Hope is the watered down form of expectation. Whilst we may be joyous in our hope, it is also true to say that more than a comparatively little of it is in fact expectation - as convenient as it might be for us to still refer to it as hope.

There is a second nature of hope which immediately springs to mind: that hope - and it can be just as much - can never be fulfilled. I am not of the opinion that hope is our life blood: it is the balance of hope to contentment. The better the balance, the more stable the mind. Too much hope can be toxic, and may turn to depression.

Likewise with regards to contentment. More than enough contentment tends to lead to complacency; complacency to apathy; and apathy to depression. More than a healthy amount of hope is the cause of being catastrophically let down.

It is kind of like t0m's philosophy if you look at his responses. He is trying to out Schopenhauer Schopenhauer by embracing the instrumental nature of things. Pain is good because it is challenging, so the line of thinking goes. — schopenhauer1

To be clear, pain is not good. But this not-good of pain is potentially (in some lives) balanced out by the indeed-good of pleasure.

I suppose I am trying to Out-Herod Herod, but really I'm using a different dominant principle. I theorize that a "hero myth" or dialectically reprogrammable "virtue image" or "prime directive" is always already in play. In the light of this theory, I can understand the motive of the purveyor of dark truth.

Why do people need to be born to face challenges in the first place? Again, the instrumental nature of things makes this line of thinking suspect. It is post facto rationalizing of a situation that is already set from circumstances of birth. It is the only thing to say in the face of this, even it is just a thing to say, as there is no alternative except seeing it in its truly negative light. So Nietzscheans go on trying toincorporate challenges, set-backs, and suffering into the hope-cycle. — schopenhauer1

Just to be clear, I don't see myself as a Nietzschean. He was very important to me, but he often lost his transcendence of the world. He became another moralist, another truth-bringer. I'm more of an ironist, as described in Hegel's aesthetics. I also generally like Hegel on the evolution of personalities. So I understand your view to be important, fascinating, but only a partial truth. In my view, it functions for you like a fixed idea. You experience and present it as an objective truth.

This need for it to be objective (a sort of "scientific" truth) is, for me, insufficiently detached, transcendent. When you say there is no alternative, that to me is just your investment. You are glued to this theory-persona because it's the most seductive tool/mask for self-elevation that you're aware of. It's an Ace of Spades. But I'm claiming that I have the Joker, if you will, in the game of War.

I very much agree that we are thrown into this world, which I also think is a brute fact. So there is no answer to that why, in my book. As for post-facto rationalization, I agree. But so is your view. It's all post-facto rationalization. "Reason" is rhetoric, a tool in the hand of the dark will. We persuade not only other but ourselves. IMO, you cling to truth more than I do. I think we make the "truth" when it comes to matters of value. To speak from the "transcendent" or "authentic" I is to speak from a consciousness of pure groundlessness. That can only be a first-person claim, not a scientistically delivered truth-for-all. This "truth-for-all" is the last idol of the still-too-pious "dark" thinker. But that cannot be a truth-for-all, but only words arranged in a row that you'll do with as you see fit in your terrible freedom.

The hard part is maintaining the vision without backing down, without letting the burn force you into a Nietzchean mania, or trying to ignore it and anchor yourself firmly in the goals. — schopenhauer1

Interesting. I view my "transcendence" in the same way. I try not to be seduced into evangelizing a fixed-idea or incarnating an alien Cause. My image of virtue is the self-thinking, self-loving "creative nothing" found in Kaspar Schmidt ('Stirner'), more or less. But Nietzsche is a great poet of this. Note that he is not presenting his own position here, but only of the best version of his competition:

