In
these split seconds I absorb a familiar scene — bewildered strangers
stunned into silence, heads swiveled in horror, mouths agape. Most
unnervingly, small children cowering behind their parents’ legs, having
instinctively leapt back at the erumpent entrance. My husband and I are
in tow, gently bodychecking Zack to contain his excited arms. Then my
husband, his head bowed and eyes avoiding contact, silently grips Zack’s
arm and steers him to the farthest table possible. He pivots Zack into a
seat and stands protectively in front of him, his back to the glaring
crowd, as if erecting a physical barrier between my still-voluble son
and irate bystanders.
I take an entirely different tack. I know what onlookers are thinking: What
the hell is going on? Does this guy not see there’s an entire roomful
of people? That he just scared kids? What the hell is wrong with that
guy? I intercept their collective thoughts and calmly announce, “Hi,
there! So sorry for the disruption, my son has profound autism and
doesn’t understand how badly he just startled you. He’s just very, very
excited to be here!” A palpable exhale is unleashed. Shoulders suddenly
unclench. Heads begin nodding as low chuckles and sympathetic smiles
spread throughout the crowd. Smiling, I continue, “Please explain to
your children, or else I’m happy to,” bending down to whisper to some
visibly shaken ones, “Do you know what ‘special needs’ means? Well, my
son, Zack, he has special needs, but don’t worry, he won’t hurt anyone,
he’s just super loud!”
Sometimes
the public exchange ends there. More often it provokes an avalanche.
Some people approach me to confide that they get it, they have a cousin
with autism. Some commend me for standing so resolutely by my son.
Others are consumed with curiosity: How do I manage such a strong,
vigorous young man? Am I ever afraid of him? There are no questions I
won’t answer. It’s as if I’m giving a press conference.
I have only one detractor on site — my husband, who murmurs with asperity, “Why do you always do that? They would have figured it out!”
“Because,” I answer unwaveringly, “I see something you don’t: The emperor has no clothes.”
I
am referring to an idea in Steven Pinker’s recent book, “When Everyone
Knows That Everyone Knows.” The Harvard cognitive scientist uses the
classic fairy tale “The Emperor Has No Clothes” to illustrate a crucial
point about how we humans rely on one another’s private but commonly
held thoughts in deciding how to behave ourselves.
In
the fairy tale, a pompous emperor who prides himself on fancy new
clothes agrees to wear a new creation that weavers tell him appears
invisible only to those who are ignorant or stupid. Although all his
officers see the farce, that there are, in fact, no clothes, they
obediently prop up the illusion of a decorously clothed despot to avoid
appearing to be fools, even allowing the emperor to parade down the
streets before his townspeople completely naked. The townspeople, each
seeing the truth but too uncomfortable to state it aloud, continue the
pretense — not because they believe it but because they each know that
everyone else knows it’s not true but won’t dare speak it aloud. Not
until a young boy punctures the charade by crying out “But the emperor
has no clothes!” do the townspeople openly acknowledge the fact, and
then they begin loudly hazing the emperor for his own foolishness.
According
to Pinker, this phenomenon of “everyone knowing what each other knows”
is deeper than a simple shared understanding among strangers. It
involves multiple recursive layers of knowledge through which we
routinely understand everyone’s thoughts about everyone else’s thoughts.
In interviews, Pinker playfully recounts the dizzying layers of “common
knowledge”:
“I
know something, you know it; I know that you know it, you know that I
know it; you know that I know that you know it.… Ad infinitum.”
Pinker
contends that such common knowledge is essential for social
coordination on everything from driving on the correct side of the road
to using paper currency to buy goods. Critically, what matters is not
the efficacy of the protocol (driving on the right side of the road
isn’t inherently better than driving on the left) but that
everyone adheres to it, precisely because we know that everyone else is
adhering to it and that they know we will. Without common knowledge,
society would collapse.
Nowhere
in his book does Pinker mention autism, yet he supplied me with a way
of understanding why I feel compelled to disclose Zack’s condition to
bystanders and why that causes discord with my husband. My husband and I
have dueling concepts of what constitutes common knowledge.
My
husband assumes that because autism has become so prevalent in media
coverage and TV and movie depictions, bystanders who see Zack’s
strikingly atypical behavior will surely conclude that he has autism. As
Pinker would put it, my husband assumes that autism is common
knowledge, and therefore no explanation is owed when a young man behaves
in ways so obviously incongruent with his age.
I assume the opposite. Even bystanders who have experience with autism cannot possibly decode Zack’s disruptive behaviors when they unspool so rapidly and without warning. Zack is huge, muscular, voluble, with no physical or other markers of a disability. Is this a frat boy playing a rude prank? Might this guy be mentally ill and dangerous?
That my husband keeps walking beside Zack, head down, wordlessly
gripping Zack’s arm, to my mind gives the appearance of a parent hoping
the townspeople won’t notice the denuded despot — or when they do, they
will be too intimidated to publicly acknowledge it. I’m not about to
risk misapprehension about Zack’s identity or intent; seconds are all it
takes for someone with a clenched fist to grab him by the collar and
approach his innocent face. More than once, I’ve intervened to stop him
from being punched.
