For reading between the lines with greater comprehension
“Don’t say I don’t care. I do care.” Like many words, care means different kinds of things. It has its descriptive meaning–its denotation: Caring is a certain kind of behavior. But it also has its prescriptive meaning–its connotation: Caring is good. You should care. Being uncaring is bad. Combining denotation and connotation you get a […]
“I can’t believe how closed-minded he is.” We might conclude that the person who says this is pretty open-minded. After all the more open-minded one is, the less one is able to believe how closed-minded other people can be, right? Not necessarily. For three reasons, it’s easier to detect others’ closed-mindedness than one’s own. First, […]
“You’re wrong; it’s not the same thing at all.” You press a friend on an inconsistency, some double standard that has him talking out of both sides of his mouth. He denies it and you’re left to wonder who’s right, him or you? Well of course it depends. Maybe he is being consistent and his […]
I burnt my feet very badly once, spilling ignited gasoline on them by mistake. I went up in flames. For a while I felt no pain. I got to experience the way the body sets upper limits on excruciation in the short term. I take comfort from knowing that some sudden physical shocks don’t feel […]
Have you heard about “The Secret”? A student invited me to his house to watch the DVD, which has sold over 1.5 million copies. He claimed it had changed his life. We made an informal field trip of it, but I had to cut the engagement short. It made my skin crawl. I couldn’t stay […]
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