If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as “truths” —that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The concept of “the Son of God” does not connote a concrete person in history, an isolated and definite individual, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological symbol set free from the concept of time.
...
The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something to come “beyond the world” or “after death.” The whole idea of natural death is absent from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world, useful only as a symbol.
...
This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.
...
The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of life—and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual in his relations with God—not even prayer. He had rejected the whole of the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; he knew that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one’s self “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” a “child of God.” Not by “repentance,” not by “prayer and forgiveness” is the way to God: only the Gospel way leads to God—it is itself “God!”—What the Gospels abolished was the Judaism in the concepts of “sin,” “forgiveness of sin,” “faith,” “salvation through faith”—the whole ecclesiastical dogma of the Jews was denied by the “glad tidings.”
The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to live so that he will feel that he is “in heaven” and is “immortal,” despite many reasons for feeling that he is not “in heaven”: this is the only psychological reality in “salvation.”—A new way of life, not a new faith.... — Nietzsche

I cherry-picked the parts that I find seductive. Stirner is an awkward writer, but he essentially blends skepticism with this "wicked" Christianity described by Nietzsche above and some Fichte mediated through German Romantic poets through Hegel. In short, my fixed-idea is a resistance to every other fixed idea. I "heroically" identity with dis-identification itself. You are welcome to criticize my mask as I have yours. It'll keep our talons sharp for the endless war on this side of the grave.

Libidus Dominandi — Agustino

Will-to-power, right? Yes, but "power" is ambiguous. Will-to-glory, will-to-beauty, will-to-the-sublime,.....will-to-virtue.

For me this image of virtue is at the center of every life-philosophy. It is, moreover, dialectically or rhetorically established and destabilized. Non-verbal experience also plays its part. Pain and pleasure can be louder than any abstraction. But one might speculate that the essence of philosophy is exactly this conversation about the true name of virtue. And it is possible to recognize "objectivity" as an optional investment. "Ethical socialism" (Spengler) is not a necessity. Hegel criticizes this post-objective position as The Irony in his lectures on aesthetics. But the ironist swallows Hegel more easily than Hegel can stamp out the Irony. Infinite jest laughs with the gods.

It is not rest that people are searching for - it is that infinite zest of the child, the sense of possibility, the breaking out from one's conditioning, one's past, one's prison - seeing the world aright. — Agustino

Yes, I agree with this.

Nah, I disagree. It's not just hope that keeps people going, it's a disbelief in reality. I think a lot of people know damn well that life is a sham and hope is a delusion but they aren't able to correlate all of this together and digest it. (Exhibit A: myself. Exhibit B: yourself?). It's a pill that's impossible to swallow, but until you have it's just a possibility.

I think people get along mostly from habit and not thinking about things too much. We live in such a way that consciousness is hardly necessary. Really, consciousness is the problem so it's not at all surprising that people try to minimize how much they have to deal with it by living habitually, ingesting intoxicants and sleeping in.

The point was the expectation is a driving force that prevents despair, even from seeing the very human condition of instrumentality. — schopenhauer1

But insofar as you admit the possibility of salvation, then you admit the possibility of being extricated from the "human condition of instrumentality." That the instrumentality of which you and Schopenhauer and others speak forms part of the human condition is indisputable, but salvation's possibility means that this condition need not be permanent.

Schopenhauer clearly said that salvation can be found in the object of art and aesthetics. Where the will is not manifest and where the self-becomes one with the piece or work of art. Why does that so often fly out the window when discussing Schopenhauer baffles me, and speaks of the bias of the reader at heart.

I have found this whole discussion disturbing. People I like describing the bleakness of their lives. It is ironic that the people who believe the most in hope are those who feel the most hopeless.

On the other hand, the writing has been wonderful. I am envious of how erudite you all are.

You guys are all claiming to speak for humanity when you're really only speaking from your own self-indulgent despair. — T Clark

Our own "self-indulgent despair" is the symptom of our society and our times. What you do not see is that a man cannot be the shining light of a dark age that alone dispels the darkness - a man is rather part of the historical age in which he lives. Without a change in the historical tide, an individual cannot do anything. Being born in a wicked and corrupt age, we share, we inherit the despair. It is wrong to say it is "our" despair, and not also yours. The whole Western world is on the verge of collapse.