I’m
also not about to let bystanders be frightened into silence, suspended
in uncertainty about whether they’ve just encountered someone who
threatens their safety. From my perspective, the only common knowledge
when my son bursts into a public space with objectively frightening
volume and gestures is that his behavior is inappropriate.
So I’m like the boy in the fairy tale who blurts out the truth. The difference being that in my scenario, the truth is not
commonly known, so I must quickly establish it. Pinker explains that
common knowledge can be spontaneously created: “If something is public,
if it’s conspicuous, if it cannot be taken back, if it’s ‘out there,’ if
one of us sees it at the same time we see someone else seeing it, and
they see us see it, that can generate common knowledge in one
intuition.” Zack’s behavior fits all these descriptions, so I time my
disclosure to coincide with his entrance. Using Pinker’s framing, what
I’m actually saying is: “I know that my son just behaved
inappropriately. I know that you know that my son just behaved
inappropriately. I want you to know that I know that you know that my
son behaved inappropriately — here’s why.”
I
decided years ago that I would not confine my son to our house or
deprive him of enjoying spaces everyone else enjoys, provided he can be
there safely. But I also recognize that every time I enter a public
space, I’m effectively forcing my lived experience onto strangers. My
candor is my bond with the public, my disclosure a gesture of respect.
What my husband misapprehends is that I am also respecting my son by
supplying the dignity of context through which he can be accurately, and
fairly, understood.
What fascinated me about Pinker’s analysis is that he seems to know autism, but he may not know that he knows it.
Embedded
in his analysis of recursive knowledge is a key clinical trait that
distinguishes autism from other disorders: an inherent lack of awareness
of social cues. The clinical term, “mind-blindness,” “refers to an
individual’s difficulty or inability to understand and predict the
intentions, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of others.” But in Pinker’s
social parlance, this defining trait could just as easily be called “the
inability to formulate common knowledge.” So, to push the recursive
paradigm further, when I disclose Zack’s autism, what I’m also tacitly
saying is, “Please forgive him, my son doesn’t know he just startled you
because of his autism. And he doesn’t know that you don’t know that he
doesn’t know how to abide by social norms....” Ad infinitum.
But that’s not all I’m doing.
I have been excoriated by autism self-advocates for “outing” my son
without his permission, using stigmatizing language to describe his
condition. What those advocates misapprehend is that I’m not outing my
son, his involuntary behaviors are; and another reason I announce his
autism is that I’m not the least bit ashamed of it. I earnestly believe
that advocates, much like my husband, are too close to the situation,
perhaps too vulnerable to public opinion, to understand how frightening
certain autistic behaviors can be to strangers. Or perhaps I see
something they don’t — that no matter how common the topic of autism has
become, the individual manifestations of this disorder are not. In
addition to gleeful entrances, Zack has also had full-body meltdowns
complete with piercing shrieks and furious pummeling of his skull with
his fists. And when they occur in public, I offer the identical
disclosure and plea for patience for my son. Because familiarity with
media depictions will never supplant the lived experience of witnessing a
frustrated young person compulsively ravage his own flesh or scream in a
pitch so fierce it momentarily paralyzes you in your tracks.
So,
when I remain on the scene, educating bystanders about how autism can
and does manifest, I’m revealing private knowledge — this is what it
means to raise a child who’s profoundly autistic and to try to visit all
the places everyone else takes for granted — and seeking to make it
common knowledge.
But that’s not all I’m doing.
Much as it might enrage disability advocates, I am also tacitly asking
for permission to stay. Yes, legally speaking, I’m aware my son has an
unequivocal right to access public venues. But if my child unexpectedly
implodes, complaints from stunned and angry customers will effectively
force us out. An interviewer once bluntly asked Pinker, “What the hell
does this pretty interesting but wonky, nerdy concept have to do with
real life?” Here’s one answer: A carefully constructed public disclosure
about my son’s behaviors is the basis upon which his access to public
spaces depends.
My
goal reaches further than legal acceptance; I’m striving for authentic
social acceptance, for Zack and others like him. Using common knowledge
as the predicate, I’m essentially brokering an agreement with strangers —
I will disclose the truth, and in exchange, I am asking you to
tolerate behaviors you would not otherwise from a young adult, because
the only way my beloved child can navigate this world is if he sees it;
and the only way he can participate is if he’s allowed to do so on his
own disabled terms. I am not only trying to acquaint Zack with the
world; I am trying to acquaint the world with him. Moreover, I want people to know that I want them to know, ad infinitum. Get it?
For
all my (and Pinker’s) pedagogy, I’m delighted to report that my
experience for more than a decade generally has been a gigantic embrace
of Zack across multiple spaces (gyms, airplanes, even tight elevators). I
never underestimate the fundamental decency and compassion bystanders
show Zack, who deserves to feel welcome. Zack feels it, too. I often
remind him in whispers, “The riches of the world, the cakes, the gym,
the water parks — they exist for you, too, right?” Yes, he
whispers back, eyes locked on mine. But when something like the
proverbial parting of the waters accompanies our every entrance, and
when I make my efforts to massage common knowledge, I can’t help but
lovingly razz him, “Zack, it’s good to be the king, right?” And without a hint of irony, he answers yes.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/22/opinion/profound-autism-common-knowledge/
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