Somebody Else's Nimrod

"Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa. I
believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think.
There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every
one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison. Even if some
thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it. Better to
think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all."

-- T.H. White

I prefer to think about pickles, myself, but I still wanted to get this passage somewhere I could easily refer to it. It depresses me, sometimes, the energy fans, especially female fans, devote to attacking other fans for daring to think too much or care too much about their fannish passion. It smacks ultimately of a kind of self-contempt which is quite sad. To spend so much energy in fandom yet begrudge giving your brain or your heart to it, to the point that you bitterly resent and attack people who do, strikes me as a sterile pursuit indeed.