Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
The Escalator Of Reason
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Hasidic Rebel (who redesigned and started writing again this month) once found himself explaining to his more orthodox wife that learning the arguments against her beliefs might change her beliefs. Perhaps wisely (for her own peace of mind), she told him to keep them from her. I'm reminded of that curious conflict -- which I probably first saw articulated in a tiny story within the ancillary material in a copy of Candide -- when I read this bit of Peter Singer. For good and for ill, it's quite difficult to retreat from unpleasant yet logical conclusions once you start thinking clearly.
