Ok, the whole 'transgender rights' thing has shown up in front of the Supreme Court, so I'm going to start seeing articles and discussions and accusations and justifications on the subject, left, right, and center. I've spent some time thinking about it, and would like to present an alternate view. It starts with a question that is going to seem odd, and will probably need a small history lesson and slightly larger science lesson. I'll try to avoid being pedantic about it. So strap yourselves in...
What rights should society give to hysterical women?
I don't mean women who are laughing hysterically, or acting hysterically in grief. The term "Hysteria" used to be a genuine medical term with a genuine medical definition. Technically speaking, Hysteria was a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychogenic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions. (The term 'visceral' means 'involving the inner organs'.)
In practice, this became something to diagnose women with if they seemed to show emotional 'excess' (or too much restraint), sleeplessness and irritability, 'excessive' interest in sex, or even such vague and dangerous symptoms as "arguing/causing trouble with others". In short, there was this view of what women should be within society and, if they didn't meet the expectations, they had Hysteria.
So what rights should we give women who have been diagnosed with this condition? I am sure that the early Women's Rights groups would have had several ideas to offer. How about the right to not be involuntarily committed to a mental institution for the diagnosis? How about retaining the right of ownership to your own property, whether that be a house or simply a bag of trinkets? How about the right to talk about politics, read about religion, and other such activities that suggested, in that time period, a disturbance in a woman's brain?
Well, actually, Hysteria was often treated by masturbation, or by high-pressure cold water showers. So should they be asking for the right to masturbate in public?
Imagine that. Imagine a group of women before the Supreme Court, demanding the right to masturbate in public, as a necessary accommodation to their medical condition of Hysteria. Since they're actually arguing for their rights in front of a court, you know they all have to have it by the old historic definition. Ridiculous, right? Well, let's take a moment and divert from history into science.
What is the difference between a man and a woman. The transgender argument must start here. If we can't define the boundaries they want to cross, how can we discuss their efforts to cross them and society's proper reaction? So let's talk biology. I suspect that many people these days believe that the only difference between the male body and the female body is the reproductive system. Let's dispel that myth. Did you know that archaeologists can unearth a single part of the skeleton and know whether it belonged to a man or a woman? The pelvic bones are noticeably different, but there are other differences throughout the entire skeleton. The male skull has a taller and narrower brow and a more pronounced jawbone; the man's arms and legs are longer, and the bones tend to have more pronounced corners.
So let's put the skeleton aside for a moment. Did you know that every single internal organ has a different size and efficiency in a man than in a woman? Some are larger, and some are smaller. One of the complaints of feminists is that most medication dosage and effectiveness has been derived from studies on males. The female, in the pharmaceutical world, is often treated like a smaller man. I have sat in on several discussions among women with ADHD, for instance, and they all agree that all ADHD medication becomes ineffective during the few days before the onset of menstruation.
That doesn't mean that the reproductive system isn't part of the picture, of course. The body is fully interconnected, with each system supporting and affecting the others, and that's the point. A woman's heart beats at a faster resting rate on average than a man's. Her heart is smaller. That's okay, though, because her blood has less hemoglobin and more water in it by volume. It moves more easily through her circulatory system. Now here's where it gets interesting: a sex hormone is responsible for this difference. Testosterone prompts higher production of hemoglobin, making the blood thicker. In a woman, higher testosterone makes the blood more like a man's.
See, the entire body is affected by the sex hormones in various ways, and the entire body is optimized for the changes made to the body by the sex hormones. The heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines - all of these changes by gender, larger or smaller, more slow-twitch or fast-twitch muscles, blood volume and ideal heart rate/blood pressure - it's all geared towards the health of the male body or the female body as a whole. Once you change part of it, like the sex hormones, you are giving your body all sorts of conflicting instructions to produce certain muscles, deposit fat in certain areas, change your blood composition, change the chemical content being processed by your liver etc. in a way that puts a great deal more wear and tear on your body. Transgender/transsexual transition surgery is done only on the reproductive organs; the transgender person is not given the heart, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, or skeletal structure of the other sex.
Back to Hysteria, just for a second.
