Chapter 5: In Defense of Disarray

Aesthetically, I am allergic to neatness. This preference for a certain amount of disarray is in line with (or perhaps engenders… ) my epistemological views. I tend to believe that, in any interesting setting, when the truth has been fully systematized and organized, the truth has long since lain elsewhere. I do believe in organization and classification, but my systems are ones in which the organizing principles themselves are complicated enough to need organization, where connections range all the way from the completely tight to the very tenuous, and where the great engine of ineffability is continually generating…