There was only one way to be, only certain foods, everything else was either a sin or a personal failure. Those kids could not answer questions honestly, just repeat back the same approved cultural pablum that maga wants to go back to.

Simple has several meanings.

The only light was Dr. Spock, but too subtle for many readers, he had to couch things carefully in his time and the culture was deafening.

Only after Lorna Wing released her work in the 70s did it start to normalise for some Gen Xers.

[–] ben_dover@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

*Mr. Spock 🖖

[–] aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Dr. Benjamin Spock

[–] ben_dover@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

lol i know, no reason to downvote 😅

[–] aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 months ago

I don't have downvoting.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Him too. Leonard Nimoy's character was a pretty good template for the "cool nerd"

[–] aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago

I related to him strongly, but talking that way was outrageous at the time, when I did it I felt more at ease but people got angry.

I've wondered if Spock was a nod to Dr. Spock by Roddenberry, because he was a cultural icon at the time, including being roasted by comedians and newspaper columnists.

All this current environment happened in steps and leaps and with people building on previous work.

Bill W was going around with bottles of LSD to try to break addiction at 12 step meetings, beatniks led to hippies, the culture was cracking open at the seams, meanwhile all boomers are the same and never dealt with any personal or cultural struggles, since there were no protests about the war in Vietnam or musicians dying of overdoses or people shot at Kent State or the president then his brother being shot to death. No struggles at all.

In contrast, at that time neurodiversity was a small issue, it rarely made the papers in a time when even plain old gayness was shocking enough. When it did it was just filler about weird intractable kids in Dear Abby, no mention of leaded gas fumes and cigarette smoke everywhere people went, no thought of Agent Orange factories or burning rivers having anything to do with it...why can't these kids act normal?

A ND kid in the 60s was just laughable and weird and hopeless, nerd was not a nice word at all, no love in its usage.

Unless they shrugged resignedly and masked. People who were kids from that time still reflexively use NT behaviors as reference points, that's how one got through.

It wasn't a joke: I still have a chip missing from a front tooth from having my face rammed into the rail of a schoollbus seat.