Institutions have the pathetic megalomania of the computer whose whole vision of the world is its own program.

If people want to compete for leadership of a religious group, they can compete in piety. A chilling thought. Or funny.

The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting.

If we can abstract pathogenicity and hygiene from our notion of dirt, we are left with the old definition of dirt as matter out of place. This is a very suggestive approach. It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contrevention of that order. Dirt then, is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is a system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements.

I am convinced that living in an enclave shapes the personality, and living alone shapes the personality too.

The human body is always treated as an image of society.

Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power.