Haiti and The Ethical Autism of Western Society

We are going to take a break from theory at this point and focus instead my narrative that speaks to my own personal inherentcy.  I  am Autistic: a conclusion researchers at the University of Michigan Autistic and Communication Disorder Clinic came to a year ago last month. What this means is that, on the one hand the basic social cues for behavior many take for granted, take a more roundabout way to  neural expression in my Corpus Callosum. In other words, in terms of emotions and subsequent response to others' needs and wishes, my brain has, inherently, many more detorurs than one might expect to see in most of my peers and colleagues.

Before last year's diagnosis living with the fact that I always feel "different" no matter where I find myself, was a constant challenge of  debiliating uncertainty. It's taken sometime, but there is one thing I have discovered over the months, and in particular, since the disaster in Haiti, that I feel is an uncomfortable truism describing much of our Western society. When it comes to ethics, knowing what the "right thing" is and promptly doing it, for the vast majority of Americans is identical to the disconnect I always experience in the social atmosphere of basic interaction.

Ethical Autism is, of course not the same thing as the developmental disability I am fortunate enough to be blessed with, but the inability of  many of our elected leaders and more than a few neurotypical Americans to know what the right thing is and yet,  totally miss the elephant-in-the-room social and pragmatic cues for appropriate faith in action, is troubling and interesting at the same time.

As a forty-eight year old Ann Arbor Cab driver want to be high school speech teacher,  I find it troubling to see how a democratic people can sacrifice so much of themselves in order to help victims of a natural disaster in a country many Americans didn't know existed until a few weeks ago. On the other hand, I can't help but find it interesting that these same democratic people continually fail to see how compassion for an earthquake victim in a foreighn nation should be so different from taking care of each other in this country regardless of what kind of political advantage the end result may be for whichever side one may claim.

To this day I miss social cues that most people take for granted, no doubt. Some days I even find it hard to get out of bed in the morning and some days, I don't. But as I'm laying there in bed, listening to the radio about a story of how this congressman or that senator said the night before how terrible the tragedy in Haiti was the night before on the evening news only to indignantly proclaim their unswerving devotion to the American People by jockeying for political blood sport points awarded by a 24hr news media rumor mill the very next day, ethical Autism at least to me, is the only possible explanation.

Don't get me wrong. Ethical Autism isn't a lack of ethics, a lack of knowledge in what the right and wrong thing is to do or don't do. In the sense used here, Ethical Autism describes how an otherwise neurotypcial people can frequently justify their moral decisions by continually taking roundabout ways to discussing the truth of something, instead of the most direct and practical course.

As a 48 year old Autistic Man I know full well about the scenic tour to the right decision, but I have an exuse. Mitch McConnel or Laura Ingram or even Glen Beck have no exuse. If  any one in Washington really wanted to know what the Ameircan People thought about or felt, then they should do what the Ancient Greeks did and have the American People speak to them and the rest of the country directly.

In fact what the politcians in Washington are doing is what I do whenever I try to communicate with other people without first getting their attention, input and actual feelings regarding an issue that effects us both.
I often make up things people will say in response to my ideas and proposals and so do quite a few Washington Politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Like I said, I'm Autistic, but at least I know enough to constantly question my assumptions and check them against what others feel is right, egardless of whether they agree with my convictions. My sense of ethics then isn't Autistic as much as it remains steadfastly a developing trait of moral behavior. What happened and is happenning in Haiti is horrible but it does reflect both the best and worst that we can be here in this country with each other as Americans.

There is lot about this developmental disability I will never understand anymore than all the various aspects of human emotion that confuse me daily, but there is one thing I know for sure. Do No Harm is not just a slogan, it's a state of Mental and Emotional Health. A State of Mind I wish and pray more Neurotypical Americans took the time to pay a hell of lot more attention to.