We now know that Hysteria isn't a thing, not really. It's a catch-all for a variety of medical conditions, many of which actually do affect the female reproductive system (such as endometriosis or fibroids) or brain differences (such as ADHD or autism, both of which present differently in women than in men). It would seem bizarre to us to diagnose a woman with autism and then explain that this meant she had to try to masturbate regularly and thus seek accommodations through the Supreme Court to pleasure herself in the workplace. In fact, to divert from that a little, autistic people are now speaking strongly against the application of ABA therapy in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, causing trauma and, sometimes, lasting physical damage, in order to force autistic people to mimic 'normal people' instead of the newer, gentler, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which focuses more on coping techniques and self-advocacy.
But instead of asking ourselves if there is treatment for the differences in the brain that seem to set apart many transgender people, whether it be chemical or cognitive behavioral therapy, we seem caught in the Dark Ages of trying to treat thoughts in the mind by throwing every single other system in the body out of whack. The activists and their insistence on 'transgender rights' are advocating a type of ABA for these people, with the only 'natural' endgame being a chemical and surgical process that belongs back in the annals of Medieval and Victorian medicine along with Hysteria.
Transgenderism starts with the belief that your thoughts and emotions and patterns of behavior do not fit into that of your birth sex. Hysteria starts with the belief that your thoughts and emotions and patterns of behavior do not fit into that of your birth sex. Can't we do better than fighting over whether the government should be able to order a business to allow a 'transitioning male-to-female' person to wear dresses to work in a formal-attire environment?
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Friday, September 7, 2018
Republican Wolves
Election Season is upon us, and everywhere are the markers of the two major political parties in the U.S. Everywhere, you will see the blue and the red. Everywhere, you will see the donkey and the elephant.
The elephant.
I would like to propose a change to the Republican Party visuals. I would like to replace the elephant with the wolf.
Now that sounds like a strange decision and not one that would immediately play well. After all, aren't wolves evil creatures who prey on the sick and weak? Well... that's the view of them from a herd mentality, and that's what I want to talk about today - herds and packs.
This morning, I mentioned something about a political group with a Cause and various Arguments, and my husband said, "Yeah, this reminds me of my Social Problems class in college. The professor kept saying that a Social Problem arises because the society as a whole comes to the conclusion that there is a problem. I kept saying that a Social Problem arises because a few leaders decide that it is a problem and go about convincing enough of the other people that it is a problem, whether it is or not."
I came fully awake. "You're right and your teacher was wrong, and I know why," I said.
A while ago, I came to the startling realization that human beings are pack animals by nature. I'd been following the research of one of my friends into wolves and wolf behavior, and doing some of my own research into the similarity of genetics in social behavior between humans and prairie voles. Our interests intersected, and I found a whole world of fascinating information. Humans and wolves have very similar social-behavior genetics, and naturally tend to form very similar social structures. After a while of saturating my brain with information about alphas, family packs (the naturally-formed wolf pack resembles a family tribe of an alpha, his daughters, and his daughters' mates, who include formerly-lone wolves from other packs), roles, and tactics, I made the inescapable conclusion: Humans are also pack animals, endurance hunters, and family units, just like wolves.
(And, as the part of the research that led me in this direction, humans are by nature sexually monogamous in bonded pairs. But that, and the liberal Democrat view on it, is another discussion entirely!)
Why was this such a startling conclusion? Just like my husband's Social Problems teacher, the education system is saturated with teachers and administrators teaching and reinforcing the idea that humans are herd animals. Children in school are treated like herd animals, and expected to act like herd animals. Examples of human behavior are often likened to herd behavior, even when the full story of any given incident indicates differently. We even use terms like "sheeple" to refer to "The Masses"... Wait, I've heard that term before. Yes, I have, and so have you. It came out of early socialist philosophy. The very idea of a Communist Paradise requires a type of herd mentality and, since humans do not naturally work together in herds the way that herd animals do, all actual implementations of Communism have required a "shepherd", a member treated as if he is of a different species (some animals are more equal than others), who is determined to be qualified to shove the herd when it isn't 'naturally congregating' in the right direction.
This goes all the way down to government-run healthcare, in which Former President Obama's famous line to Jane Strum about her elderly mother, vital and strong-hearted, would be better off with the pill than the pacemaker. "Devil take the hindmost". Well, to be more accurate, in my part of the country, the hindmost is generally taken by the wolves. The exception is The Children, who are protected not because they are weak, but because they are the future of the herd.
