… is from page 273 of Joseph Epstein’s December 2019 Commentary, “Susan Sontag, Savant-Idiot,” as this essay is reprinted in the 2020 collection, titled Gallimaufry, of some of Epstein’s essays and reviews:
An idiot savant, as is well-known, is a person with serious learning disabilities but gifted in a peculiar and extraordinary way, often mathematically or musically. A savant-idiot, as is not well-known, since I have only just now coined the phrase, is a person who is learned, brainy, even brilliant, but gets everything important wrong.
DBx: The modern world has quite a few savant-idiots.


An idiot savant, as is well-known, is a person with serious learning disabilities but gifted in a peculiar and extraordinary way, often mathematically or musically. A savant-idiot, as is not well-known, since I have only just now coined the phrase, is a person who is learned, brainy, even brilliant, but gets everything important wrong.
