I’ve written a lot about grudges and how quick people are to hate over so little so intensely for so long. And the increase in loneliness and the decline in romantic relationships. All of these fall along the spectrum of liberality versus reticence. In the earlier article where I illustrate the differences in the spectrum I identified one division of people who have fewer social rules and those with idiosyncratic ones and that I have fewer. I’m not afraid of strangers, I can dig weirdness, if you cuss me out I’ll forgive you and we can break bread within forty-eight hours. As said in that article, the principal reason I’m a Swiftie is not because I have an exceptional affinity for the particular figure but because she is a universal point of reference whom I can connect with people from every culture and subculture from that more obscure or niche cultural phenomena wouldn’t do although I am earnestly like her, the universality of the cultural item is of more importance. My aim in politics and life is to be universally accessible and open. I don’t ghost on people but I work through problems until there is a solution and I respond to almost all correspondence. My variant of autism means I have fewer rules, fewer prejudices, and am general more liberal than reticent.
Now, to be clear, while I am very political liberal when I refer to personal liberality it doesn’t equate to that. They relate to each other. Being someone who engages with all subcultures, talks to strangers, and doesn’t hold grudges makes one more politically liberal. Ditching the clique for a nomadic lifestyle gives one worldly knowledge that contributes to a deep empathy for the human condition and understanding of how it came to be the way it is. Now, most people believe that they are well-exposed to most other people and have a comprehensive understanding of the breadth of human society. They don’t. Most people have a number of cognitive biases that tell them they do when they actually don’t. If you’re afraid of talking to strangers and working through or overlooking flaws and obstructions due to being easily offended or being very grudge-prone then you are naturally reticent and don’t have a wide knowledge of the human condition.
Being warmer is fun. I don’t hold grudges in part because hatred is induced by oxytocin and I don’t have that. Instead, my social interactions are rewarded by serotonin which makes friendliness fun but doesn’t make me bond with people. That’s the source of my nomadism. I don’t form bonds or join cliques but I do like socializing with people. Oxytocin is how society organizes itself socially. That’s how people fall into cliques, stratify hierarchies, create irrational taboos and mores, create marginalized outgroups, why they become averse to strangers, and the like. It’s the clique chemical and the culture chemical. The latter because it I largely responsible for all of the illogical things cultures invent. The spectrum of liberality and reticence has a lot to do with how much oxytocin one has and also serotonin.
Evolution is, arguably, the result of unconscious subsections of molecule engaging in mind control to perpetuate their existences. Human culture is largely the result of irrational organization based on a handful of unconscious chemicals, principally oxytocin. A chemical, possibly, responsible for more human warfare and oppression than any other. It gave our species nationalism and left us with Verdun. The difference between liberality and reticence has a lot to do with that single chemical and liberal democracy is its most recent victim and it is increasing the suicide rate and increasing loneliness all because it makes people bond with and biased in favor of ingroups. That’s why people should, if not take oxytocin inhibitors, at least, recognize their propensity for reticence and for aversion to outgroups. To recognize it is a string of atoms, a molecule, and not a rational means of making choices.
In a world ever divided and sinking into nationalism and loneliness, it is important that people reach out to strangers and not be afraid of people in another clique. Liberality needs to overtake reticence. Love needs to overtake fear. I’ve been blessed with the inclination to meet strangers and not hold grudges. The world is much lighter and sweeter when one isn’t subsumed in the dark passions of social politics but skips lightly across the landscape of human topography with irreverence and playfulness. These are personality traits that are too often not mentioned but need to be mentioned more because until their existence is acknowledged we will not be able to make more open and accepting and forgiving people and that, for liberal democracy, or each other, and for love itself, we need to do.
The Autistic Resistance 