Price gets today's neurocentric view right on two counts. When psychology ruled, psychobabble was plentiful. The rise of neurology is likewise echoed by neurobabble. Secondly, by alluding to the Tourette's association, Price pinpoints neurological difference as a new source of group and individual identity in our society. In fact, as blacks have called for whiteness studies, so HFAs, in effect, are now militating for NT studies.
Brain scans are certainly one of the reasons for the success of neurology.
The power of neuroimaging gives researchers and laymen alike reason to think we are close to perfecting a telescope for inner space, an instrument for drawing the map of laughter, dreams, language, and inspiration. But not everyone is eager to arrive at such a mind map. This is the kind of resistance addressed by Lionel Trilling's son James in a controversial piece he wrote about his father for The American Scholar . Lionel Trilling had been high culture's leading advocate of Freudianism, but according to James, the elder Trilling adhered so fervently to psychoanalysis because it flattered his sense of uniqueness more than a neurological label would have done. James alleges that fear of neurology afflicted his mother, the literary critic Diana Trilling, as well.