LogFAQs > #888110428

Harpie posted...

Darklit_Minuet posted...

Harpie posted...

Autism has always been a mental illness. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. You only just opened your eyes and noticed its existence recently

I'm not denying that, just curious why it's only recently that everyone's talking about it so much

Meh, I don't know why and I don't care as long as they're talking about it. It helps spread awareness

For sure, I agree with you there :)

MildlyIrkedOwl posted...

Autism is getting a lot of attention because it's a fairly new condition in terms of being diagnosed effectively. And it's incredibly prevalent.

Consider what would happen if you made jokes about someone having an intellectual disability (using the R-word), or down syndrome, or really any kind of disability. You're conflating stupidity with an actual mental disability and that's what makes it a problem.

Huh, I never thought about it before but phrasing it that way makes it a lot easier to understand the reasoning. During my childhood everyone used to use the R-word as an insult, and while we as children weren't thinking "we are conflating your stupidity with an actual mental disability", more like "this is just another word that means dumb", I can see the harm it could have done to people with that disability by making it essentially a synonym for stupidity. And now I guess autism is used the same way, maybe not deliberately maliciously, but still causing problems due to the conflation.

Yeah that makes perfect sense to me, thanks