76 CHAPTER THREE
because, Gallese argues, the neurons draw from the body’s own capacities
for motor action, its relations with objects in the world, and the fact that,
he claims, it shares these with other conspecifics.
The framing of mirror neurons as a resolution to the debate on theory
of mind forces a choice between propositions, which require language, and
shared neural representations, which do not. It reinforces rather than re-
solves strict divisions between thoughtful and felt, higher- level and lower-
level, automatic and effortful cognitive processes; some argue that it dis-
courages empirical and theoretical investigations of how these processes
are related to each other (Zaki and Oschner 2009). This separation appeals
to social theorists who insist on the autonomy of affect from language. Wil-
liam Connolly, for example, reads mirror neurons as an account of “how
cultural practice becomes encoded into the human sensorium even before
a child acquires linguistic skill” (2011, 797). But to see mirroring as both
wholly autonomous and at the same time socially meaningful requires a
particular set of claims about the universality of bodies, embodiments, and
affordances that need to be interrogated.
INTERLUDE: MISREADING MINDS
If the story told in the courts and the media is to be believed, the shooting of
Amadou Diallo is a disastrous example of a theory of mind failure. According
to the account of the trial reported in the New York Times (Fritsch 2000), the
officers said that they did not consider the situation from Diallo’s perspective.
They did not, in other words, put themselves in his shoes, at least consciously.
Nonetheless, they attributed goals to him.
While acknowledging that they had made a mistake, the officers said Mr.
Diallo was largely to blame for his death. He did not respond to their com-
mands to stop, they said, and did not keep his hands in sight. Instead he ran
into the vestibule of his building and began digging in his pocket, they said,
and then turned toward the officers with something in his right hand. They
said they thought it was a gun and began shooting, setting off a chaotic hail
of ricocheting bullets and muzzle flashes that made it seem as if they were in
a firefight.
When Mr. Diallo finally slumped to the floor, his wallet fell out of his right
hand. There had been no gun.