There seems to be a lot of misplaced stigma attached to autism thanks to Hollywood's Rain Man; and attached to sociopathy thanks to confusion with psychopathy.
What is sociopathy really about? What's its relevance to autism? I thought I'd entertain you with some subjective visualisations.
1) Auto-cruising & windscreen-wiping
Imagine you're driving an old car and you're not very good at it; accelerating and decelerating too much; you can just about see where you're going. Now you have a new car, this time with auto-cruise. The new driving is much smoother, so you notice small things like dust on the windscreen, and you use your windscreen wipers for the first time. The autism is the autocruising, and the sociopathy is the windscreen wiping. An autistic person is more inclined to be sociopathic. The autocruiser is more likely to use the windscreen wipers.
2) Love and Dark Love
Being over-kind to one person may mean rejecting the next person, so true love involves treating your enemy exactly the same as how you treat your best friend. This may seem counter-productive at first glance, and has therefore been known as Dark Love (¥È¼w) for thousands of years; and some contemporary psychologists call it Cupboard Love. The autism is the love (the labido) and the sociopathy is the dark love (cupboard love).
Sociopathy is the anchor, which keeps heavenly autism down-to-earth, to reduce the consequences of human error. Autism is the law; sociopathy is the cure.
- By the most literal definition, based on the Greek roots of the word, autism = "aut" + "ism". The meaning of "aut" in autism and autistic, is the same as its meaning in automatic. Derived from the Greek word "autos" (self), it means independent. Autistic literally means selfish. Autism means selfishness.
- By popular, contemporary stigma (colloquially), autism is disfunctional geekiness. But autism is no more debilitating than religion which starts by encouraging inability to lie. Is extreme honesty and integrity is so rare that it's geeky?
