I HAVE THE INFO

Choice Quote from ‘The Braindead Megaphone’

Our venture in Iraq was a literary failure, by which I mean a failure of imagination. A culture better at imagining richly, three dimensionally, would have had a greater respect for war than we did, more awareness of the law of unintended consequences, more familiarity with the world’s tendency to throw aggressive energy back at the aggressor in ways he did not expect. A culture capable of imagining complexly is a humble culture. It acts, when it has to act, as late in the game as possible, and as cautiously, because it knows its own girth and the tight confines of the chine shop it’s blundering into. and it knows that no matter how well-prepared it is-no matter how ruthlessly it has held its projections up to intelligent scrutiny-the place it is headed for is going to be very different from the place it imagined. The shortfall between the imagined and the real, multiplied by the violence of one’s intent, equals the evil one will do.

Now, I agree about the war. But the other thing (emphasis above added by me) is, this is exactly how I feel about racing. The smart racer doesn’t show aggression, goes along to get along. He is humble in the presence of his adversaries and acts as late in the game as possible. Lest he court pain…

The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders. I recommend.