It has occurred to me that many aspies and autists exhibit exaggerated or acute forms of  typical introverted traits.

In a previous post, I examined the concept of  schizoid personality disorder as  a way of pathologizing typical introverted behavior.

The autistic spectrum then is perhaps a still ‘lower’ plane in which undesirable traits are bad enough to make an individual decisively dysfunctional in the larger society.

Persons with autistic spectrum disorders are known for being:

-socially inept/unresponsive

-having difficulty relating emotionally to others

-failing to make eye contact/acknowledge others’ existence

-having in depth knowledge about subjects nobody else cares about

-preferring the inner life over the outer world

-being mental before physical

-being thoughtful about things others do automatically

-in general not getting with the program(not caring about or going along with whatever others nearby are up to)…

The list of traits is long and almost all could be parts of a non-pathological introverted personality.  So where does innie end and aspie begin?

Perhaps the big tipping point is having enough social presence of mind to figure out what traits and behaviors are undesirable and work on hiding them.  The physicist Paul Dirac comes to mind.  He wasn’t even capable of normal conversation, was oblivious to social niceties, and hated social events but he understood just enough about what was expected of him to get by.

Maybe the severity of one’s labels is also heavily dependent on whether parents clamor for the strongest possible diagnosis.  A decisive point of separation would thus be impossible to establish.

Many merely eccentric individuals are considered strange because they walk in and out of autism’s borderlands.   I’ve never received any autism spectrum diagnosis, yet I exhibited frequent rocking behaviors as a kid and sometimes still do so to this day.  I spent a lot of time in my own world reading books and had difficulty understanding that other kids didn”t care about the cool stuff I’d learned.  I often didn’t even hear someone talking to me unless I was looking directly at them.   I somehow managed to get away with a generic LD(‘learning differences’) diagnosis while avoiding a youth characterized by chronic ritalin consumption.  Does someone like me have a touch of autism?  Who knows?

It is rather curious that even the idea of an autism spectrum has existed for less than a century.  Now increasingly more people are getting a diagnosis as these disorders have reached the popular culture in the last decade or so.

Who and where were all the autists and aspies before the medical community came up with a name for them?

Possibilities?:

-Some were just locked up in madhouses.  OR unable to survive socially perished on the streets as homeless wanderers.  Today, more than ever can be kept by their families and sent to doctors.

-If someone could make a good horseshoe or good furniture maybe it didn’t matter to people as much.  It isn’t hard to imagine this being the case in a less prosperous more results-oriented society.  Maybe aspies and autists with their incredible focus and penchant for specialization even had a competitive edge in traditional craftsmanship.  Did lots of them make a living and pass down genes as productive functional members of society for thousands of years?

-Maybe families did not think of their strange kid as having a disorder even if they behaved differently from most other people.   Noah Joad, a possibly autistic character from ‘Grapes of Wrath’ comes to mind.  Families typically had lots of children and may have been less prone to obsess over one with abnormal behaviors.  Perhaps the autistic spectrum diagnoses are in part spurred by smaller families in the second half of the twentieth century.  With less kids, the more  responsibility remaining kids had for the future of the family.  In families of 1-3 kids, one kid turning out ‘strange’ would be disastrous to the family legacy where before it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.

In conclusion:

Is there an autism spectrum epidemic or has society become increasingly oriented towards social expertise?  If so, many who would previously just have been introverted or merely ‘strange’ end up altogether unable to function in society.  After all most of the symptoms are based on measures of a person’s performance relative to an acceptable norm.  If requirements for acceptability have become more stringent, perhaps the strange, silent kid who grew up to be the best carpenter in town no longer has any place to go except therapy sessions.  If 21st century success depends first upon success in water cooler politics, what kind of raw talent has the  mass society left untapped?

-We wouldn’t want to be called by an unseen stranger who just wants something from us.  Why would someone else want to be?  Any ensuing conversation is bound to be an awkward exchange between two people who really don’t want to talk, but are compelled by some overriding necessity.  The tension is bound to be palpable.  This type of interaction is about as pleasant as nails screeching across a chalkboard.

-If only we could do it over the internet somehow without having to talk with anyone!

-We tend to put it off to the last possible moment.  Almost better to wait until the progression of events makes phone calls a moot point.  A mild loss incurred by doing so is probably worth it.  For important calls, I used to spend a few minutes just staring at the number pad before being able to spiritually prepare myself for dialing that number.  I would even have a few false starts dialing before I got through the whole number.

-There’s that horrible pause before it starts ringing, then the ringing starts.  Secretly we hope for every successive ring hoping that no one will answer.  If no one answers, we curse our luck that we couldn’t have just gotten it over with.