Unlike some other people in this thread, I don't think that sickness and despair are universal conditions of mankind - no, they definitely are not. But they are our condition today, as a society. So I don't claim to speak for the whole of humanity, only for the West.

"We probably never met a healthy person." What the fuck does that mean? — T Clark

It means that we are all sick, as a society, here in the West. The wisdom of a Lao Tzu seems far away from us, we can only stare at it from afar as a paralyzed man can stare at a piece of food while hungry, not being able to reach it. We hear and do not understand, we see and we don't perceive.

What you do not see is that a man cannot be the shining light of a dark age that alone dispels the darkness - a man is rather part of the historical age in which he lives. Without a change in the historical tide, an individual cannot do anything. Being born in a wicked and corrupt age, we share, we inherit the despair. It is wrong to say it is "our" despair, and not also yours. The whole Western world is on the verge of collapse. — Agustino

Oh how much we differ here. To me it's almost the very point of "religion" to provide transcendence, and I put that word in quotes because transcendence wouldn't be much if it left one dominated by the magic of mere words.

"The world is fallen" or "the world is evil" strikes me as a decision, a strategy. For me it's a place of danger and opportunity. It's a place where there are other people. For me the best in these other people is all I could ask for from the "divine." Whitman captures it with his talk of the "look in the eye."

When I hear the world as it actually exists cursed, it's hard not to think that this judgment comes from a lack of love, desire, curiosity. I don't believe in an afterlife, so (for me) this trouble-ridden is just how the divine is enframed, engendered. On the other hand, the primary Christian image is of a crucified God-in-the-flesh. For me that cross symbolizes the filth, hazard, the "lower" from which the "higher" has always emerged --"nothing else ever." The "divine" is nailed shamefully like a criminal to what is "wrong" with this world. I don't personally think we can have either separately. That's what the cross symbolizes for me: the terrible incarnation and attendant death of the "divine." I put these quotes around everything as a token of faith in this incarnation, a faith that is also a lack of faith in the distant-divine, an atheism.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
...

I know perfectly well my own egotism,
Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.

Not words of routine this song of mine,
But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring;
This printed and bound book—but the printer and the printing-office boy?
The well-taken photographs—but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
The black ship mail’d with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets—but the pluck of the captain and engineers?
In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture—but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
The sky up there—yet here or next door, or across the way?
The saints and sages in history—but you yourself?
Sermons, creeds, theology—but the fathomless human brain,
And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?
...
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
— Whitman

Oh how much we differ here. To me it's almost the very point of "religion" to provide transcendence, and I put that word in quotes because transcendence wouldn't be much if it left one dominated by the magic of mere words. — t0m

Yes, the point of religion it may be to provide transcendence and a link with the divine, but a dark age in the history of mankind is precisely an age where we have ears but hear not, and have eyes, but see not. Religion cannot do much when spirit and energy disappear.

Yes, the point of religion it may be to provide transcendence and a link with the divine, but a dark age in the history of mankind is precisely an age where we have ears but hear not, and have eyes, but see not. Religion cannot do much when spirit and energy disappear. — Agustino

But presumably you see, yes? I can't wait for the "we," or depend on the "we." What I largely mean by transcendence is getting beyond a political notion of spirituality. Along the same lines, transcendence also means de-scientizing the spiritual. It's not (for me, ideally) metaphysics. It's not about objective truths as the basis for objective morality. I'd say that it's this kind of thing that transcendence abandons or transcends. This politicized/scientized religion is itself the (disavowed) will-to-power you find or found in my view. Because it's a direct claim on the mind and behavior of others, albeit in the name of a distant but absolute entity.

