They keep writing strange and disturbing things like these:
Megachurches give their members an instant and all-encompassing community, complete with youth ministries, classes for adults, service opportunities, and support groups. They offer one-stop shopping for all your community needs. And today, I miss that. It’s a lot harder to build your own community from scratch than it is to plug in to one that already exists. And then there are the things I didn’t even mention here: the feeling of a higher purpose, the feeling of solidarity with other church members, the sense of mission.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like and admire the blogger I quoted here. It is not my intention to criticize her in the least. I just want to point out that it would probably be easier for me to decipher a text in Chinese than this series of statements.
When I read the words “an instant and all-encompassing community” I feel an onset of a panic attack. Then, when I realize that the author sees this horrible, terrifying prospect as something positive, I’m completely baffled. The idea that somebody would want to build something as useless, restrictive, castrating and invasive as a community is extremely strange. Also, the idea that one would be able to combine a feeling of higher purpose while being dragged out by the leveling, grinding down machine of a community just leaves me speechless.
Once again, I’m not criticizing anybody. I’m just sharing something that makes me different from many people.
I sometimes despair of ever finding any mutual understanding with a non-autistic. Of course, there are always non-autistics like my husband who has been bribing me for years into not inviting anybody to visit us at home.
Clarissa's Blog 
That does explain a lot. I’ve noticed you write like someone who doesn’t feel the positive reward aspect of peer pressure.
My psychiatrist thinks I have Aspergers, but I can relate to what that person is saying.
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I don’t see the positive reward of peers, period. 🙂
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Then why did you choose a profession where peer review is a constant necessity??
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In this profession, it’s anonymous, so I don’t have to see them. In order jobs, yearly review includes interactions with people. Sometimes, even psychologists.
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I **think** (but could be wrong.. still a newbie here) that you are joking a little about not seeing the positive rewards of peers… but honestly it is hard not to see the positive rewards of peers.
Peers can give advice, validation, fun times, opportunities to experience the joys and challenges of their lives, the opportunity to help etc.
Presumably that is what your husband does.. he is still a peer.. just of a different degree than a large community.
Curious if and how you view this differently.
Also, this last comment is not meant to imply a “short-coming” of your view on peers.. but likely a possible explanation: Autistic people are often misunderstood and probably have had pretty negative experiences with either uninformed people or people who are frankly assholes… If you decide to avoid nearly *all* peers.. then their power to do you harm or hurt your psychological well-being is neutered… I know it probably sounds too “psychology 101” and their are certainly more nuances.. but it seems quite likely to me.
P.S ( I hope my comment style is not too annoying.. its basically a free styling of my thoughts with a little structure.. obviously not well-fleshed out prose i understand 🙂
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No, I like your comments. I think they are very good.
“Peers can give advice, validation, fun times, opportunities to experience the joys and challenges of their lives, the opportunity to help etc.”
– I hate people giving me advice (as evidenced by a series of huge blowups here on the blog when people tried), I don;t need others to validate my existence, I have the best fun on my own and have never in my life had fun with a large group (unless a lot of alcohol was involved). I love helping but then leaving immediately after that. 🙂
” Autistic people are often misunderstood and probably have had pretty negative experiences with either uninformed people or people who are frankly assholes… If you decide to avoid nearly *all* peers.. then their power to do you harm or hurt your psychological well-being is neutered…”
– And you are absolutely right.
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I think I must be autistic too. Because I too get a feeling of near-panic and recoil in instinctive disgust from the idea of an “all-encompassing community.” As for positive reward aspect of peer pressure, what the fuck is that even. I think your commenters are confusing the relief you feel when you have finally mollified your peers enough to make said peers go away, with the pleased feeling you get when someone you like and respect praises something you did.
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Funny. 🙂
A “community” where one has chosen every friend (or peer) is one thing. But this blogger misses a megachurch where she was just thrown in with people. People whose ideology she finds hugely oppressive, mind you. Yet she misses them. That’s what I don’t get.
I miss specific people. I miss specific commenters when they don’t appear on the blog for a while. But I don’t get it how one can miss a crowd just because it’s a crowd.
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“A “community” where one has chosen every friend (or peer) is one thing. But this blogger misses a megachurch where she was just thrown in with people. People whose ideology she finds hugely oppressive, mind you. Yet she misses them. That’s what I don’t get.”
Well, I guess it’s not entirely rational, it’s just a positive feeling associated with belonging. All I can say is that I feel it and it can be a struggle not to let it control me.
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I don’t think she means that she misses the ideology and the oppression that results, but rather that sense of belonging, and the ease of finding things to do and people to meet. I in no way miss my old church for those purposes, but I do miss my university. If she were to go back to church for those things, I don’t think she’d get them, for the same reason I don’t when I go back to visit Western: I’ve grown and moved on, whether I like it or not. The people I knew (mostly student-wise) aren’t there anymore, and I no longer am part of the community of “students.” I just feel awkward, and like one of those fuddy-duddies that hold onto the past and can’t move on.
