Monday, June 8, 2009

Taste in questions?

There are empirical reasons to think that the appeal of black-and-white answers to uncritically-chosen questions is especially difficult to resist for communities under stress. This may be why demagogues sometimes thrive in bad economic times.

Hence it's probably a good idea to beware of folks who enthusiastically criticize others by monoscale categorization or in true-false terms. That's because ill-chosen questions, with simple answers, are likely one path by which complex life on our planet will begin to fold up its tent.

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