Books JANUARY 25, 2016 ISSUE
Seeing the Spectrum
A new history of autism.
BY STEVEN SHAPIN
The world is unpredictable and disorderly. Sometimes your train is late; sometimes it rains when it’s not supposed to; the drugstore doesn’t have the brand of dental floss you like. Boundaries are violated and rules are ignored. The green spinach on your plate touches the white chicken, and someone has bought your boxer shorts from J. C. Penney instead of from Kmart. People are hard to figure out. Sometimes they promise and don’t deliver; it’s not clear whether the expression on a face is a smile or a sneer, or, if it is a smile, what it’s about. People say things that they don’t mean literally: they tell jokes and they use ironic expressions. Other people’s minds are a foreign country in which we’re guests, tourists, or strangers, unsure where we are and what’s expected of us./.../
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