(2002-12-19) Tom Stoppard On Society Design

Mark Pilgrim posted a long excerpt from Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. I'll steal a bit which relates to Society Design: There is, I suppose, a world of objects which have a certain form, like this coffee mug. I turn it, and it has no handle. I tilt it, and it has no cavity. But there is something real here which is always a mug with a handle. But politics, justice, patriotism - they aren't like coffee mugs. There's nothing real there separate from our perception of them. So if you try to change them as though there were something there to change, you'll get frustrated, and frustration will finally make you violent. If you know this and proceed with humility, you may perhaps alter people's perceptions so that they behave a little differently at that axis of behaviour where we locate politics or justice; but if you don't know this, then you're acting on a mistake.