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Article: Facing both ways.
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- April 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SURELY ONE of the most curious characteristics of the human mind is its capacity, at any given moment, to be holding and espousing two wholly contradictory ideas. We don't like to think of our minds in this way. We prefer to view ourselves as holding a rational, well-thought-out position on all those subjects which interest us; we take it for granted that we are consistent, more or less.
True, like Emerson, those of us who are not fanatics concede that an excess of consistency may be "the hobgoblin of small minds"; we acknowledge that sometimes further information is needed, that on some point or another, "the jury is still out". But we condemn as weak-minded ...