Osler's Razor

There is still so much that we don't know about the terrible tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, and some of what we thought we knew (including the identity of the shooter, the number of people killed, and whether or not the shooter's mother worked at the school) turned out to be wrong.

One persistent part of current speculation is that the shooter had Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism where people don't process social cues the same way others do (among other symptoms). As far as I know, this is only speculation, and at any rate there is no link between Asperger's and murder. The danger, of course, is that the simple reaction to such a detail is that people will fear those who have Asperger's.

Simple is rarely right in anything but love.

Only a few weeks ago, my long-time friend Ron Fournier wrote a wonderful, compelling piece about his son with Asperger's. You can, and should, read it here. When I first read the piece, I thought it was remarkable in the way it brought out one of President George W. Bush's greatest strengths: empathy and human connection.

Now though, in the light of the Newtown massacre and the speculations about Asperger's, I think the most important thing about Ron's widely-read piece is its role as a counterweight against the assumptions people are tempted to make.

Ron's son, Tyler, is suddenly important to me as I think about Newtown, about the family from which this tragedy sprang. It is never one thing, never, that leads to a grand victory or the most horrible tragedy, and each of those elements, known and unknown, can be a part of a very different story when mixed in a different brew. It's complex. Love, though, can be simple, and that is the beauty of Ron's story.