To bring it back to the thread, Schop1 was presenting an "objective" truth in OP. He could have shared a thesis or a perspective with a sense of distance from it. But (as I see it) it's one of those personality-anchoring thoughts that only matters to the degree that it's understood as an objective truth. It's an essence over others, an avatar of moral-intellectual superiority. It's intellectual because it's a profound if gloomy metaphysical theory. It's moral because it implies the bravery and/or love of truth necessary to bear the death of the ubiquitous and comforting illusion.

To be fair, he can "psycho-analyze" my position in the same way. That touches on the "limits of persuasion" in the Kojeve thread. Sophisticated reasoners can creatively enclose and neutralize criticism. Where is the neutral third party to adjudicate? The third party has his or her own "anchoring" ideas. As I see it, "pure" rationality looks more and more implausible the more one actually just listens and reads the creative collision of personalities. Hence "sophistry," including the sophistry that denies that it is sophistry (philosophy). [Yeah, this too is sophistry, but Aristophanes was right about Socrates. He's on the team.]

I think people get along mostly from habit and not thinking about things too much. We live in such a way that consciousness is hardly necessary. Really, consciousness is the problem so it's not at all surprising that people try to minimize how much they have to deal with it by living habitually, ingesting intoxicants and sleeping in. — darthbarracuda

I think we are saying the same thing. Hope becomes the idea that activities will dull the pessimistic aesthetic image to a narrow focus. You bring up a good idea about habit. We do things habitually, but the habits need that underlying hope as well because habits done without hope become despair really quickly. The intoxicants are just one manifestation of the hope that gets someone through the day perhaps. They know after their habits of getting on with the day, they have something to look forward to. A focus, something that also dulls the brain, and helps narrow the focus. Thus the hope itself dulls the aesthetic image and in the case of intoxicants, the actual thing hoped for when obtained, dulls the aesthetic image. It is a self-strengthening cycle to prevent the instrumentality of being felt for too long.

@t0m @Bitter Crank @T Clark @celebritydiscodave

When I say hope here, it is practically inescapable. It is the expectation of a completion in a future state. It is not necessarily always on the forefront of your mind, but it becomes the carrot underlying the current activities. If you have goal-directed behavior, hope is there. Thus, any attempt by so-called "Eastern" attempts to be in the "present" do not minimize hope. There is the "hope" of being in the present, inherent in the very attempt to do so! Of course, we can use some verbal-gymnastics to try to get out of this "pin" of being in the "hope-cycle", but it would just be rhetorical word-play. Hope is still there. "Hope that the concept of "being in the present" will be understood by that nasty, misguided pessimist on that internet forum!" Hope is that feeling in the back of your mind for why you want to do something later in that day. Hope is that feeling that some large task you worked on is getting completed more and more each day.

Now let's change gears a bit. Let's say you are the Schopenhaurean pessimist. You get out of bed (or hut, dirt floor, or wherever you are laying at the time you awake or attempt to sleep for the insomniac). You know that you are doing this because you would either be bored in bed all day, it would make you uncomfortable, or you feel you "need" to out of the encultured belief that there is something that needs to be "done" to survive (like work or not getting fired from it, or the habit of just going to a workplace). All of this is done in full awareness. You are even aware of your own nascent hopes springing forth. The hope of something happening at work, the hope of getting home from work, the hope of being with friends, the hope of making that really intricate theory. The hope of working on that project.

But the pessimist is fully aware that the hope-cycle is wrapped up in the boredom, discomfort, (enculturated/socially learned) survival and understands how It gets everyone through the day and unto the next to be repeated. However, the pessimist holds the aesthetic understanding as well. All is instrumental. It is being to be to be. It is surviving to survive to survive. It is entertaining to entertain to entertain. It is the never-ending goal-seeking that hope lubricates and gives us motivation for getting (even the depressed). The pessimist knows that the narrow goals are simply part of the instrumental nature of existence. Always becoming, never being. Our restless natures, need to stave off entropy by enculturated survival activities and keep our restless minds entertained.

