I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a fascination with the complexity and depth of experiences beyond their superficial appearance.
In this quote, Steven Pinker articulates his attraction to the underlying intricacies and hidden significances that may not be immediately apparent in any given situation or phenomenon. This perspective encourages one to seek a deeper understanding of the world, urging individuals to explore the subtleties and complexities that inform our experiences and interactions.
In practice
In a discussion about art, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of looking beyond the obvious.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
Beware of the man who has no enemies.
The empiric easily degenerates into the quack. He does not know where his knowledge begins or leaves off, and so when he gets beyond routine conditions he begins to pretend-to make claims for which there is no justification, and to trust to luck and to ability to impose upon others-to "bluff."
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.
There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.
We want freedom. We want freedom from the constraints of the cycles of the sun and the moon. We want freedom from drought and weather, freedom from the movement of game, the growth of plants, freedom from control from mendacious popes and kings, freedom from ideology, freedom from want. This idea of freeing ourselves has become the compass of the human journey.
He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers
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