This article is a bit maddening. I find the beginning encouraging....
I’ve written before about how autistic people often
struggle to know how to act around authority figures.
Actually, that’s not true– we don’t seem to *care* how
we act around authority.
I like the distinction between unknowing and uncaring. I like the level of personal responsibility that this suggests and I wish the rest of the article continued in this vein.
It makes us *really weird* to neurotypical people,
who seem to accept authority happily.
This is not correct at all in my experience. I don't think anybody loves submitting to authority just for the fun of it.
Certainly there is a lot of personal calculus that goes into whether or not we accept a given authority. Cost vs. benefit. Whether we see a reason to respect the authority. Whether we see value in it. Social pressure. Of course this calculus will be different from person to person and from situation to situation, and of course neurotypicals and folks on the spectrum will tend to have a different view.
But, "seem to accept authority happily?" Yeesh. It seems to imply an absence of thought rather than different criteria weights.
Certainly there is a lot of personal calculus that goes into whether or not we accept a given authority. Cost vs. benefit. Whether we see a reason to respect the authority. Whether we see value in it. Social pressure. Of course this calculus will be different from person to person and from situation to situation, and of course neurotypicals and folks on the spectrum will tend to have a different view.
But, "seem to accept authority happily?" Yeesh. It seems to imply an absence of thought rather than different criteria weights.