-It takes a lot of will power to make each subsequent attempt.  Like lancing a boil, the longer we wait, the more attempts, the more unpleasant it becomes.  The more unpleasant it becomes, the more will it takes to make another attempt.

-Even when we’ve made the call and someone answers, we’re too upset and nervous about infringing on someone else to really push them and demand their services and time in full.  Thus, a rep who’s used to dealing with assertive extroverts senses they can spend a bare minimum of time on us and quickly gets us off the line.  We end up not really accomplishing what we set out to do anyway!  At best we accomplish the bare minimum before we can end the unpleasantness and get off the line.

-An extrovert comes by and asks about the results of the phone call.  Their brow creases in confusion at our account of the conversation.  They respond:

“Why didn’t you ask this question?”

“Or this question?”

“Why didn’t you get a more detailed answer so we can be absolutely sure?”

“Why didn’t you push them until they gave in by doing this?”

“Why didn’t you make the call earlier?”/”Why did you just get around to making the call now?”

“Why don’t you call again?”

There’s a leaden feeling in the stomach.  All that effort and anxiety and it wasn’t nearly enough.  Why even bother.

I’ve gotten a lot better over the years out of necessity.  It’s no longer a trial by fire and I no longer have to deal with lots of anxiety but it’s still not exactly my favorite activity.  I still always check for any way around making a cold call if it can be avoided.  Therein lies my problem.  I see cold calling as a last resort.  An extrovert sees cold calling and taking up time on the line as their first choice.

I’ll sometimes pretend to laugh for the sake of sociability when someone tells a joke in a group situation.

I have no interest at all in sitcoms. They are after all exaggerated portrayals of a social life I’ve never really been a part of. I find that style of acting with the nasal speaking voice, overdone hand gestures, and laugh track in the background to be particularly obnoxious.

Light comedy films are entertaining on a basic level, but tend to leave the mind almost as soon as they are finished. Such films tend to be formulaic. I could be amused by one Sandler movie, but just wouldn’t have any need to see more.

Standup comedy usually doesn’t accomplish much for me. The person up on stage usually identifies with some ethnic group or category(i.e. rednecks) and uses his membership of said group to lampoon it endlessly. I shake my head as entire careers are built on mining out a single simple premise to exhaustion.

What then have I found to be truly humorous for myself and other introverted personalities I have come into contact with?
In short, humor that isn’t spoonfed. Jokes that exist in the subtext rather than on the surface. Irony and satire as opposed to slapstick.

I’ve sat taciturn through lots of ‘funny’ shows yet I’ve burst out into laughter while reading Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.
I’ve been completely unmoved at jokes in social situations yet I still grin at the thought of a character in Dr. Strangelove saying “You’ll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company” with an intensely straight face. There is nothing particularly funny about the line itself, but the context is everything:
There is a man who is desperately trying to make a phone call that could save the world from nuclear destruction. He asks a soldier to break into a vending machine to get the change he needs to make the call. The soldier, hilariously unclear on the concept utters the line.
In this sort of situation, one doesn’t sit passively waiting for a punchline but must actively read meaning into the content. There is no one telling you when a joke is told or when to laugh. The jokes are not separate from, but rather embedded seamlessly in the content itself.

The defining trait of Loud humor is that you are laughing principally because everyone else is laughing. Humor is before all else a social tool used to promote group bonding.
Consider standup comedy. If enough people laugh at a joke, everyone laughs. Anyone who chose not to laugh would end up looking very awkward in a public place. Thus, standup is as much about reinforcing the audience’s sense of social belonging as it is about enjoying any actual humor.
Sitcoms typically have a laugh track that tells you exactly what moments you should find humorous. It even tells you by means of intensity just how humorous you should find them. Once again, it is a means viewers can bring their personal sense of humor into congruency with that which is promoted as being Correct for the whole. Since the humor itself is just an incidental packaging for a social experience, it leaves the mind as soon as one leaves.

The defining trait of Subtle humor is implicit personal respect for the audience. It is up to each individual to decide for themselves what is funny according to their personal taste. The medium rarely involves group situations and all the pressure that comes with them. The humor is not clearly demarcated in a series of structured jokes, but must be discovered by each individual. Oftentimes, one does not find certain things humorous until reflecting about them afterwards. One reflects on such humor because it is usually a means of illuminating an underlying point and inviting serious thought about human nature.

When exposed to group humor, one who doesn’t quite belong must always be under pressure to dissimulate and hide behind a smile. Not only is there nothing to laugh at, it is just another potential source of social censure in one’s life.
Subtle humor is more than just funny, it is an escape from the typical expectations. It makes no judgments of its audience. It is courteous invitation while its Loud counterpart is forced attendance.

As a Subtle civilization is formed from those traits the larger society selects against, its values are naturally in opposition to all things listed here.