Neurotribes

I've always been a little different than other folks - on the spectrum one might say - so I enjoyed reading Steve Silberman's Neurotribes from the perspective of someone in the tribe. I'm a physicist. I'm a science fiction fan. I had a lot of trouble relating to the other kids at school. Silberman takes the reader through the history of the autism spectrum in the 20th century from the medical as well as the societal perspective, discussing everything from Asperger's role with the Nazis to Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Rain Man.

I remember the first time I watched Rain Man relating more to the Hoffman's character than Cruise's. When he counts the dropped toothpicks I figured that must be an ability all people have, it's just confined to subconcious calculations surrounding movement for most people. Our brains do some incredible math just to navigate our environments, to say nothing of throwing a ball and hitting a target while running! I was in high school at the time and figured that if I could just let my subconcious do the math I'd be able to excede my already precocious abilities. This led to winning a math team cyphering competition that should have taken around 10 minutes in less than one. It was a system of equations put up on an overhead projector in a auditorium of teams. I looked at them and wrote down the answer on a piece of paper and ran it up to the front. When I submitted it the judges looked dumbfounded in disbelief and called an end to the competition. One asked me "how did you get the answer so fast?" and rather than answer him directly I turn to the auditorium and belted out "Random guessing!" to the assembled teams. This no doubt stoked their ire that it was a great injustice of fate that they were defeated. Indeed, Mrs. Malinowski had me divide the prize, a box of airheads, up among the team because of the sheer luck of our victory. Generally I tell this story as if it was luck, that I randomly guessed that correct answer, because what kind of crazy person believes they can tap into the subconcious mind's calculation abilities?

Silberman's book is really a dozen articles. Each chapter could really stand on it's own, which is not to fault Silberman, merely to point out that his journalism roots shine through. I would squarely place it alongside The Emperor of All Maladies in terms of popular medical history. I also love/hate the idea of neurodiversity, that is, that we're all different in the head exhibiting traits along a number of spectrums of which autism is merely one. I love it because we are all people and it embraces the beautiful variation of humanity. I hate it because saying everyone's special is another way of saying no one is.