Comment on If autism is a spectrum, does that mean everyone is on the spectrum?
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 day agoThe “can’t be more or less blind” thing is based on the concept that blind means “100% totally optical nerve dead blind” and anything that’s not this extreme is not blind but very bad sighted.
The “blindness is a spectrum” comes from the concept of “legally blind”, meaning that there’s a point where you can technically still see something, but for all legal purposes you are counted as blind, because your vision is not good enough to fulfill the requirements for legal use, e.g. for driving.
The real spectrum here is “vision”. Everyone accepts that vision is on a spectrum, and you can have better or worse vision.
Similar things with Autism. The definition of autism originated as a psychological disorder, an illness if you will. That has shifted in the last decades, but at its core autism (like blindness) is a bundle of things that work differently than on neurotypical people.
So while “having autism” like “having blindess” is a binary definition (linguistically speaking), if you look at the things affected by autism and start with the “healthy” variant, all of that is on a spectrum too. And as with the definition of “legally blind” there is a somewhat arbitrary line that defines whether you have autism or not.
As always with almost everything concerning humans, everything is on a spectrum.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I would encourage you to re-read because I did cover exactly what you’re mentioning here and it seems like you might have stopped reading after the second paragraph.
This is what was meant by the “mythical neurotypical”
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I encourage you to not understand everything as an opposition to what you wrote. I was adding to your point. But if you insist on a fight, I will allow you to choose time, place and weapon.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You started with adding three opposing definitions of blindness and then did the arguably worst thing of creating a single “blindness spectrum” that you call “vision”.
What you wrote isn’t adding to my message, it’s in direct opposition in a lot of ways and shows that you didn’t stop to understand what was being said before “adding” to it.
I think we do agree with the “everything is a spectrum” part, but my whole point could maybe be best summarized as “reality is a spectrum, classifications and language are not”
So I guess we’re fighting now. Meet me at the Brooks river at the end of the month, it’s a fish slapping contest, you’ll recognize me as #901 here