Your line in the Sandilands

 

You know what, Jackie? I don’t doubt you’ve been traumatised by your experience. I’m sure many of your ‘guests’ have been as well.

The difference is, none of them chose to spend the prime of their life being the socially acceptable enabler for a vile, abusive shitbag. That’s the trade-off for the millions you made from it.

You could have chosen to walk when your mate decided to hook a 14yo sexual assault victim up to a polygraph in front of her mother for shits and giggles. People would have respected you for that. But it wasn’t until the abuse affected you that you found your line in the Sandilands.

Your occasional tut-tutting does not absolve you of responsibility. It only gave deniability to your co-host and network.

By all means take the cretin and the network to the cleaners. But my violin remains firmly in its case over the fact you’re the latest victim of the monster you helped create.

The spectrum of MAGA

Donald Trump says autism is out of control. There’s no comment on what it would look like if autism were under control, but that’s another question. 

While the US administration implies that a life with autism is not worth living, it would pay to take a look at who is saying it.

There’s the guy who blamed undiagnosed Asperger’s* syndrome for throwing a Nazi salute at an inauguration party. 

Then there’s the guy who thinks it’s perfectly normal to pick up animal carcasses and take them home to study or eat. 

And they’re all led by a grown man who regularly throws tantrums when something doesn’t work for him, alleging great conspiracies against him. 

When you put it all together, it sounds pretty spectrummy, doesn’t it?

Yet they’ve all done well for themselves. So what’s the problem?

 

* This expression is no longer used due to its Nazi connotations, ironically. 

 

 

 

On celebrity autism

Content warning: ASD discussion...

 

I'm no expert but I have worked with a lot of people on the autism spectrum.

One of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out when their behaviour is a manifestation of their condition, and when they are using it as an excuse for being lazy or rude or otherwise anti-social. That sounds harsh, but it’s accurate.

But regardless of whether it’s one or the other, it's part of my job to help them understand what is socially acceptable. I've had to tell a student he can't just go to sleep on the floor when he’s bored. Sure, it's harmless, but it freaks people out.

I’ve had another student who is hyper-aware of his condition and obsesses over people not making allowances for it. I ended up telling him, “Unless you want to wear a badge that says, ‘I’m autistic, please be nice to me,’ then the world has already adjusted to you as much as it's going to.” You have to be cruel to be kind sometimes.

And that brings us back around to Elon and Kanye. An autism spectrum diagnosis (and I do mean diagnosis) may explain their behaviour but it does not excuse it.

This is not an unfortunate still taken out of context.
This is an adult who should know better.

In such a situation, it’s incumbent upon those around the individual in question to help them understand what is socially acceptable – and if they can’t understand it, at least act within what polite society considers appropriate.

I’ve been there myself. As I child, I was in the front room playing and I held my right arm out in a way that I had seen a robot in a movie do to zap some bad guys. Or maybe they were good guys – I don’t remember and it’s hardly relevant. My father sat me down and explained that we never EVER hold an arm out like that.

I was confused. Didn’t he understand I was just being like that robot in that movie? (He didn’t. And that’s fair enough) But after a few minutes I understood and I never did it again. I was 8.

Being on the spectrum and being a dickhead are not mutually exclusive.

I’ve written before about my own mental condition and I can tell you from experience that when someone uses a mental condition as an excuse for being a dickhead, it’s because they’re a dickhead, not because of any condition.

Autism conditions can be perfectly manageable if the individual and those around them (not necessarily in that order) are willing to manage it

Anyone who can’t make a gesture saying, “My heart goes out to you,” without it looking like a Nazi salute has deeper problems than being on the spectrum. Saying, “I’m a bit socially awkward cos autism,” is not just a pissweak excuse, it’s an insult to all those on the spectrum who have struggled for years to adjust to social norms which don’t compute for them.