The wonky Tree (2)
To recap and extend, then. One. When you routinely slag off your intellectual opponents, you are buying into some tribal discourse designed to stop you leaving the village and going out and, you know, exploring stuff. You are playing it safe. You are also exhibiting a raideur mecanique which would have made old Henri Bergson chortle shamelessly. Two. Since most people do this, to slag someone else off for doing it kind of misses the point, as well as taking you back to square one. Do not collect two hundred pounds. And to pretend that, rather than obeying a perfectly natural tribal instinct, your opponents are merely and frivolously being "stupid", is probably a bit frivolous and a bit stupid. The existence of a tribal instinct more than adequately explains how we approach our differences. Dullness is just the extra oregano. Three. We can be very different in what we think about things, yet remarkably similar in how we react when a kitten falls onto our head f...