On this blog, i have joked about allism a lot, so i thought i’d take some time to identify the ironic undertones at the heart of allism’s etymology and intended purpose. Specifically, i’d like to talk about what’s not being talked about when i joke about allism.

When i read out-of-context jokes about allism, they can (sometimes) seem harsh (if only slightly) from an allistic (read: not autistic) perspective.

(Wait, aren’t autists supposed to be unable to empathize?)

And while i don’t intend to invest in hand-holding (read: sympathize with) allists, i do intend to invest in communicating with them literally that which is most-often expressed ironically, if only toward the end of making my own language more clear.

When i joke about allism, i am in no way making fun of non-autistic people; allism bears absolutely no value-judgments (i.e., it indicates [of all neurology types] neither an intrinsic value nor an assumption of [non]ally-ship). In a way, when i talk about allists, i’m not talking about them at all.

I’m talking to them.

To be reductive, allism is satire (read: ironic) which calls on non-autistic people to (1) develop an awareness of and educate them-selves on the damage caused by the bulk of (violent, homogenizing) autism literature/research and (2) recognize and use (read: take action) their power/privilege to help change the way autism is largely (mis)understood and discussed.

But the implications and impacts of allism extend so much further than this call to action, and certainly further than a joke. We owe it to our-selves to delve below allism’s surficial humor for a comprehensive look at this (often vague, but historically significant) terminology.

So let’s not be reductive.

As author/teacher/speaker Sohaila Abdulali writes in her 2018 book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape:

“Every now and then, something happens… a watershed, the moment it all changed. Or didn’t. . . [yet] the conversation has indeed changed. For one thing, there is a conversation. That in itself is radical.” (pp. 27-28)

While the detrimental effects of allistic ideas and conceptualizations of autism still abide (as allism intends to highlight), that more-and-more actually-autistic people are finally becoming included in the global/mainstream conversation on autism could be better-appreciated (i argue) simply for its radical existence (i.e., that it abides with and in spite of the abiding violence perpetrated on autistic people).

Therefore, when autists discuss allism — an autist-coined term — it also becomes (in addition to a call to action and a joke) a radical expression of autism.

Think of it like this:

Allism is a demonstration on the (insidious) application (and consequences) of structural disability.

I.e., the conceptualization of allism is both (1) evidence of a person’s ability to will disability/ies into existence by contriving (read: socially constructing) structural barriers (through the dissemination of violent rhetoric); as well as (2) an example of how hurtful/offensive it can feel to not only be homogenized (e.g., “Hey, but that one example doesn’t apply to me!”) but also to be homogeneous /with/ a pathologized identity (e.g., “That doesn’t explain why i do that!”).

(I love how i managed to humanize, intentionalize, depathologize, and qualify autists all at the same time there.)

From this perspective, then, the discussion of allism is not only radical because of its novelty as an autist-coined concept but also because of its sarcastic nature which disproves the notion of autism-as-deficit (i.e., that we lack intention/humor/empathy/etc.) at the same time that it provokes allists to confront the privilege of their heterogeneous identity.

The provocation that allism oozes is part of its irony; by turning the tables on non-autistic people — pathologizing “their” character traits and positioning “autistic neurology” as the (subjective) gold-standard — autists demonstrate the hypocrisy of allistic (mis)understandings of autism.

In other words, the irony of allism suggests (correctly, in my experience) that allists are more-often (or just-as-likely) unable to conform to their own social norms/expectations than autists are.

For example, when allists (incorrectly) contend that autists lack empathy, they them-selves fail (ironically) to empathize with others’ experiences.

And if you, dear reader, are allistic, that’s okay; don’t feel bad, champ.

Allism’s take-away is ultimately super positive: while autists and allists /are/ significantly different from one another, we /all/ share the challenge of obeying and/or remaining mindful of various and varying social norms.

So if you are an allist who disagrees with this (all-too-common) notion — who agrees that autists do indeed understand and experience empathy — then you needn’t harbor any allistic guilt, nor should you fear being homogenized by autists (because we obviously understand the detrimental effects of such rhetoric, having to experience it on a daily basis and all).

At the end of the day, when it comes to intent, allism is at its core satire — not to be taken personally, but certainly to be taken (as a critique) seriously .

Contemporary (but nascent) research actually suggests that “autism traits” are “distributed normally” throughout the entire human population, much like the research on “gender/sex traits”. That these patterns of behavior are consistently observed across all neurology types is, therefore, at odds with the concept of “neurotypicality“, suggesting that there is currently no concrete (or agreed-upon) model for a “neurologically-typical brain”.

Let’s take a look at some examples to illustrate this perplexing phenomenon. Bear with me a while longer, and we’ll head on back home and get you a milkshake:

Allists often (from my experience) fail to comply with the explicit (i.e., contractual) convention of arriving to a job warmed-up and ready to work. Most of my jobs have fostered a culture of “relaxed discipline” (read: slack), where coming in in the morning and wasting time was considered “norm-al” (read: deserved) rather than lazy, thoughtless, or disrespectful.

As an autist, i can also fail to comply with social norms at work, like when i (uncontrollably) sing out loud or (constantly) drum on objects. These are behaviors that have invited (though not by me) judgments and cease-and-desist orders from my peers/co-workers, who are typically never open to the possibility that my behavior could be associated with a disability or that we could communicate and compromise to the end of meeting both of our needs.

Nevertheless, these are traits i recognize can be contextually problematic, so i am always making an effort toward striking the right balance between accepting and improving the behaviors/traits/etc. that (do not) define my identity.

Bringing attention back to allists, i have often observed their failure to adapt with the evolution of socially acceptable language/paradigms. Just as i demonstrated the irony of the allistic claim that autists lack empathy, this social faux pas demonstrates the irony of the allistic claim that autists lack flexibility.

Similarly, despite my ability as an autist to be flexible in certain contexts, i can be inflexible in others.

Does it seem confusing now who is actually autistic? Who is “typical”? What “typical” is? It should!

Because in my opinion, animal brains (which include ours) are too complex to have a “typical” neurology in the reductive, two-dimensional sense that we define and understand the word “typical”. (Not to mention what little modern science understands about human neurology.)

The point allism makes in this regard is that we all (i.e., autists and allists alike) share similarities, similarities which are actually traits commonly considered (by allists) to be exclusive among developmentally-disabled people.

So stop making pathological assumptions about human behavior before you do enough mental gymnastics that you pathologize your-self.

To sum up:
To be allistic is to be non-autistic.
To be allistic is not necessarily to be “neuro-typical” (e.g., one may be both allistic and dyslexic).
Allism is a critique of social constructivism.
Allism is not its own system of values (e.g., one may be both allistic and an ally to autists).
Allism is a message to be enjoyed and taken seriously by all.
Allism is not necessarily a joke at the expense of allists (e.g., irony here is a tool to educate, not humiliate).

Allism reminds us that no human can choose or change their neurology; it shows us how we can be tolerant of others’ differences. Celebrating (though not perseverating on) both our similarities and our differences is a call for allists to prove their ally-ship by simultaneously empathizing with (read: humanizing) and being inclusive/accommodating of autists’ unique needs.

I’m proud to be autistic. Be proud to be allistic.

❁

Thoughts? Leave a comment; start a conversation! Thank you for reading.