a quote for the morning

“Conveniently, if not coincidentally, ‘sense of’ speak is also a great way to evade responsibility. We share in a strategically therapeutic conspiracy of vagueness. In a world where there are only senses of things, it’s impossible to be specific both about the events in our life and our responsibility for approaching, understanding, and judging those events. There are no facts of the matter, certainly about ourselves and one another, to which we must hold ourselves and one another to account. You can imagine how a society or culture in the collective grip of such a tacit pact would be apt to slip into all manner of dysfunctions and mistakes — and then think of these errors, vaguely and helplessly, as part of some crappy essence of the world or of life itself! Call it the soft nihilism of low expectations.” ~ James Poulos on “a verbal and written tic of huge proportions, hiding in plain sight.”