3:31am May 17, 2014

Allistic

daemutt:

youneedacat:

When you say allistic to mean nonautistic…

What you’re actually saying, is that autistic means self-oriented and that its opposite means other-oriented. So you’re saying that autistic people are essentially self-centered, and that nonautistic people are other-centered.

You may not actually know that, because you may not know that aut means self and all means other. But that’s precisely how they came up with the word. I was there. As in, I was actually there, arguing against it, from the beginning of the time that the word was first thought up and propagated.

I understand, more than most people who talk about language on tumblr, that language moves on and that most people who use language aren’t thinking about its origins, or even aware of its origins.

But before you ever use the word allistic, remember how it was created. Remember that if the person had wanted to coin a word with less offensive connotations, then they could have. Then make your own decisions.

I will never, ever use it. Ever. Because I am extremely offended by the idea that autistic people are more self-oriented, self-centered, or selfish than nonautistic people, and that nonautistic people are therefore more other-oriented, other-centered, or aware of others. These are not generalizations that stand up to anything.

I’ll use autistic because it’s the only word we’ve got, and because practically nobody who uses it these days thinks too hard about where the word came from. But allistic is a neologism, it was coined for a purpose, and its connotations are entirely deliberate. You won’t ever catch me using that word, because I couldn’t agree less with what it means.

Fortunately nonautistic has been around longer than allistic has, means the same thing, and isn’t offensive, not to mention more people can tell what you’re actually trying to say.

Understand I’m not telling you what words you have to use. If you’re going to continue using allistic, that’s fine with me. I’m just explaining, in detail, why I not just don’t use the word allistic, but find the entire premise behind the word offensive.

Allistic people are liking and reblogging this uncritically of course I am not surprised :/

Like seriously, this whole tirade seems like thinly veiled bigotry and no one is picking up on it and that’s kinda fucked up. OP is literally using the the origins of words to discredit the meaning and usefulness of the term allistic. This is very similar to those assholes who try to excuse their bigotry by saying homophobia is okay because it’s an “irrational fear that can’t be helped.”

Oh please.

Allistic is a term that was created by and for the autistic community. Literal definitions should not be used to discredit terminology as such unless you’re the type of pedantic fuck who thinks oil is literally afraid of water. The term allistic is used to denormalise allism, which makes autism such an “abnormality”.

And on the whole self-oriented thing: why is that bad? Exactly why is it bad to spend time to yourself inside your own head? This line of thinking is often used by more….”socially normal” autistic folks to throw “self-oriented” autistics under the bus in order to get ahead.

This entire post is screwed up and fuck anyone who reblogs it especially if they’re allistic.

In other news, people on both sides of an issue have well thought out opinions and think the other is shit.

Meh, not really. I don’t think people who disagree with me on this have opinions that are “shit”. I do think it’s a pretty shitty thing to do to tell everyone who has ever reblogged this to fuck off, make grossly wrong assumptions about all of us, and put words in the mouths of pretty much me and everyone who agrees with me. But then I think that’s something one person has done, I don’t think that is true of everyone who disagrees with me on this. (I also question how well-thought-out an opinion is that relies entirely on pretending that the other side is saying things that aren’t remotely close to what we’re saying.) There’s an actual reason that I’ve said all along that I am not telling people what to say or what words to use, that all I’m talking about is my personal reasons for not using this word. And it’s extremely frustrating to be treated as if I’m telling people what to say or something. Or to be treated as if I just don't listen to the other side, or don’t think the other side has merit, just because I don’t, in the end, agree with the other side. (For that matter, I don’t think there is one single other side, I think there are many different sides in these debates about language and that mine is only one of many on each side.)

But oh well, it’s so much easier to cast this as a one-on-one debate where each side is equally right and equally wrong and equally reasonable and equally unreasonable. Last I’ve heard, you haven’t heard me telling everyone who disagrees with me that they’re horrible people who should fuck off and go away, right?

But honestly the most frustrating part for me is the part where they assume they know what kind of autistic person I am, what my autistic traits are, how autistic I appear to others, and what I think of other autistic people. That’s just obnoxious and disingenuous.

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