There is always something lacking. But this aesthetic image, does not become overwhelming as long as the focus of goals dulls the mind into thinking that the goals themselves are something to hope for. Hope turns one away from the stark aesthetic picture of pessimism and onto a NEW task to be done. Maybe this or that, and then other, then the thing after that!! The pessimist always keeps in the back of his mind, the hope-cycle is just the carrot. The pessimist aesthetic image- that of the instrumental nature of being- the cycle of filling a cup to be emptied and filled and emptied is the nature of the human condition. It is the self-reflecting animal not losing site of the transcendental picture.

Lao Tsu WROTE something. He hoped to get his thoughts out poetically. If he didn't write it he TOLD someone.. he had a goal- hope of his words meaning something to someone. If he didn't you would not be quoting from him. It is inescapable.

Lao Tsu WROTE something. He hoped to get his thoughts out poetically. If he didn't write it he TOLD someone.. he had a goal- hope of his words meaning something to someone. If he didn't you would not be quoting from him. It is inescapable. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure that anyone denies the basic structure of hope, desire, or purpose. I'm trying to figure out why you find the hope-cycle so disagreeable. I mentioned the fantasy of becoming a godlike statue, of unlife-undeath as opposed to life-death. Is it about freezing time? What is this goal of having no goals? What goal is frustrated by the perception of the hope-cycle? We could also talk about the hunger cycle, the recurring need for sleep. Life is rhythmic. Is it a horror in the face of the maternal? (Paglia)

I wish you had omitted me from the general censure. I acknowledge the darkness, while denying that it is the "truth" about life. It's one face or mode among others.

Lao Tsu WROTE something. He hoped to get his thoughts out poetically. If he didn't write it he TOLD someone.. he had a goal- hope of his words meaning something to someone. If he didn't you would not be quoting from him. It is inescapable. — schopenhauer1

Actually, if one believes the traditional account (Laozi may not have existed), then he was forced to write down his philosophy, otherwise the gatekeeper wouldn't have let him leave the city and create his hermitage in Western China.

What is this goal of having no goals? — t0m

I've been trying out this outlook on life over the past few months, and it seems to be conducive to continuing peace of mind. At my psych appointment this week, I told the doc that lately I seem to lack the urge to improve myself - a drive I have felt very strongly my whole life, to the point of feeling guilty when I didn't feel motivated to strive. Despite lacking this type of motivation, I feel pretty content with life right now. It feels good to take the pressure off, to cast away the need to be great and special. After all, there can only be so many Donald Trumps and Justin Biebers... the rest of us need to be content with being more on the average side of things.

Actually, if one believes the traditional account (Laozi may not have existed), then he was forced to write down his philosophy, otherwise the gatekeeper wouldn't have let him leave the city and create his hermitage in Western China. — Thorongil

And if you are forced to write your philosophy, would you write the truth, or a lie? >:)

Hope isn't the same thing as having a goal. Someone can have a goal and even pursue it without any hope.

I wish you had omitted me from the general censure. I acknowledge the darkness, while denying that it is the "truth" about life. It's one face or mode among others. — t0m

I also deny it is the truth about life. But it IS the truth about the modern Western world.

But presumably you see, yes? — t0m

No, you cannot see independently from your society. If you are born among the blind, you too are blind - and even if you're not blind, you can never see very clearly, because their affection is yours too.

I can't wait for the "we," or depend on the "we." — t0m

Yeah, you can't - or better said you don't want to. But we may not have a choice.

To be fair, he can "psycho-analyze" my position in the same way. That touches on the "limits of persuasion" in the Kojeve thread. Sophisticated reasoners can creatively enclose and neutralize criticism. Where is the neutral third party to adjudicate? The third party has his or her own "anchoring" ideas. As I see it, "pure" rationality looks more and more implausible that more one actually just listens and reads the creative collision of personalities. Hence "sophistry," including the sophistry that denies that it is sophistry (philosophy). [Yeah, this too is sophistry, but Aristophanes was right about Socrates. He's on the team.] — t0m

That's all about social interaction and zero about truth. Truth doesn't need anyone to affirm it to be true - it is indifferent to whether it is acknowledged or not.

