Original Washington Post article
If autism had no selective advantage, evolution would have ‘washed’ the human genome of it eons ago. The fact that it exists is not only a testament to its necessity for human survival but that it must derive from, or is an extension of, an existing, more fundamental, propensity in our psyche.
Autistic people will catastrophise. Of course, the ‘normal’ people think that discredits their arguments. “mountain out of a molehill” – they simply can’t get perspective.
But humans are ‘hard wired’ to ignore those things that are not immediately pressing. We relegate non-urgent matters to habit, away from conscious consideration.
This is why our autonomic nervous system drives the car for us and why conscious driving is erratic and dangerous. But, in driving, we anticipate the actions of others and exaggerate their consequences. That ‘maniac’ overtaking before a crest will “kill us all” – the fact that only a tiny percentage of such events lead to death is indicative that our anticipation of catastrophe is supposedly ‘unwarranted’ – yet we continue to catastrophise and it continues to save us.
On a social level, the unfiltered honesty and anger of the autistic serve to remind us of the possibility of danger. Given that a false negative will almost certainly lead to death and therefore the failure to pass on genes, it is of no surprise that we continue to be happy to entertain false positives, even on the basis that, one day, one of these events will be true. So, despite its inefficiency, catastrophising is not the alarming phenomenon of “The boy who cried wolf”, but a well-developed and fundamental capacity to face a vague or unknown future.
Once, at school, an autistic non-verbal child was holding a pie. The pie was very hot, but the pastry masks the temperature of what is inside (a kind of semi-liquid). When a small amount of the inside leaked onto his hand, he simply dropped the pie and screamed. A more socially aware child might have attempted to place it on a table nearby and sworn inaudibly. The reaction of the autistic child was the most rational. He did not scald himself and he drew attention to the situation. Sadly, I misinterpreted his dropping and screaming as meaning his hands were already badly scalded. So I rushed him to a tap, only to find him completely puzzled by my reaction and no scalding at all.
Greta can give us the direct insights of an obsession with the facts of our current situation. She is unlikely, or maybe even unable, to invent or warp the facts. This means, once again, that people like her are critical to the continuity of our species. Extinction rebellion, indeed.