Fairness Is Not Optional: Why Autistic Minds Struggle with Injustice

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Last update 14 May 2025
Reading time 18 mins

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 (ASD L1), often colloquially referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome, is characterized by specific patterns of cognitive processing, emotional sensitivity and social interaction. Individuals on this end of the spectrum are typically verbally fluent, intellectually capable and often deeply focused on specific areas of interest. Yet, they also tend to experience heightened sensitivity to sensory input, difficulties with unspoken social rules and an intense need for internal consistency. This consistency is not only logical but often moral - a felt imperative that the world should operate according to fair and predictable principles.

One of the most profound traits observed among many people with ASD L1 is a deep and sometimes overwhelming need for fairness, justice and balance. These aren’t just values or preferences; they are often foundational to how the world is cognitively and emotionally understood. When something unfair occurs - whether in interpersonal relationships, institutional settings or broader society - the autistic mind does not simply file it away as a regrettable but forgettable event. Instead, it registers as an unresolved inconsistency, an error in the moral fabric of reality that continues to cause distress until corrected.

This article explores why autistic individuals struggle so deeply with injustice and why they often cannot simply “let it go” or “move on” in the way others might. We will delve into the structural need for balance that underlies autistic cognition, the different way memory and emotional time operate in autistic minds and the frequent misunderstanding this creates in a society that tends to prioritize social harmony over principled consistency. This piece also connects to our previous article on the autistic experience of time fading, which explains why emotional wounds do not naturally diminish over time for many autistic people. Rather than fading, unresolved injustices persist as active, present concerns - constantly demanding correction and balance.

By understanding these underlying patterns, we can not only develop deeper empathy but also begin to recognize the moral logic behind what is often misread as stubbornness, bitterness or social immaturity. For autistic individuals, fairness is not a negotiable ideal. It is a structural necessity - a condition for peace of mind, emotional security and trust in the world around them.

The Intrinsic Drive for Balance

For individuals with ASD Level 1, fairness is not simply a desirable trait in others or an abstract moral preference. It is experienced as a core component of how the world should operate - a baseline requirement for cognitive and emotional coherence. Autistic thinking often privileges logic, structure and predictability. This doesn’t mean rigidness or lack of creativity, but rather that events and relationships are often interpreted through internal systems that seek harmony and clear causality. When someone behaves unfairly - for example, by breaking a promise, shifting rules without explanation or assigning blame unevenly - it can feel like a violation not just of trust, but of the very logic that governs the universe.

To neurotypical individuals, such situations may be absorbed into the flow of social nuance. They may chalk up the unfairness to human complexity, shrug off contradictions or reinterpret situations in ways that preserve emotional peace. For autistic individuals, however, these contradictions can become deeply unsettling. An unfair event is not just unfortunate; it disrupts the internal map of how people are supposed to behave and how consequences are meant to unfold. If someone treats others kindly but consistently ignores one person’s needs, this asymmetry becomes intolerable—not just emotionally, but structurally.

This drive for balance is visible in how many autistic people engage with games, rules and debates. Rules exist for a reason and must apply equally to everyone. The idea of exceptions, favoritism or double standards often causes visible frustration. For instance, if a teacher disciplines one student for being late but not another, the inconsistency is perceived not as a minor oversight but as an ethical breakdown. The rules of the system have failed and thus the system itself becomes suspect until the error is addressed or explained.

This internal demand for balance is not about control or perfectionism in the traditional sense. It is a way of ensuring that the environment remains legible and emotionally safe. When fairness is upheld, it reinforces trust and predictability. When it is broken, it erodes that sense of safety, creating a lingering anxiety that something is wrong and must be fixed. The autistic mind seeks not to dominate or correct others out of pedantry, but to restore harmony to a world that has momentarily lost its coherence.

