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The PITGOAT Person In The Grip Of A Theory
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The PITGOAT is the scariest beast in the zoo. It's the person who's got a big idea and isn't afraid to use it -- everywhere and for anything it seems to have anything remotely to do with. There are religious PITGOATS and PITGOAT atheists; PITGOAT politicians and PITGOAT managers. There are PITGOAT scientists, though science makes it a bit harder to ignore stubborn facts, and heaven knows there are PITGOAT philosophers. Some PITGOATS are harmless; mere cranks who send off screeds to the Op/Ed page and write convoluted manuscripts that they email to unsuspecting academics. Some of them are in positions where they can do serious harm. We may not need "activist" judges, but we also don't need the kind who've got their theory of the law all settled and use it to rule on cases no matter how much havoc they wreak. We don't need politicians who are so enamoured of their ideologies that they're incapable of compromise. The trouble with PITGOATery is that the world is a complicated place, and smart as we are, it's not really all that likely that any of us have gotten it all figured out. PITGOATs sometimes say that the people who don't agree with them are unprincipled, but there are very few principles that don't have any exceptions. Theories are useful. Without them, we'd be left with an unmanageable mess. But an awful lot of real human misery comes from stubborn allegiance to high, mighty ideas that only sound good until we see what applying them really means. -Allen Stairs |