You don't like opiates?

Jein?

Actually, if one believes the traditional account (Laozi may not have existed), then he was forced to write down his philosophy, otherwise the gatekeeper wouldn't have let him leave the city and create his hermitage in Western China. — Thorongil

Nice little story. I guess he was truly the only person who lacked hope :-} and was an enlightened being that had no need for such humanly things !

Hope isn't the same thing as having a goal. Someone can have a goal and even pursue it without any hope. — Agustino

Perhaps, but those aren't the ones that motivate.

Perhaps, but those aren't the ones that motivate. — schopenhauer1

The point you're refusing to acknowledge is that what you put your finger on isn't a universal way of experiencing reality, or even the objective way. It's the diseased way of the modern world.

The point you're refusing to acknowledge is that what you put your finger on isn't a universal way of experiencing reality, or even the objective way. It's the diseased way of the modern world. — Agustino

I presume the only hope you condone is one with a capital "H", right? In other words, the hope of salvation, or the hope of following the Good as it relates to god's telos as set down in post Nicene Christian interpretations of this Idea?

You bring up a good idea about habit. We do things habitually, but the habits need that underlying hope as well because habits done without hope become despair really quickly. — schopenhauer1

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

The intoxicants are just one manifestation of the hope that gets someone through the day perhaps. They know after their habits of getting on with the day, they have something to look forward to. — schopenhauer1

Cioran notes how in order for us to voluntarily do action we have to believe we are important and the things we do are meaningful and have worth. Really, it's all desire, and hope is the desire for a desire to be fulfilled.

I also agree with this sentiment, and "what is" knows not the difference between the published gods and you your good self. This is highly significant and mighty powerful, indeed, one is only a small step away from a whole new theory of ageing (of partial ageing) with this. Our life blood is in youth, surely, for the opposing direction only leads us to decrepitation, decay and death itself.. We however tend to being socially programmed, wittingly or not, to discriminate by generation, certainly by wide disparity of generation. We are obliged to focus on a dictate of unquestioned advantages to being older/old, and to actually think that being older/ageing is better.

How many sixteen year olds have you seen hanging out with seventy somethings this week, beyond family you`ll likely never come across it once in a lifetime, and even should you, to slow ageing one would have to be accepted into the flock of young people without prejudice, so as just another young person. We are programmed with all kinds of fantastical reasons as to why it is that we`d have nothing in common, and that it would even be wrong. We are easily programmed, we just accept them, and once accepted it forms a part of personal reality. Secretly though, for we are induced to fear the conversation, for some perhaps even subliminally, we want our youth back, we want to be let back in. Because this never actually happens we never avoid ageing.

The brain controls the endocrine system, the immune system, we are hard wired, so what do you suppose happens when we are made to feel different, older, than those we would most wish to identify ourselves with? We age, or at least we very likely age significantly faster than we otherwise might. I`m acquiring physical world records through my mid sixties, but I know that i`m nineteen years old. Perhaps it is possible to side track the social prejudice.

I wish you had omitted me from the general censure. I acknowledge the darkness, while denying that it is the "truth" about life. It's one face or mode among others. — t0m

I felt bad about two of my comments on this thread - the one about Eeyore and the one Agustino quoted about self-indulgent despair. I made those before I realized how serious the thread was becoming.

I don't consider what I said in the post you quoted as censure. I was trying to acknowledge the pain and make up a bit for my flipness in earlier comments. I think you're right, I did paint everyone with a broad brush. I regret that.

Society paints us with a broad brush, and for that matter I`d even question whether social workers should have got anywhere near the subject of sociology.