“Just Accept It” - Why That Doesn’t Work

A common expectation in neurotypical social frameworks is the ability to “just accept” certain things - especially when it comes to small injustices, slights or unfair treatment. People are often praised for letting go, moving on or maintaining peace by forgiving and forgetting. For many autistic individuals, however, this kind of emotional flexibility is neither natural nor accessible. The underlying structure of their perception does not allow for an easy reconciliation between what should happen and what did happen, especially when the event is experienced as a violation of fairness.

For someone with ASD Level 1, the notion of “acceptance” becomes deeply problematic when it involves overlooking something unjust. In these situations, the emotional disturbance is not merely the result of feeling wronged - it stems from a fundamental breach in the expected structure of reality. Imagine constructing a building, only to discover one of its support beams is missing. While others might cover it with a curtain and move on, the autistic perspective insists that the structure must be stabilized before proceeding. To accept an unresolved injustice is to leave the architecture of the world flawed, unstable and inconsistent.

This is why autistic individuals may seem unwilling to “drop it” or “move on.” The unfair situation does not fade or soften over time. Instead, it remains lodged in memory as an error—one that must eventually be addressed for the system to be whole again. Even the suggestion that they should accept unfair treatment can feel like gaslighting, as if they are being asked to pretend that everything is fine when, by every metric that matters to them, it clearly is not.

To illustrate, consider a workplace where one employee is reprimanded for missing a deadline, while another receives praise despite submitting late work of lesser quality. A neurotypical employee might recognize the injustice, feel frustrated and then let it go for the sake of group cohesion or personal peace. An autistic colleague, however, may fixate on this inconsistency. It isn’t about personal resentment; it’s about the principle. If this discrepancy goes unaddressed, the system can no longer be trusted and the emotional toll is significant.

In short, asking an autistic person to “just accept” unresolved injustice is not asking them to calm down—it’s asking them to overwrite a core principle that governs their understanding of the world. This is not an emotional overreaction but a logical defense of a worldview that relies on fairness as a central axis. To them, giving up on fairness isn’t peace - it’s disorientation.

What makes this even more painful is the frequent neurotypical response: “Yeah well, life is unfair.” This phrase is often used to shut down further discussion, to imply that injustice is natural and should be endured. But for autistic individuals, this is not an answer. It’s a resignation to a broken system and one that communicates indifference rather than understanding. Saying that “life is unfair” does not remove the obligation to fix things that are wrong. It only attempts to normalize dysfunction. But if the world accepts unfairness as inevitable and refuses to rebalance, then it loses its legitimacy - its very right to be trusted or valued. For the autistic mind, the world becomes not just disappointing, but fundamentally unworthy of participating in if it cannot uphold fairness. Repair is not optional. Balance is not a luxury. It is the very condition that makes existence coherent and bearable.

Memory That Doesn’t Fade

In a previous article, we explored the concept of time fading and how the autistic perception of time differs from the neurotypical experience. One of the key takeaways from that discussion is that, for many autistic individuals, emotional events do not diminish in intensity simply because time has passed. The emotional weight of an experience is not automatically reassessed or reclassified as “distant” or “over.” Instead, memories retain a kind of temporal immediacy - especially if they were never resolved or understood.

This phenomenon is particularly important when considering how autistic people experience injustice. If an unfair event was never repaired—if no resolution was made, no accountability taken and no concrete effort made to restore balance—it doesn’t fade into the past. It remains current. The mind does not classify it as a closed chapter; it treats it as an open file, an active contradiction that continues to disrupt the internal sense of order.

To someone with ASD Level 1, unresolved injustices continue to “ping” within their mental systems. They may reanalyze the event, rehearse possible outcomes or continue to wait for someone to actually correct the imbalance. This is not a refusal to let go, but rather an inability to relocate the experience to the past when, cognitively and emotionally, it has never been settled. The emotional timekeeping is nonlinear—it stays live.

