How do minds close? Under what series of angers, of single visions, does the deliberate deafness take hold? Not an easy question to answer, since part of the dialectical nightmare of this argument is that the only way a closed mind might be opened is by a mind single-mindedly bent on the task. And you end up with two closed minds, as in a quarrel. It is salutary to reflect how comparatively rare is the expression 'I don't know,' and to admit that arguing with (say) John Wesley, or Bertolt Brecht, or even - to be banal - Roger Scruton, would be a pretty grim business.

LRB 20 October 1983 | PDF Download