Word: logicality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...unforgivable sin in any Lind world is logic. Are the Enu a race of mutants-survivors of a nuclear bomb experiment? Or are they the missing link-a throwback to the age of reptiles? Is the island paradise or purgatory? At different times, Lind has it both ways. Consistency, as he sees it, is the hobgoblin of those without other hobgoblins...
...first wife. Elvira, who is really no more appealing than his second, living wife, but whose unusual status allows her a snideness the other characters cannot match. Throw in an eccentric medium who tries to rid the couple of the unwelcome guest, and the comic possibilities are lush. Logic can have no place in such a world. "After all." Charles tells Elvira. "I've been married to Ruth for five years, and you've been dead for seven." Enough said...
When Will is at his best he mounts a formidable attack with just the right combination of logic, ridicule, example and citation. The common sense he spotlights seems so impeccable that one is often lead to reject once-strongly held beliefs--at least for a few minutes. "It is, by now a scandal beyond irony that thanks to the energetic litigation of 'civil liberties' fanatics, pornographers enjoy expansive First Amendment protection while first-graders in a Nativity play are said to violate First Amendment values." His lighter pieces often leave the reader, upon completion, intellectually sated...
...that despite all the fancy refinements in the theory of nuclear deterrence over the years, what it still comes down to is mutual assured destruction; the superpowers are essentially still bound by a suicide pact. "Nuclear deterrence begins by assuming, correctly, that victory is impossible," Schell writes. "Thus, the logic of the deterrence strategy is dissolved by the very event-the first strike-that it is meant to prevent. Once the action begins, the whole doctrine is self-cancelling." That much even the President has implicitly acknowledged: during his press conference two weeks ago, he allowed that there would...
Cotton adds just a tinge of malice, however, to this otherwise innocent Clarisse. Although some of her constant gesturing seems forced, her carefree attitude is an effective counterpart to Ventroux's stuffiness. She is seemingly oblivious to the insanity of her logic. Criticized by her husband for "pawing" the thighs of a man while examining the material of his trousers, she explains. "Well, what did you expect me to do? I couldn't very well ask him to take his trousers off--a man I'd only just met." She is similarly naive about walking around in front of Hochepaix...