I said, “If autism is a lack of understanding of others … and healing the lesion would grant you that lost understanding—”

Rourke broke in, “But how much is understanding – and how much is a delusion of understanding? Is intimacy a form of knowledge – or is it just a comforting false belief? Evolution isn’t interested in whether or not we grasp the truth, except in the most pragmatic sense. And there can be equally pragmatic falsehoods. If the brain needs to grant us an exaggerated sense of our capacity for knowing each other – to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness – it will lie, shamelessly, as much as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed.”

I’d fallen silent, not knowing how to respond. Now I watched Rourke waiting for me to continue. Though he appeared as awkward and shy as ever, there was something in his expression which chilled me. He honestly believed that his condition had granted him an insight no ordinary person could share – and if he didn’t exactly pity us our hardwired capacity for blissful self-deception, he couldn’t help but perceive himself as having the broader, clearer view.

I said haltingly, “Autism is a … tragic, disabling disease. How can you … romanticize it into nothing more than some kind of … viable alternative lifestyle?”

Rourke was polite, but dismissive. “I’m not doing any such thing. I’ve met over a hundred fully autistic people, and their families. I know how much pain is involved. If I could banish the condition tomorrow, I’d do it.

“But we have our own histories, our own problems, our own aspirations. We’re not fully autistic – and excision of Lamont’s area, in adulthood, won’t render us the same as someone who was born that way. Most of us have learned to compensate by modeling people consciously, explicitly – it takes far more effort than the innate skill, but when we lose what little we have of that, we won’t be left helpless. Or ‘selfish’, or ‘merciless’, or ‘incapable of compassion’ – or any of the other things the murdochs like to claim. And being granted the surgery we’ve asked for won’t mean loss of employment, let alone the need for institutional care. So there’ll be no cost to the community—”

I said angrily, “Cost is the least of the issues. You’re talking about deliberately – surgically – ridding yourself of something … fundamental to humanity .”

Rourke looked up from the floor and nodded calmly, as if I’d finally made a point on which we were in complete agreement.

He said, “Exactly. And we’ve lived for decades with a fundamental truth about human relationships – which we choose not to surrender to the comforting effects of a brain graft. All we want to do now is make that choice complete. To stop being punished for our refusal to be deceived.”

#