Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
. . . But the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."
-- The Rabbi, "Lucky Number Slevin"
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This will be fine for the rabbi if he lives in a Jewish neighborhood. But what if the block fills up with people who believe God wants Jews to convert? Is he then going to do it? And if the neighborhood changes again, convert back?
The equivalent for this issue is that if you hang around major publisher authors, or you hang around here, you are going to wind up with quite different saddles.
I realize that, in practice, it is impossible to live your life without being influenced by the people who are nearby more than by those who are distant. I trust my doctor without having double-checked everything she says with the latest relevant review article in the
New England Journal of Medicine. But just because people often have to saddle up to local majorities and authorities to remain sane doesn't make that an ideal. That's especially true when discussing a public controversy on the Internet. If I was going to kowtow to the majority, it would be pointless to be here.