Saturday, November 13, 2004

Dichotomies

To revive an old line, there are two kinds of people - those who divide people into two types, and those who do not.

Well, you can't argue with it for sure, but it's not too useful either. But some dichotomies are useful - it just wouldn't be right if there weren't two kinds.

Glenn Reynolds links to this, which divides the world into the kind of people who might have written or swallowed this crap from Jane Smiley and the rest of us. She has concluded that there are people who think like her, and the "unteachably ignorant" who voted for George W. Bush.

C. P. Snow had his own theory 45 years ago with his "The Two Cultures". See it reviewed by the incomparable Orrin Judd here.

For my money the best entry is "A Conflict of Visions:Ideological Origins of Political Struggles" by Thomas Sowell. His "constrained" vs. "unconstrained" visions correspond fairly well with our conservative/liberal divide today.

Alas, some of us have more time to blog today, and I don't. See ya!

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