A point of view: Clive James

A conjecture can be dressed up as a dead certainty with enough rhetoric, and protected against dissent with enough threatening language, but finally it has to meet the only test of science, which is that any theory must fit the facts, and the facts can’t be altered to suit the theory.

The golf ball crisp might look like a crisp, and in a moment of delusion it might taste like a crisp, and you might even swallow it, rather proud of the strength it took to chew. But if there is a weird aftertaste, it might be time to ask yourself if you have not put too much value on your own opinion.
This and so many other articles from the book and the website, are delights of gentle wisdom.

Clive rails against a variety of contemporary stupidities with charm and restraint which makes his point even more powerfully.

So often the object of his gentle ridicule is serious, even passionate, exasperated with alternative views and probably........  wrong.

As in the above Point of View, his articles  advocate the continued use of ancient intellectual strategies such as scepticism, and more modern freedoms that allow them to be expressed.

Most articles start from some amusing absurdity, leap around with a series of what seem like non-sequitors, and then delighfully reveal the coherence of the argument in a pithy conclusion.

Highly recommended wisdom.

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