Learning to Ignore Reality

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It's what a lot of academic training, especially in the social sciences, is about:

"All [these observations of concrete facts] did not in the least influence his sociological convictions... his education had had the curious effect of making things that he read and wrote more real to him than things he saw. Statistics about agricultural labourers were the substance; any real ditcher, ploughman, or farmer's boy, was the shadow. Though he had never noticed it himself, he had a great reluctance, in his work, ever to use such words as 'man' or 'woman.' He preferred to write about 'vocational groups,' 'elements,' 'classes' and 'populations'..." -- C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Comments

  1. Nathan Conroy12:54 AM

    Such a good book. A weird one; but a good one.

    ReplyDelete

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