like being left-handed in a world set up and run by the right-handed, a dwarf among giants, or a giant among dwarfs, whichever is most disadvantageous. You retreat to the world you have created around you for the reason you can find no place and no peace for yourself in the ‘real world.’ The condition comes with so much frustration, pain, and anxiety that life can only be described as a constantly traumatic experience. It’s more than stress, which is normal to everyday life, but something persistent, with no prospect of relief. The burden can become unbearable and people can crack under its weight.
My point is not to exalt some over others, but to establish that whilst there are indeed different groups of people, good and bad are present in all groups, and are not the exclusive preserve of any one group and denied to others. It's time to dissipate ignorance, put an end to the fighting and start communicating out of a commitment to embrace one another. Instead of trying to change each other, the goal should be to understand one another.
Human beings have aninfinite capacity to ruin everything for everybody. We can do our very best to check that capacity, and are under an imperative so to do lest civilization collapse in a common ruin. It is wise to proceed from the notion that human beings are flawed creatures. Once you accept that and learn how to respond when you are confronted by someone who directly affronts your personal vibration, then your defences will be so solid as not to require recourse to the offensive mode. I’m more easy with others than I used to be. I used to be not merely contemptuous of others but positively angry towards them. My upset was always born of anger at being misunderstood in ways that put me in a bad light.
Human beings are delusion monkeys, biased for some things and against others, blind to things that others can see clearly. The basis for miscommunication and disconnection is hardwired, although it can be modified by participation within right relations and practices.
In arguing that AS folkare not superheroes, I am plainly concerned with something distinct from the kind of people who think they are supra-human and god-like. Such people have something more than autism going on. They are not my concern. I make reference to Greta Thunberg’s more modest claim that AS in some respects is a ‘superpower’ which enables her to see things more clearly and persist in her efforts to publicize the things she is concerned about. It is the crossover from that position to a romanticization of AS on the part of neurotypicals for whom Thunberg is the postergirl of their political platforms that is my concern. I note the extent to which certain AS folk can express themselves in such a way as to imply that their different character is a cognate of exceptional ability, even genius and how, from there, conflicts with others stem from being forever misunderstood by lesser minds.
I exaggerate a little.There is a need to exercise care here, because very many will not understand the source of my grievance. There may well be those who will understand my words to be an attack on Greta Thunberg. To such people any criticism of Thunberg is a personal attack. To the extent that they are indulging in false religion and prophecy, I am most certainly a non-believer. Persecute away, I could care less what people of that ilk think. I have much greater targets than cultists.
But then again, I maywell be blessed with a superior insight that leaves those trying to engage with me at permanent risk of falling into misunderstanding. I am, admittedly, pretty exceptional and can see things in an instant that can take others eternities to see. Those seeds of greatness may be planted within everyone, it’s just that being on the outside I have had ample time and space to grow to full size. I have checked this with the people I know, and some of them confirm it to be true. (I won't make reference to the very many more who have called me an idiot). I may well be a misunderstood genius, then. It could well be, following Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, that if you practice throwing coins into a vending machine long enough, you may well manage to get one or two in. I think with enough weight training you could also increase your muscle mass to such an extent that it would be possible to lift a car. Actually using a vending machine or driving a car remain as yet impossible for me. But should I one day manage to accomplish any of these things, it wouldn’t make me a genius. Personally, I think I have a better chance of pulling off the coin throwing trick than of driving a car.
The problem, however, lies with the assertive superior types who hail themselves as standing at some psychological or intellectual apex on account of their blessed condition. Good luck to them. Because all I’ve ever found is difficulty, frustration, exclusion, impossibility, and misery.
So let me sum up the above by way of conclusion:
- Read what I have to say, I have a serious point to make.
- I really have a serious point to make. Listen.
- There are people out there who talk rubbish and make outrageous claims.
- Here are lots of clauses and qualifications to preemptively discredit and discount any anticipated counter arguments, prior to actually making an argument.
- Here are some extreme examples of people who claim to be gifted being merely deluded.
- Conclusion.
Put like that, it can seem like I have some anger issues I need to address.