Now herd mentality actually works for herd animals. They will stampede together when the decision is made. They will line up together to protect the young when that decision is made. If a herd did not actually come to a herd decision through their herd behavior, they would flee wildly in all directions, trampling even their young, or refuse to stand up against an enemy that the entire herd can drive off together... kind of like humans in cities, being pushed into herd behavior and not being able to synthesize it. For this reason people are trained, in an emergency, to point at someone and say, "You call 911" instead of hollering, "Someone call 911!" which, in a herd, may result in many people calling, but, in a group of bystanders, all too often leads to everyone leaving the job to someone else. When you tell a specific person to call 911, a specific other person to direct traffic, etc., you may not wind up with a fully elegant solution, as you don't know which of the strangers are better or worse at the roles you are giving them. You will, however, always wind up with a better situation by organizing them into an impromptu pack (that is what you are doing) than leaving them as a disorganized non-herd.
Pack mentality among wolves incorporates a sense of what we would call 'natural rights', in which each member of the pack has a certain level of autonomy and a structure of authority to handle matters that cannot be handled individually. They put up with this because they can get more, more meat, better homes, more security than they can alone.
Now unlike Democrats, Republicans favor a governmental structure in which the top parts of the government are limited in power, because human beings work better in a series of packs, the leaders of those packs coming together to form structures that only handle what can't be done within the packs themselves, just as the individual only yields what authority he must to do in within the pack what he cannot do as a lone wolf. They tend to be willing to put up with a little more structure and authority than the Libertarians do. But they do not have the mentality that human beings are a very large herd which must be pushed about by a shepherd, as the Democrats do.
So when the Democrats like to say, "Wolves, eh? Wolves take the hindmost," what can we point out? In a wolf pack, the 'hindmost' is still a subordinate in the pack. Have you ever seen overindulgent people with their (often small-breed) dogs? The dogs are a holy terror and they give in to every little doggy whim, because they 'just want their darlings to be happy'. I am reminded of Democrats promising their "masses" every little bit of food, shelter, healthcare, bread, and circuses, delivered to them for free and to make them happy. A dog (by taxonomy merely a subordinate wolf in a human pack) who is treated this way will become fearful and aggressive. He develops anxiety issues and winds up a very unhappy, unhealthy pup. What a subordinate wolf needs desperately is to know that he has a place in the pack, to be given a role, a job, and to know that he has received a portion as large as it is because of the health of the pack. The "hindmost" in the pack needs what Republicans promise - workfare and an improved economy in which he can take up his place and feel secure in his pack.
Consider this in your own lives, taking it out of politics for a moment. Consider your place of employment, your gatherings for hobbies, your weekend activity groups, even your momentary inadvertent social structures, like the passengers of an airplane, the other people in a movie theater, the crowd at the scene of an accident. Are they acting as a pack or a herd? If they can be chivvied into an impromptu pack, will the experience be better for everyone?
And when you hear the grand speeches of the politicians, ask yourself: Are they treating us like herd animals or pack animals? What do their wordings and their programs imply?
The elephant.
I would like to propose a change to the Republican Party visuals. I would like to replace the elephant with the wolf.
Now that sounds like a strange decision and not one that would immediately play well. After all, aren't wolves evil creatures who prey on the sick and weak? Well... that's the view of them from a herd mentality, and that's what I want to talk about today - herds and packs.
This morning, I mentioned something about a political group with a Cause and various Arguments, and my husband said, "Yeah, this reminds me of my Social Problems class in college. The professor kept saying that a Social Problem arises because the society as a whole comes to the conclusion that there is a problem. I kept saying that a Social Problem arises because a few leaders decide that it is a problem and go about convincing enough of the other people that it is a problem, whether it is or not."
I came fully awake. "You're right and your teacher was wrong, and I know why," I said.
