Latter-day orthodoxy …

… Stone Walls and No Discussions - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Ideas freeze. Their proponents become harsh-minded and dictatorial. Many of the ideas the left affirms now grew out of ’60s radical politics. Then they were vital and life-endowing. Now it seems that, though still worthy on some level, they are tired. Their proponents have no humor, no brio. They do not like to laugh. Emerson tells us that we need to pass beyond frozen, once-worthy ideas — or at least break them up and reconsider.

Or, as Max Beerbohm sagely observed, "only the insane take themselves quite seriously."