Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
A man feeling like he wants to live as a bird is fine. Up to him. However, everyone else agreeing that he is a bird and must be treated as such with no questions asked is not. That is what I mean by institutionalised idiocy. No-one involved in that story would have had the editorial freedom to question his status or call him 'him' without a world of shīt landing on them. That is complicity in a lie.
But we are often complicit in lies in the interest of good manners and tolerance of other people's peculiarities and flaws. If you go to a dinner party and the food is f*ucking rank, you don't come out and say it. And if you did, you would incur punishment in the form of social opprobrium from your fellow guests.