A while ago, I came to the startling realization that human beings are pack animals by nature. I'd been following the research of one of my friends into wolves and wolf behavior, and doing some of my own research into the similarity of genetics in social behavior between humans and prairie voles. Our interests intersected, and I found a whole world of fascinating information. Humans and wolves have very similar social-behavior genetics, and naturally tend to form very similar social structures. After a while of saturating my brain with information about alphas, family packs (the naturally-formed wolf pack resembles a family tribe of an alpha, his daughters, and his daughters' mates, who include formerly-lone wolves from other packs), roles, and tactics, I made the inescapable conclusion: Humans are also pack animals, endurance hunters, and family units, just like wolves.
(And, as the part of the research that led me in this direction, humans are by nature sexually monogamous in bonded pairs. But that, and the liberal Democrat view on it, is another discussion entirely!)
Why was this such a startling conclusion? Just like my husband's Social Problems teacher, the education system is saturated with teachers and administrators teaching and reinforcing the idea that humans are herd animals. Children in school are treated like herd animals, and expected to act like herd animals. Examples of human behavior are often likened to herd behavior, even when the full story of any given incident indicates differently. We even use terms like "sheeple" to refer to "The Masses"... Wait, I've heard that term before. Yes, I have, and so have you. It came out of early socialist philosophy. The very idea of a Communist Paradise requires a type of herd mentality and, since humans do not naturally work together in herds the way that herd animals do, all actual implementations of Communism have required a "shepherd", a member treated as if he is of a different species (some animals are more equal than others), who is determined to be qualified to shove the herd when it isn't 'naturally congregating' in the right direction.
This goes all the way down to government-run healthcare, in which Former President Obama's famous line to Jane Strum about her elderly mother, vital and strong-hearted, would be better off with the pill than the pacemaker. "Devil take the hindmost". Well, to be more accurate, in my part of the country, the hindmost is generally taken by the wolves. The exception is The Children, who are protected not because they are weak, but because they are the future of the herd.
Now herd mentality actually works for herd animals. They will stampede together when the decision is made. They will line up together to protect the young when that decision is made. If a herd did not actually come to a herd decision through their herd behavior, they would flee wildly in all directions, trampling even their young, or refuse to stand up against an enemy that the entire herd can drive off together... kind of like humans in cities, being pushed into herd behavior and not being able to synthesize it. For this reason people are trained, in an emergency, to point at someone and say, "You call 911" instead of hollering, "Someone call 911!" which, in a herd, may result in many people calling, but, in a group of bystanders, all too often leads to everyone leaving the job to someone else. When you tell a specific person to call 911, a specific other person to direct traffic, etc., you may not wind up with a fully elegant solution, as you don't know which of the strangers are better or worse at the roles you are giving them. You will, however, always wind up with a better situation by organizing them into an impromptu pack (that is what you are doing) than leaving them as a disorganized non-herd.
Pack mentality among wolves incorporates a sense of what we would call 'natural rights', in which each member of the pack has a certain level of autonomy and a structure of authority to handle matters that cannot be handled individually. They put up with this because they can get more, more meat, better homes, more security than they can alone.
Now unlike Democrats, Republicans favor a governmental structure in which the top parts of the government are limited in power, because human beings work better in a series of packs, the leaders of those packs coming together to form structures that only handle what can't be done within the packs themselves, just as the individual only yields what authority he must to do in within the pack what he cannot do as a lone wolf. They tend to be willing to put up with a little more structure and authority than the Libertarians do. But they do not have the mentality that human beings are a very large herd which must be pushed about by a shepherd, as the Democrats do.
So when the Democrats like to say, "Wolves, eh? Wolves take the hindmost," what can we point out? In a wolf pack, the 'hindmost' is still a subordinate in the pack. Have you ever seen overindulgent people with their (often small-breed) dogs? The dogs are a holy terror and they give in to every little doggy whim, because they 'just want their darlings to be happy'. I am reminded of Democrats promising their "masses" every little bit of food, shelter, healthcare, bread, and circuses, delivered to them for free and to make them happy. A dog (by taxonomy merely a subordinate wolf in a human pack) who is treated this way will become fearful and aggressive. He develops anxiety issues and winds up a very unhappy, unhealthy pup. What a subordinate wolf needs desperately is to know that he has a place in the pack, to be given a role, a job, and to know that he has received a portion as large as it is because of the health of the pack. The "hindmost" in the pack needs what Republicans promise - workfare and an improved economy in which he can take up his place and feel secure in his pack.