Except that I think my anger is justified with respect to specific targets – those who most certainly do advance claims that slide easily from the recognition of AS as an alternate ability, a diffability, to claims that it is a superpower of some description, giving its holders some privileged status over the merely ordinary human folk, the neurotypicals.
My concern is this:
Many have been beaten with the stick of “Hard Love” throughout their lives, and continue to be beaten with it. The beating comes as a result of failing to do the things that others claim we should be able to do and do easily. Denying disability comes with the danger of identifying failure not with the inability to do things but in an unwillingness to do them. There follows yet more administering of the stick of ‘hard love,’ for our own good, to encourage us to search harder for our alternate abilities, find them, and use them. My point is that those abilities need time and space, and they need others.Without that, we simply face the stick of social and institutional arrangements that are straight and unbending.
So I have taken the risk of speaking out of turn in order to give the romanticizers of AS a hard punch on the nose. They need it. They make me angry. I reserve my greatest anger for the neurotypicals who do this. They plainly see something they like, a view or a platform they agree with being asserted, and proceed to claim that those advancing it are gifted with some special insight not available to those integrated within and reconciled to a corrupt society. I know the element of truth inthat view. I have expressed it myself with reference to the objectivity that comes with being in exile. But the highly selective approach taken to the praise and celebration gives cause for concern. There is no real interest in and concern for AS as a condition, those with AS are praised for merely uttering views with which those handing out the praise agree. That’s an indolent and insidious approach, reinforcing the view that the worth of people is a function of earning their praise. Keep it!
People with ASC come in many shapes and sizes, and express many different views. We should reject a position in which recognition and respect is earned only by the parroting of some conventional wisdom. The romanticizers are really only responding to a message they favour, not the AS messenger; their support has nothing to do with the condition of AS, zero. Their indolent views on this issue risk doing real damage to AS people who are involved daily in desperate struggles to even discern their different abilities let alone apply them in a society of others that is not always very accommodating. I don’t mind being a lonely voice on this. I am used to being alone. I do my best work alone. I have been involved in heavy lifting my entire life. The rewards are on the other side, it is claimed, but so too are the scars, and they are suffered every step of the way.
In fine, the idea that AS people are superheroes with superpowers is mere stereotype and caricature, an inversion of the dominant view that merely reinforces the tendency to trap people by labelling instead of subverting its constraints. This attitude merely reverses what has unfortunately been the dominant view, that any minority psychological differences are inherently bad / negative and that neurotypical is the best that a human being you can be. The bad / negative stereotype is thus challenged by a good / positive one. It’s a mug’s game in that it keeps us trapped in the same world, merely swapping names and their meanings without addressing realities.
The fact is that many people who are exceedingly intelligent are aspies. Many of the genes that make for above average intelligence are the same genes that make for Aspergers. So no wonder why some people get unnerved at aspies. And it is no wonder that many aspies also get hacked off. It is extremely frustrating to have both strengths and weaknesses, to be extremely gifted at some things and a complete dunce at others. In a team roles test in 2010 I was discovered to be a Plant, the genius known for intellect and imagination in a group. The ideas person. That sounds great. It isn’t, for the very reason you are involved constantly in trying to make the complicated ideas in your head comprehensible to those who not only struggle to grasp them but whose mental processes are wired differently. In other words, your gifts come in areas and ways that others will struggle to understand and accept, resulting in incomprehension and indifference. Your strengths thus come to be ignored, leaving only your weaknesses for society to see and focus on. It is easy to understand that when you have had many people constantly telling you that you are inferior you develop a defence mechanism to protect yourself and, maybe, in time, an offence mechanism that takes the fight back to let society know of your gifts. It is at this point that the notion of different abilities can come to look like superior abilities, and those holding them and affirming them appear haughty and elitist.
The view that minority psychological states are necessarily inferior is mere bigotry born of ignorance. The dominant view isn’t necessarily, and isn’t always, the absolute best on all things on all occasions, and change for the better tends to occur when certain groups, of all kinds, prove themselves to be proficient in ways the majority aren’t. In time, minority traits may ‘take’ across society as a whole, resulting in change.
