Cruising on my lovely new computer this morning.  I started googling "transcendentalism vs. pragmatism," the latter of which I knew was going to disgust me--but I hadn't heard before about Royce, a disciple, I think, of Dewey, and a long-time-ago a professor here at the University of Hawaii.  It turns out that Royce's schema of the Conscious Self (which Baumeister seems to have lifted from him wholesale) with the Secondary Function (#2) of the Conscious Self, forming social bonds--after the Primary (#1), Cognitive Function, knowing the world and oneself, and before the Tertiary (#3) Executive Function, willing and organizing--(the Secondary Function, I say, joining the world) is epitomized by joining the Christian Religion; "overcoming one's isolation from Christianity."  Jesus fucking Christ.

Then I went on to the "Linguistic Wars," between George and Robin Lakoff, on the one hand (Metaphors! Metaphors! the more unconscious the better!), and Stephen Pinker and Noam Chomsky on the other hand.  The thing about being stupid (the former hand) is, it fills you with unappeasable rancour and makes you totally, ridiculously, intransigeant.  On yet the other hand, as my favourite poet (A. Pope) says, "No Creature smarts so little as a Fool." I don't see George and Robin giving up any time soon--I suppose they have one another.