Consider this in your own lives, taking it out of politics for a moment. Consider your place of employment, your gatherings for hobbies, your weekend activity groups, even your momentary inadvertent social structures, like the passengers of an airplane, the other people in a movie theater, the crowd at the scene of an accident. Are they acting as a pack or a herd? If they can be chivvied into an impromptu pack, will the experience be better for everyone?
And when you hear the grand speeches of the politicians, ask yourself: Are they treating us like herd animals or pack animals? What do their wordings and their programs imply?
Saturday, May 20, 2017
A new 'autism' theory: Terrestrials and Aerials
Autism. ADHD, in hyperactive, inattentive, and mixed. Synesthesia.
Neurotypical.
Imagine for a moment that there is a world with two main tribes of sentient beings. They're both the same kind of creature underneath in that they can interact and even breed. There's one main difference between them. The Aerials can fly. The Terrestrials cannot.
Now that's actually not a huge difference on the face of it, but it does result in the development of two different societies. The Aerials don't bother much with roads or sea travel. Why would they? They can fly. The Terrestrials have roads, bridges, ships. If you asked who was more technologically advanced, you'd say the Terrestrials. But the reason the Aerials haven't built as much infrastructure is because their living conditions don't require it. They aren't stupider than the Terrestrials. On the other hand, the Aerials have conventions that Terrestrials don't understand, like "I can come to your party if the winds are favorable." Why would it matter what the winds are doing? It doesn't, to the Terrestrial. The Aerial has to fly down from his home, so for him it does matter. On the other hand, you have a bunch of Terrestrials fully expecting an Aerial to use the ferryboat to get from one side of the river to the other, because 'that's how it is done'. The Aerial is pacing on the deck, frustrated at the slowness of the boat, and not understanding why he can't just spread his wings and glide across. Of course, if he tries to take off right then and there, he's going to rock the boat and make all the Terrestrials uncomfortable.
Now imagine that the Aerials are a small percentage of the population, and the majority are Terrestrials. You are more likely to have rules in place regarding airspace, schools judging you on how well you can swim (something Aerials don't tend to learn, because they were learning to fly instead), and a culture that regards flight as capricious and self-centered.
We could apply the same theory to humankind. The Terrestrials are what autism and ADHD groups call "neurotypical". They are the solid, organized, regimented people who build society by virtue of being in the majority. They have social rules and understandings, which they are practically born able to intuit. They can tell you what the social conventions are, from birthday parties to condolences, and how to perform your part in it properly. The Aerials are people who are wired differently. Terrestrials have struggled for centuries to define Aerials. Just recently, more people who used to be called ADHD are considered to have some form of autism. The term "aspergers" has also merged back into "autism" and spawned another term, "high-functioning". In other times and places they have been "eccentric", "insane but harmless", "shamans" or "witches", dreamers, "highly sensitive individuals", "Age of Aquarians", and so on.
I'd like to insert a disclaimer. I am not saying that "autism doesn't exist" or that it is not a problem. I am aware that there are Aerials who are nonverbal, who can't fight their way outside of their own heads, who engage in violent fits in response to bright lights and whatnot. On the other side, you need only read from the website notalwaysright.com to understand that there are neurotypicals on the extremist side as well. They just demonstrate it differently. However, there is an enormous struggle in the world of psychology and psychiatry to define and deal with the "high functioning" who do not respond to medication (or who can live fairly well without it), with the ones who are not called 'autistic' and then called 'autistic', and then 'aspergers', and then 'not aspergers'... How to differentiate them from the neurotypicals who have learned to be delicate in order to mimic a diagnosis, how to understand ADHD, what to do with a kid who seems very intelligent, but just can't apply it the way Terrestrials do. That's what I would like the term "Aerial" to do for me and others like me.
I also would like to take a moment to explain what "Terrestrials" and "Aerials" is not about. It's not about who is boring and who is artistic. It isn't about who is smart and who is stupid. It isn't about who has a stereotypical interest in engines and who prefers to work with people. It isn't even about fantasy versus reality, although Aerials tend to create fantasy and enjoy it, while Terrestrials may or may not enjoy it at all. For instance, I would say that Batman is an Aerial and Superman is a Terrestrial. Luke Skywalker is an Aerial and Leia is either Terrestrial or a mix. The main character of action-adventure stories is often a Terrestrial. Detectives may be either; Holmes was definitely an Aerial.
