Stranger in a strange land

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The piece below is taken from Wiki. Doesn't this sound like a description of the high functioning autistic?

Fair Witness is a fictional profession invented for the novel. A Fair Witness is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what he or she sees and hears, making no extrapolations or assumptions. An eidetic memory is a prerequisite for the job, although this may be attainable with suitable training.

In Heinlein's society, a Fair Witness is a highly reputable source of information. By custom, a Fair Witness acting professionally, generally wearing distinctive white robes, is never addressed directly, and all present are supposed to avoid acknowledging the presence of the Witness in any way.

The character Jubal Harshaw employs a Fair Witness, Anne, as one of his secretaries. Unlike the other secretaries, she does not use dictation equipment when Jubal speaks. She can even keep track of several works at once, despite Harshaw's frequent switching among them.

Fair Witnesses are prohibited from drawing conclusions about what they observe. As a demonstration, Harshaw asks Anne to describe the color of a house in the distance. She responds, "It's white on this side". Harshaw explains that she would not assume knowledge of the color of the other sides of the house without being able to see them. Furthermore, after observing another side of the house would not then assume that any previously seen side was still the same color as last reported, even if only minutes before.

When Ben Caxton decides to do something that might result in litigation—namely accusing a government official of substituting an actor for Valentine Michael Smith in a televised interview—he hires a highly respected Witness, James Oliver Cavendish, to record everything he sees, and to ensure that Ben isn't accused of slander. They visit the alleged Man From Mars in his hospital suite in the hope of determining whether he is actually Smith or the actor who had apparently impersonated him the night before. Once Ben and the fair witness have left, and the Mr. Cavendish's Fair Witness persona goes off duty, Mr. Cavendish shows a fundamental problem with a human Fair Witness by mentioning that Ben should have looked for telltale calluses on the supposed Smith's feet; He then realized his mistake when Ben immediately wants to go back, therefore he states that he can no longer serve as a Fair Witness for this case and Ben would need to procure another Fair Witness. Frustrated by the professional ethics of the Fair Witness profession, Ben must make other plans to prove the identity of Mr. Smith

I cannot quite follow the issues of "Ben's" dilemma, but the principles behind "Fair Witness" make good sense to me.

I love Heinlein! I've sadly never read this book, but now you've reminded me of it.
You make a good point, it does sound HFA to me.

There are lots of times that I feel like a stranger in a strange land. This year has been one of these times. I'll get over it, before Christmas.

I think it is down to his ability as a witness being called into question or perverted (The other guy pointing out something about Smith's feet, which he didn't see for himself or accepting his word that the genuine Smith had something wrong with his feet (I had to read it twice and think about it, to even formulate this idea about it).

I've never read it either because I knew nothing about it and it didn't appeal to me what little I did know - then there was the length of the book.

I've always felt like I was an outsider even in my own family.

You are and me too!

I was so far outside that I was surprised when I figured out there was an inside.