The Bent Pin

AMERICANS’ war against the Socratic ideal of the examined life has entered a new phase. We have always condemned introspection and insight as decadent and effeminate, but now that everybody is expected to be a “people person” we must hone our sensitivity, the better to probe and thereby understand the needs and problems of that sacred band known as “others.”

Americans are as leery of abstract thinking as ever, but we have found a way to quack like a duck without being mistaken for a duck. It’s the new pseudoscience called “body language,” which lets us study crossed knees instead of crossed wires and convince ourselves that we have plumbed the depths of human psychology as we continue to say, “What you see is what you get.”

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

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AMERICANS’ war against the Socratic ideal of the examined life has entered a new phase. We have always condemned introspection and insight as decadent and effeminate, but now that everybody is expected to be a “people person” we must hone our sensitivity, the better to probe and thereby understand the needs and problems of that sacred band known as “others.”

Americans are as leery of abstract thinking as ever, but we have found a way to quack like a duck without being mistaken for a duck. It’s the new pseudoscience called “body language,” which lets us study crossed knees instead of crossed wires and convince ourselves that we have plumbed the depths of human psychology as we continue to say, “What you see is what you get.”