"Biological determinism is one of psychology’s ugliest evasions, removing the poetic human from any issue."

"As we as a society become desperate financially, and more regulated and conformist, our ideals of competence become more misleading and cruel, making people feel like losers. There might be more to our distractions than we realized we knew. We might need to be irresponsible. But to follow a distraction requires independence and disobedience; there will be anxiety in not completing something, in looking away, or in not looking where others prefer you to. This may be why most art is either collaborative — the cinema, pop, theater, opera — or is made by individual artists supporting one another in various forms of loose arrangement, where people might find the solidarity and backing they need."

"I believe, though, what infuriates some of those who write so disrespectfully in the blogosphere is that it just isn’t fair if everyone does well. Someone needs to do worse, someone needs to do better. And, most important, it is the teacher’s responsibility to determine who the winners and losers are. There is some mystery involved since, in the conventional situation, students write a term paper and a final, those are graded, and then a final grade is handed down. It’s a uni-directional model of contribution and response. End of process. A lot like the “comment” section on an article posted on the Internet."