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I think the idea of “instant community” is creepy and just sort of…yuccch. The whole point of community, as someone else mentioned, is when the members of a group choose each other, build trust and bonds over time, and so on. This “wow, all I have to do is show up and I’m in community” –that’s not anything I would consider any kind of real community.
(I’m not autistic, but I’m deeply introverted. This whole article to me smacks of the whole pressure-to-be-extroverted thing that’s so much a part of our culture…what do we need to be happy and successful? We need to be connected with a whole lot of people! Who like us! Who accept us! Who will surround us so we never have to be alone, because successful people-persons aren’t ever alone, right? Ggbbbrrrr.) (Have you read “Quiet: the power of introverts in a world of people who can’t stop talking”? Not revelatory, but it had some interesting stuff in it, and the fact that it was all trendy for a while gives me hope…this writer sounds like someone who doesn’t really want or know how to build community, but feels like she ought to be in one.)
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“This whole article to me smacks of the whole pressure-to-be-extroverted thing that’s so much a part of our culture…what do we need to be happy and successful? We need to be connected with a whole lot of people! Who like us! Who accept us! Who will surround us so we never have to be alone, because successful people-persons aren’t ever alone, right? Ggbbbrrrr”
– I know!!! It’s almost a heresy to say that one is not into community-building. Somehow, this community thing is supposed to be 100% good for all of us. This makes me feel like there is something wrong with me if I’m hugely happy without one. I like the people I have chosen to be in my life but as for the rest? Why should I need them?
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Isn’t community building the basis of modern-day society? I completely respect individual time and choosing to only be with the people you get along with for the majority of the time… but keeping the larger community is mind is what makes for a great country/world… (I probably sound a little hippie-ish (not a word… i know 🙂 )
In a VERY high level generalization I think it is fair to say that community is necessary to share ideas, concepts, to help others and to generate a sense of wanting a better world. On a personal level too I am somewhat of an introvert and there are many reasons I avoid interaction, but I can honesty say the majority of the reasons I avoide interactions are things I am working hard to overcome and it is very satisfying when real interactions with people from many different walks of life occurs… You don’t need have to need them.. but might it be fulfilling if you connect with some people who you originally
thought were so different?
P.S. (Due to a short-term slow down in work I have been all over this blog.. but in the long-term you don’t have to worry my commenting time will diminish.. but I will now add you into my daily reads with my economic, political, and technology blogs… I enjoy your assortment of topics greatly 🙂 )
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I do understand the idea of wanting to belong. I’m a deep introvert, but I would like to connect with a few people at least.
On the other hand, “all-encompassing community” sounds a bit cult-ish to me. This conversation reminds me of the phrase “team player.” What is that?! It seems like one of the emptiest, most banal terms to me. You must be a “team player” to be an asset? Can’t people produce valuable contributions without being the cliched “team player”?
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“This conversation reminds me of the phrase “team player.” What is that?! It seems like one of the emptiest, most banal terms to me. You must be a “team player” to be an asse”
– I agree 100%! What if I’m extremely productive but on my own? How am I worse as an employee?
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Oh, I can relate to some of that anti-community stuff. I think I have to watch myself because I do speak from a different style of awareness. I have noticed in the past that I use words in a way that is different from how many, perhaps even most people use them. From my point of view, I am always alone and all my experiences are intra-subjective, rather than inter-subjective. I experience everything in relation to myself, but not in a selfish way. When I went to Zimbabwe in 2010, I experience “community”, but really this was in a non-verbal sense. I traveled all across the countryside with people and discovered a rhythm in their way of moving and relating. I couldn’t speak their language, but I thought I had discovered “community”. But now, since I am assured that it exists, I don’t need to participate in it anymore. I have no inner cravings, apart from to know that that order of experience can exist.
Actually, I can’t relate to a lot of the issues posted here about norms of relationships and sexuality, because they are mute questions for me. I do as I please. There is no norm to that.
I think this mode of being is very difficult to understand. It must be, because my language betrays me all too often and people get it wrong. For instance, the paradigm of shamanism I have invented has nothing to do with self-improvement or humanity, or anything like that, but just experiencing terror and seeing what one can make of it. It’s not a mode of trying to make anyone do what they don’t want to. It has no social reference points.
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” I have noticed in the past that I use words in a way that is different from how many, perhaps even most people use them.”
– I feel the same way. Look at the whole patriarchy discussion.
” But now, since I am assured that it exists, I don’t need to participate in it anymore. I have no inner cravings, apart from to know that that order of experience can exist.”
– Very interesting. I don’t want to trivialize your experience but it seems like something that I feel at hockey games. It’s nice to observe this community feeling but I feel no need to be part of it.
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You can’t access my experience, so there is no capacity to trivialize it. Like I said, your reference points are civilization and mine are not. This was in Africa, and I felt a very strange, invisible hand of coordination, where everybody was somehow operating in unison and surviving against the odds, with an incredible amount of grace and rhythm. I don’t think anyone who wasn’t born in Africa can access this kind of experience.
