Fair play in groups

This blog is very timely for me. I have been having a hurtful experience with group dynamics RIGHT NOW.

Its outcome is still hanging on one of the critical values of the aspie scene's whole genuineness about its cause and our needs, that applies to all parts of the scene. This is: will an aspie group (not Elas) observe a standard that few groups ever do in real life but all groups have a duty to fairness to observe, a standard that for aspies is basic to recognising what we are, that makes all the difference between caring for or doing a medical wrong to our needs. This standard is: that group will always, not sometimes, not selectively, always uphold personal fairness and put it top. It will care more about personal fairness than (1) any group dynamics or orders of dominance (that of course there should not be anyway), (2) any factor of the expediency for any group's life.

It is a commonplace aspie pain to come into conflict with groups over expediently wanting not to uphold personal fairness. That makes it a particular injustice if it happens in a group that is of or for aspies ourselves. Too often in my life I have come into conflict with either groups or folks personally, who have persisted in remaining noncommittal about an injustice until I'm banging my head against a wall. In groups where I can contact many of the members personally, when I reach this point my last resort is to send each member a message describing the problem and the serious ways the group is in the wrong unless it puts the problem right. I explain why they should not be upset and why if they do give their backing to the right outcome they should not feel their happy life in the group is disturbed in any way. Yet never once have I known this message to get through. I always find it does upset them, and this upsets me too.

So why would I still take this action? Because I can see no better alternative. As an aspie I can communicate more completely in a personal message than in a group, particularly when either the group or its most dominant voice are opposed to what I'm saying, in a written message I get to say everything I need to and they can't shut me up unfinished, and I place on each person a personal responsibility not to take the wrong unfair view on the offending issue, and I leave them with private space and time to absorb that. You see the logical sense it makes? It should never go wrong. So every time it does, it confirms something was fundamentally wrong with the group, that I had to discover sooner or later or else the pain would have been bigger and worse eventually. This then gives me a feeling of catharsis and of each offending group deserving its upset, practical points that that offset the pain over seeing fairweather friendships end at my time of need yet again. Every time, this hardens my determination to stick by the struggle and my reasoned belief that my tactic of circulating a message was correct. Every time.

Yet I don't want life to be punctuated by such experiences. I always find it devastatingly stressful to be forced into them. I want folks to be genuine enough about personal individual caring and fairness, never expediently double-crossing on it, so that these experiences should not arise. It is common sense to the ethic of support, in any supportive group set up as caring for our needs and problems, that any member of a group can raise with the others, for their thoughts, any problem with how fairly the group is working. This includes raising it personally with anyone on a contact list, and most obviously anyone who you are on confident enough terms with for it.Imagine if members were banned from spontaneously raising issues with each other about the group, telling each other there is any problem. Then the group's leadership, one person even, could cover up anything they liked about their reaction to any problem raised by any member. That would never be an ethical way to run any group, it would be a dictatorship.

Also, when a group compiles a policy or code about how it is going to cope with any sorts of difficulty, it needs to gather views from its members on what needs they need the code to reflect. That is responsible. Otherwise the policy can expect to run into unforseen problems and clashes. You can't have one centralised leader simply announce that s/he alone is going to write "a strict code of conduct" to favoured by him/erself and slap it on everyone.

If an announcement is taken literally, this is now the actual outcome of the case I have mentioned. We will see what degree of consultation there may be if any, when a code is presented. This illustrates, worldwide, why it is important to any aspie group's ethicality, its medical fairness to hearing all its members' needs, that a group must never be constituted as owned by one person who is the leader, who has final say over everything and can decree new policies alone. It must be constituted to consult collectively on all policies and codes, as Elas now does, so that they embrace all members' declared needs.

Constraint on the way we can talk about problems, so that it does not itself turn into personal bullying, is sensible. But a group should discuss its constraints and make sure they don't amount to censorship of the expression of any problem at all. It's right that in a discussion message you circulate, you should not be allowed to identify a person and make attacks. It's right that you should have to try firstly, to get a personal problem solved in the gentlest and least disruptive way. But what happens when the "proper channels" for this don't work? e.g. because they let you down and don't solve or recognise the problem? This is a possibility anywhere, throughout life, it is why one of the safeguards of freedom is entitlement to speak out about it, as a failing of the system. It's why free speech matters instead of offices of the astate deciding everything and what is ever heard about it.

You must be allowed to describe the nature of the problem, keeping names anonymous, and the nature of how you think the system for solving it has let you down, and consequent ideas for change. Anything you can support factually you must be allowed to say, not gagged on the excuse that it is a libel risk - the whole point of speaking factually verified is it's not libel. This is basic to the freedom and uncorruption of any group, to keeping leadership cover-ups impossible, hence to any group's sheer medical ethicality. This is a standard for local groups' ethicality that needs campaigning for.

Suppose you are drifting into an emotionally abused position in a group, because there is an issue of it that the one overcentralised leader wants not to take a position on. Suppose there is a generous supply of private "proper channels", to raise it through, including through a link to a bigger support organisation, but all you get is noncommittality that by default changes nothing, evasion of direct comment on the case at all, and libel scares against calling it an abuse even thought you re backed by verifiable facts. It is a basic human right for your wellbeing in the group, to rasise the problem direct to other members.

If this is banned on the excuse it might upset them, and this by one leader just announcing her/his own rules about it without consultation, then members are censored towards each iother from discussing when there is anything is going wrong with the group. Then the wrong outcome on an issue of serious harm could be imposed as one person's final decision and all talking about it would be banned. Ever mentioning any problem to anyone except through the leader, even anyone you closely trust, will be banned in the code and will count as misusing their contact info. This would be like communism and AFF. No aspie should feel protected in, or want to stay loyal to, any group that functions like that. A code that openly calls itself strict: I mean you run a mile. I won't class myself or anyone else as safely protected under such a system. This is a campaign issue the whole aspie scene needs to watch out for everywhere.

Consider, it's like saying: the country needs placing under some strict codes to stop disorder upsetting folks, in which our leader must keep us feeling safe by never being told otherwise, so let's abolish parliament and ban news of anything the government disfavours. On occasions in history this solution really has been popular. It has never turned out well.

Bob Lawless