But the praise is not without harm. The idea that these qualities point to something deeper, something mystic, is far from new: It often takes on the form of the “disability superpower,” a classic cliché of “blind seers” and the like that goes back to Greek mythology and beyond. The most spectacularly silly recent example that comes to mind is in The Predator, the 2018 take on the dreadlocked aliens in which an autistic kid is being hunted by the predators because Asperger’s is “the next step in human evolution.” You don’t have to look far for more instances—they’re everywhere.

—Sara Luterman, in “Don’t Call Greta Thunberg ‘Superhuman’”