This can be confusing or frustrating to others, who might wonder why something from five or ten years ago still surfaces with such clarity and urgency. But to the autistic mind, the issue was never closed and so its emotional relevance never expired. What others perceive as “old news” is, for the autistic person, simply unresolved business. The timeline is not driven by the clock—it’s driven by whether the balance has ever been restored.

The Need for Restitution or Repair

Autistic individuals often do not seek revenge when they demand justice or resolution. What they require is balance - the restoration of fairness in a system that has been disrupted. When an injustice occurs, the emotional disturbance it causes cannot be soothed by time, distraction or symbolic gestures. What matters is that the imbalance be repaired in a real, observable way. This is not a preference - it is a necessity for emotional regulation and the restoration of internal order.

Crucially, apologies do not constitute resolution. In many social contexts, offering an apology is seen as an adequate or even noble response to wrongdoing. But for autistic individuals, an apology without action is essentially empty. It acknowledges the problem, perhaps, but it does not fix it. Words do not rebalance the scales; only action does. A broken trust, an unfair judgment or a misused rule must be actively corrected. That may mean reversing a decision, compensating for a wrong or changing behavior going forward. Without such corrective steps, the apology is perceived not only as insufficient but potentially manipulative—a performance of remorse without the substance of repair.

Because of this, autistic individuals may continue to bring up unresolved issues long after others consider them closed. This is not because they are clinging to the past, but because nothing has actually changed. The harm remains unaddressed. And so emotional peace cannot return. To achieve closure, the system must make sense again—and that only happens when unfairness is tangibly resolved. Until that point, the issue remains active, no matter how much time has passed or how many times someone has said they’re sorry.

Importantly, autistic individuals often experience injustice not only as isolated incidents, but as accumulating layers of imbalance. The failure to resolve one instance can blend into another, forming a cumulative weight that affects their sense of safety and trust in society. As this imbalance builds, it becomes not just a matter of personal repair but of systemic correction. The responsibility to restore fairness is no longer limited to the original actors—it becomes a societal obligation.

And yet, a common neurotypical reaction is to distance both individuals and institutions from that responsibility. People often respond to calls for justice by asserting that “no one in particular” has any duty to help or to fix the problem. But such arguments are not solutions. They change nothing. The imbalance does not disappear because accountability is diffused or denied. From the autistic perspective, this refusal to acknowledge shared responsibility is just another form of inaction. What matters is not who fixes it, but that it is fixed. The system must regain its fairness—no matter who carries it out.

The Misinterpretation by Neurotypical Systems

In many social environments, especially those structured by neurotypical norms, there is a powerful emphasis on emotional flexibility, forgiveness and the ability to “let go” of negative experiences for the sake of maintaining harmony. This cultural value is often equated with maturity, resilience or social grace. However, when an autistic individual insists on revisiting an unresolved injustice, this insistence is frequently misinterpreted. Instead of being understood as a logical demand for balance or a need for integrity in the system, it is perceived as inflexibility, obsessive behavior or even emotional immaturity.

This misreading is not just a matter of social misunderstanding—it has serious consequences. In professional, educational or legal systems, autistic persistence is often pathologized. Repeatedly bringing up a past event that has not been resolved is labeled as “dwelling on the past” or “being difficult,” even though the autistic person is simply responding to a structural imbalance that still exists. Rather than being recognized as an ethical and cognitive response to a broken system, the behavior is judged by neurotypical standards of emotional timing and closure.

When this dynamic plays out in institutions, the result can be exclusion, reprimand or misdiagnosis. An autistic employee who continues to question an unfair workplace policy may be seen as insubordinate. A student who cannot accept an unaddressed inconsistency in grading might be labeled disruptive. In legal contexts, persistent attempts to demand redress can be viewed as obsessive or aggressive rather than principled. The original injustice is not only left uncorrected it is compounded by the institutional reaction to the autistic person’s efforts to seek resolution.

