Why you can’t show people they’re wrong

CULTURED individual that you are, dear reader, it will not have escaped your notice that there is something of a Clifford Odets revival going on.

The great left-wing playwright of the American Depression — Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing! — Odets also wrote Golden Boy, which tells the story of a violinist who considers becoming a boxer — you may remember it from the movie version with William Holden — but that is not the particular sports-related matter we are thinking of here.

No, one of Odets’ lines, from Rocket To The Moon, has been ringing around our head since we heard it: you never show anyone they’re wrong by showing them you’re right.