Now it gets interesting.
Being that we live in a Terrestrial society, we tend to judge things in terms of Terrestrial thinking. That's natural. In doing so, however, one of the big things that we say about Aerials is that they are socially inept. They don't follow social cues. They don't know how to interact with people the way the people expect to be interacted with. They ask weird questions, reveal more of themselves than they should in some areas, hide parts of themselves they shouldn't in other areas. At least, that's how the Aerial looks from the Terrestrial point of view.
In this area, I have a bit of a unique perspective. Usually, being that Aerials are rare, you will find one of two in a Terrestrial family. Both "Aerial' and 'Terrestrial' are, however, in part genetic. One classic stereotype (which has become a stereotype because it is often true) is that of a black sheep uncle and the nephew or niece who resembles him. That would be a key example of Aerial genetics within a majority Terrestrial family. In my family, however, we have an oddly strong concentration of Aerials. My father's side is strongly Aerial. My mother's is mostly Aerial within the recent generations, and mixed in some family lines as you start to move up a hundred years or more. My parents, my siblings, and I are all Aerials. In my husband's case, however, his Terrestrial father married an Aerial, and at least my husband (and perhaps his sister) is an Aerial. We have three children; all of them are unquestionably Aerials.
With all these Aerials, especially as my side tends to be close-knit and like to live near each other, I am slowly realizing that there is an Aerial social environment with intuited and unspoken rules, conventions, and practices. It is different than a Terrestrial social environment. I do not think it will emerge unless you have enough Aerials in one place. Once you do, however, you will find that they, like Terrestrials, will have ways to give offense, ways to avoid offense, things you are 'expected' to 'know' to do, and all of the other markers of any social environment. A Terrestrial in a group of Aerials who are no longer struggling to associate with each other the way they have been taught by Terrestrials will find himself just as puzzled, just as insecure, just as unable to intuit social graces as an Aerial at a Terrestrial party. Visit a family gathering of the sort that I grew up in, and you will find people asking each other favors that you're "not supposed to ask" and discussing topics that you're "not supposed to discuss" (according to Terrestrial norms), and yet simply intuiting which topics to avoid (which a Terrestrial might "clumsily" attempt) and at which point you simply do not push. A social group of Aerials understand why, to go back to my original fictional analogy, one Aerial cannot come or must return home early "because the winds aren't right".
Neurotypical.
Imagine for a moment that there is a world with two main tribes of sentient beings. They're both the same kind of creature underneath in that they can interact and even breed. There's one main difference between them. The Aerials can fly. The Terrestrials cannot.
Now that's actually not a huge difference on the face of it, but it does result in the development of two different societies. The Aerials don't bother much with roads or sea travel. Why would they? They can fly. The Terrestrials have roads, bridges, ships. If you asked who was more technologically advanced, you'd say the Terrestrials. But the reason the Aerials haven't built as much infrastructure is because their living conditions don't require it. They aren't stupider than the Terrestrials. On the other hand, the Aerials have conventions that Terrestrials don't understand, like "I can come to your party if the winds are favorable." Why would it matter what the winds are doing? It doesn't, to the Terrestrial. The Aerial has to fly down from his home, so for him it does matter. On the other hand, you have a bunch of Terrestrials fully expecting an Aerial to use the ferryboat to get from one side of the river to the other, because 'that's how it is done'. The Aerial is pacing on the deck, frustrated at the slowness of the boat, and not understanding why he can't just spread his wings and glide across. Of course, if he tries to take off right then and there, he's going to rock the boat and make all the Terrestrials uncomfortable.
Now imagine that the Aerials are a small percentage of the population, and the majority are Terrestrials. You are more likely to have rules in place regarding airspace, schools judging you on how well you can swim (something Aerials don't tend to learn, because they were learning to fly instead), and a culture that regards flight as capricious and self-centered.