This ongoing cycle of misinterpretation and penalization deepens the sense of injustice. It signals to the autistic person that not only will the imbalance remain uncorrected, but their response to it will itself be punished. In such environments, justice is not only denied—it becomes dangerous to demand. This leaves the autistic individual not just wounded, but isolated, as their core moral and cognitive compass is treated as an aberration rather than a legitimate worldview.

A Different Moral Grammar

When autistic individuals insist on fairness, consistency or the correction of wrongs, it is often misunderstood as moral rigidity or a desire to control others. But in reality, this insistence is not about self-righteousness or moral superiority—it is an expression of a different kind of moral grammar, one that is deeply embedded in how autistic people perceive and organize the world. It is a cognitive style, a way of navigating reality through internal rules that demand coherence not just in logic, but also in ethics.

Justice, fairness and truth are not negotiable ideals within this framework—they are structural necessities. Much like mathematical rules or physical laws, ethical behavior is expected to follow consistent principles. When others violate these principles, especially without explanation or correction, it’s not simply offensive or upsetting—it creates an unresolvable contradiction in how the world is understood. This is why interpersonal dynamics that rely on subtle power shifts, unspoken expectations or selectively applied standards often become sources of distress for autistic people.

The world must make sense. That includes not just the external laws of cause and effect, but the internal logic of relationships and accountability. However, it is important to emphasize that for autistic individuals, the concept of fairness and justice exists independently of written laws or formal rulings. External laws do not define what is right—they are only valid insofar as they align with perceived fairness. If the law or a court ruling contradicts what is actually fair, then the autistic sense of justice demands that fairness takes precedence. The rule or law must be challenged or ignored - not out of rebellion, but out of an internal necessity to restore balance. Just because something is written down somewhere as a rule does not make it ethically right. Written regulations, legal decisions or institutional procedures that produce unfair outcomes are seen not as authoritative, but as part of the problem. They must be repaired just like any other structural imbalance.

If someone is kind one day and cruel the next without consequence or if systems punish one person while rewarding another for the same action, the autistic individual does not simply file this away as inconsistency. They experience it as a breakdown in the rules of reality. In this context, moral grammar is not about virtue - it is about orientation. It is the mental scaffolding that makes life navigable.

To demand justice is not to be dramatic or moralistic - it is to try to restore a world that can be lived in. When truth is ignored, fairness violated or consequences arbitrarily applied, the world becomes illegible, unstable and deeply unsafe. What others may call letting go or adapting is, for the autistic person, more like surrendering to chaos. And so they fight to hold the line - not out of stubbornness, but out of necessity.

Conclusion: A Call for Understanding

Understanding the autistic drive for fairness isn’t just a matter of offering more compassion or patience - it demands a deeper rethinking of how we conceptualize memory, morality and time. In many neurotypical frameworks, injustice fades, apologies suffice and moving on is a virtue. But for the autistic individual, unresolved unfairness remains alive in memory and in logic. It is not forgotten, because it was never fixed.

Justice is not optional in the autistic experience. It is not a social grace or a bonus feature of well functioning systems - it is a fundamental requirement for stability orientation and peace. Without it, the world becomes chaotic and untrustworthy, not only emotionally but structurally. The demand for justice is not a quirk or a stubborn trait; it is a deeply rooted need to exist in a world that makes sense.

And when systems or individuals consistently fail to correct imbalances, the effects are cumulative. Injustices do not drift into the past; they build upon one another, reinforcing a growing sense of dissonance, isolation and even betrayal. The autistic mind does not let go because it cannot—until the correction is real and balance is truly restored.

If we are to build inclusive societies that genuinely respect neurodiversity, we must stop pathologizing this demand for fairness and start recognizing it as a legitimate, rational and even necessary response to a world too often tilted by arbitrary rules and power. Justice, for many autistic individuals, is not a hope. It is a need. And that need deserves to be heard, understood and taken seriously.

References

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Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Spielauer, Wien (webcomplains389t48957@tspi.at)

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