I think Ramesh’s emailer not only has it right but he undersells an even larger point. Almost no social institution or intervention has a single impact. As abortion went up in this country so did the anti-abortion movement. As usage of the death penalty increased so did the anti-death penalty movement.

Take the debate over pop culture. For some, most, people violence on TV is cathartic. For other people violence on TV is a how-to video. And for many others it’s something in-between. All of these debates could use a healthy dose of the sort of realism which comes when one accepts that not all people “think like me.”

But