Phase 1: Inescapable Subjectivity

"Reading is thinking with someone else's brain instead of using one's own." (Internet fortune, 1995)

Around the time I started college, I went through a phase when I didn't want to read anything, since everything I read would be subjective, and I wanted to possess an objective, omniscient view of the world. It never dawned on me that I could research several different publications, all offering distinct points of view on the same topic.

(It is important to note that hypertext is not the cure for this! If several different publications were readily available in an easily-accessible electronic format, would I have researched different opinions, and devised my own cumulative and objective perspective? Probably not. The mighty capabilities of hypertext have limited applicability in overcoming old-fashioned laziness, after all.)

Phase 2...