A crude intrusion of the political is always threatening to turn us into unthinking baboons. Yet it’s a natural human penchant - this desire to reduce, to moralize, to pigeon-hole the raw matter of the baffling world. It was probably one of those primeval genetic accidents that got wired in our brains back when we were hunter-gatherers and told each other around flickering fires how certain and clear we were about everything in the great big unknowable place outside the circle of the flames. I suppose it helped us to cope with the threats of extinction and befuddlement we encountered in that long-lost world. It’s less charming in the present world, but you certainly can’t say it isn’t human. All too human.

So I guess there’s no point in railing against simplistic formulas and received wisdoms. That old tribal chieftan inside each of us simply can’t endure anything beautiful to exist in its own right. Wants to chew it up, swallow it and excrete it as moralizing pellets. Dubya’s kind of like that, but so are a good many of his detracters..

I realize this is kind of unfair to Nezua. I might be speaking of myself on some other day.