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I’m sure you are right!
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Yeah, it’s a deep level of consciousness– the african drum beat.
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The other level of cultural discourse I really don’t get at all is the self-esteem issue. I don’t see life in these terms. If I’m having very enriching life experiences, I feel that everything is on track. If I’m not, I feel the opposite. This has nothing to do with my evaluation of an illusionary idea called “the self”.
This is a huge source of misunderstanding because, perhaps most people are pursuing self esteem. I don’t know. I never have. I’ve always only pursued experience. Also I’m somewhat on the extroverted side, so I don’t have many social inhibitions. I do what I want to do. I tend to avoid people who have an entirely different conceptualization of “the self”, because they inevitably think I’m saying something I’m not. I joke around a lot, and I’m not trying to dominate anyone by that, or drag down their self-esteem, but sometimes people who operate very differently in the world feel I am doing that. I don’t have much of a conception of self image, so I’m not so sensitive to those who do have one.
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“This is a huge source of misunderstanding because, perhaps most people are pursuing self esteem.”
– Gosh, I only wish they were. I had a boyfriend who went into a huge depression because he was convinced I was too good for him. The poor man actually suffered. He told me that his mother kept telling him when he was growing up, “Remember, you are nothing special.” The guy was 36. he’d had every opportunity in the world to pursue self-esteem before that. He didn’t. Now he’s an alcoholic (the classic consequence of low self-esteem.)
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Oh, I thought perhaps people were simply pursing self esteem wrongly, for instance, in trying to purchase the latest fashion or doing some weird thing to boost their status — something like that.
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“Oh, I thought perhaps people were simply pursing self esteem wrongly, for instance, in trying to purchase the latest fashion or doing some weird thing to boost their status — something like that.”
– This is just feeding the emptiness inside. It is impossible to pursue good self-esteem without finding an honest answer to the question as to who lowered it for you in the first place. Most people are so psychologically immature that they are incapable of ever placing their parents in the zone of criticism. Instead, they prefer to shop obsessively and chase after status.
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Oh yeah, I think it is very important to analyse the influence of one’s parents. One gets to the guts of a lot of issues that way. I still wouldn’t call the issue that has to be resolved “self-esteem”. I would call it underlying trauma. Certainly, there were many people in my culture suffering from that, and my thesis is largely an investigation of the meaning of that.
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I say to people, “You have no personal or professional life, are clinically depressed, and are on 15 prescription meds at the age of 30? Look for an underlying trauma.” The majority get fits of hysteria. Sad, really.
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Well, I have a theory that a lot of people simply don’t have enough roughage in their diets. Everything is too refined and pre-formulated. This in itself can lead to depression.
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I think, for a long time, I was pursuing a rite of passage, some way to recover my sense of continuity with myself, and a means to safely reenter and resolve historical trauma. I think that may come across as pursuing self-esteem, but the motivation is completely different. It’s fundamentally asocial. There is no social reference to this pursuit at all.
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Self-esteem is not inherently social either. On a deserted island, a person with low self-esteem will perish instantly.
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My conceptualization of it is that it’s social. I make this judgement because I came from a culture where nobody had any problem with self-esteem. It wasn’t an individualistic culture and self-esteem was not conceptualized or referred to in any way.
In an individualistic society, however, people seem to suffer from “low self-esteem”. Somehow, self esteem becomes an issue to be pondered, dealt with, etc.
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“In an individualistic society, however, people seem to suffer from “low self-esteem”. Somehow, self esteem becomes an issue to be pondered, dealt with, etc.”
– Right. I get it. Of course, for me life is only worth living in a fiercely individualistic society. I’ve had a taste of a less individualistic one and, for me, that was worse than not living at all.
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True. I would not like to live permanently in the kind of community I revisited in Africa in 2010. I also prefer an individualistic society, because one’s you’ve experienced that, you can’t go backward and accept a lower level of existence.
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I consider myself wayyyy in the non-autistic realm and what you’ve quoted is so exhausting and awful to me I can hardly read it. I can’t breathe. For me, my response is because of my extreme introversion. I am (as you know) interested in the experience of life from within the autism spectrum. What is it about your response to to quote that you believe is autism related?
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It’s the feeling that it’s written by somebody from a different universe. These feelings are so completely and profoundly alien to me that all I feel is wonder and puzzlement. It often happens that everybody around me reacts in one way and seems to share some code that I can access and I feel like an alien.
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Yeah! Okay. That’s similar, though, again (just replied to another comment on “Residual Nationalism”) there’s that need to find rules or order that fascinates me.
For what it’s worth, my fascination with these things has very little to do with Asperger’s/the autism spectrum and everything to do with me. 🙂 I’m almost always unable to *not* empathize with people and my way is so loosey goosey rule-less that people who live within structure are compelling to me.
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