I think I agree. Conventions are important. I haven’t wholly lost my old affinity for tradition. It’s just that the prevailing conventions are very bad. If nothing else, by their fruits you shall know them. We have old traditions and old conventions that are more humane, but that are dormant and need to be revived. I think the convention that is most due for over-haul is the persistent and tenacious underlying notion that the State rules by Divine Right. We have much better, more reality-based, conventions in our social history that directly contradict that grossly mistaken notion.

I’ve begun to think the movement, as it is called, is more significant than it first appeared; and beyond that I just think it requires more thought.

Seeing the contrast between Greenfield and Norm Pattis may be a clue. Greenfield has his good points, but he’s prosaic and with him categories are as rigid as with any establishmentarian; Norm is more lyrical and poetic and far less bound to convention.

It’s important to remember that day to day life would quickly fall apart without well known categories and conventions. If you had to think long and hard about tying your shoes every day things would grind to a halt very quickly and unpleasantly. But the time comes when you have to rethink things. Knowing when that is might be the toughest part.