We could apply the same theory to humankind. The Terrestrials are what autism and ADHD groups call "neurotypical". They are the solid, organized, regimented people who build society by virtue of being in the majority. They have social rules and understandings, which they are practically born able to intuit. They can tell you what the social conventions are, from birthday parties to condolences, and how to perform your part in it properly. The Aerials are people who are wired differently. Terrestrials have struggled for centuries to define Aerials. Just recently, more people who used to be called ADHD are considered to have some form of autism. The term "aspergers" has also merged back into "autism" and spawned another term, "high-functioning". In other times and places they have been "eccentric", "insane but harmless", "shamans" or "witches", dreamers, "highly sensitive individuals", "Age of Aquarians", and so on.
I'd like to insert a disclaimer. I am not saying that "autism doesn't exist" or that it is not a problem. I am aware that there are Aerials who are nonverbal, who can't fight their way outside of their own heads, who engage in violent fits in response to bright lights and whatnot. On the other side, you need only read from the website notalwaysright.com to understand that there are neurotypicals on the extremist side as well. They just demonstrate it differently. However, there is an enormous struggle in the world of psychology and psychiatry to define and deal with the "high functioning" who do not respond to medication (or who can live fairly well without it), with the ones who are not called 'autistic' and then called 'autistic', and then 'aspergers', and then 'not aspergers'... How to differentiate them from the neurotypicals who have learned to be delicate in order to mimic a diagnosis, how to understand ADHD, what to do with a kid who seems very intelligent, but just can't apply it the way Terrestrials do. That's what I would like the term "Aerial" to do for me and others like me.
I also would like to take a moment to explain what "Terrestrials" and "Aerials" is not about. It's not about who is boring and who is artistic. It isn't about who is smart and who is stupid. It isn't about who has a stereotypical interest in engines and who prefers to work with people. It isn't even about fantasy versus reality, although Aerials tend to create fantasy and enjoy it, while Terrestrials may or may not enjoy it at all. For instance, I would say that Batman is an Aerial and Superman is a Terrestrial. Luke Skywalker is an Aerial and Leia is either Terrestrial or a mix. The main character of action-adventure stories is often a Terrestrial. Detectives may be either; Holmes was definitely an Aerial.
Now it gets interesting.
Being that we live in a Terrestrial society, we tend to judge things in terms of Terrestrial thinking. That's natural. In doing so, however, one of the big things that we say about Aerials is that they are socially inept. They don't follow social cues. They don't know how to interact with people the way the people expect to be interacted with. They ask weird questions, reveal more of themselves than they should in some areas, hide parts of themselves they shouldn't in other areas. At least, that's how the Aerial looks from the Terrestrial point of view.
In this area, I have a bit of a unique perspective. Usually, being that Aerials are rare, you will find one of two in a Terrestrial family. Both "Aerial' and 'Terrestrial' are, however, in part genetic. One classic stereotype (which has become a stereotype because it is often true) is that of a black sheep uncle and the nephew or niece who resembles him. That would be a key example of Aerial genetics within a majority Terrestrial family. In my family, however, we have an oddly strong concentration of Aerials. My father's side is strongly Aerial. My mother's is mostly Aerial within the recent generations, and mixed in some family lines as you start to move up a hundred years or more. My parents, my siblings, and I are all Aerials. In my husband's case, however, his Terrestrial father married an Aerial, and at least my husband (and perhaps his sister) is an Aerial. We have three children; all of them are unquestionably Aerials.
With all these Aerials, especially as my side tends to be close-knit and like to live near each other, I am slowly realizing that there is an Aerial social environment with intuited and unspoken rules, conventions, and practices. It is different than a Terrestrial social environment. I do not think it will emerge unless you have enough Aerials in one place. Once you do, however, you will find that they, like Terrestrials, will have ways to give offense, ways to avoid offense, things you are 'expected' to 'know' to do, and all of the other markers of any social environment. A Terrestrial in a group of Aerials who are no longer struggling to associate with each other the way they have been taught by Terrestrials will find himself just as puzzled, just as insecure, just as unable to intuit social graces as an Aerial at a Terrestrial party. Visit a family gathering of the sort that I grew up in, and you will find people asking each other favors that you're "not supposed to ask" and discussing topics that you're "not supposed to discuss" (according to Terrestrial norms), and yet simply intuiting which topics to avoid (which a Terrestrial might "clumsily" attempt) and at which point you simply do not push. A social group of Aerials understand why, to go back to my original fictional analogy, one Aerial cannot come or must return home early "because the winds aren't right".
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