Please stop blaming Asperger's for Mitt's nastiness! [View all]

[tblue37]

I posted this as a comment in another DU thread, but I think it is important enough to deserve its own thread.

Please do not blame Asperger's for Romney's nastiness and his insulting behavior toward those he considers "beneath" him!

I know many people with Asperger's, and none of them act like that. In fact, I would say that Asperger's makes a person much less likely to be nasty and insulting to other people!

Mitt does not have Asperger's. If he did, he would not be able to lie so easily. That's one of the "deficits" (or, perhaps, one of the advantages!) that comes with Asperger's and other autistic spectrum conditions, because the sort of mental processes required to lie (or to express or understand certain kinds of jokes and certain types of metaphorical language) make it extremely hard--maybe even impossible--for someone with Asperger's to use language to express something other than what the person knows to be true.

What I think he has is spoiled rich brat social ineptness, which is another condition altogether.

Asperger's makes it hard for someone to read subtle social clues that most of us take for granted and use without even thinking about it. A person with Asperger's also tends to hyperfocus on whatever specific topic(s) he finds particularly fascinating, and Asperger's makes it hard for that person to switch topics when other people signal a lack of interest or when others try to take the "conversation" away from the person with Asperger's who has been holding forth on his special topic at length and not noticing that his company is not as fascinated as he is or that they really would like to move on to another topic.

But Asperger's has nothing to do with nastiness or insulting behavior, and I am appalled at how often that connection gets made here on DU!