> If you have to rewrite an awkward passage, you'll never do it in a way that makes it less true. You couldn't bear it, any more than gravity could bear things floating upward. So any change in the ideas has to be a change for the better.
I don't get that point. I'd say that there are many ways a thought could get diluted, misinterpreted, turned into wrong conclusions, or made less clear on subsequent iterations.
Just like the metaphor of shaking a bin with different objects doesn't work if the objects are tomatoes, glass or cats.
PG's essays could be a case of this; other examples are often seen in politics, when complex topics are trivialized by demagogues. A lighter example could be "Uncleftish Beholding"[1], an attempt to write about the atomic theory in a way that (very arguably) reads better.
I don't get that point. I'd say that there are many ways a thought could get diluted, misinterpreted, turned into wrong conclusions, or made less clear on subsequent iterations.
Just like the metaphor of shaking a bin with different objects doesn't work if the objects are tomatoes, glass or cats.
PG's essays could be a case of this; other examples are often seen in politics, when complex topics are trivialized by demagogues. A lighter example could be "Uncleftish Beholding"[1], an attempt to write about the atomic theory in a way that (very arguably) reads better.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncleftish_Beholding