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311 The Imperfectionist I’ve come to debase the currency. —Diogenes You want a perfect world, but that’s a dreamer’s currency. I see a world no worse or better than the world in fact. What I pronounce unchangeable you plan to change. Don’t be a fool. Societies flourish only when they face and deal with imperfections you’re determined to eliminate. Let’s start with crime. Abolish crime, and you abolish lawyers, judges, uniformed police, detectives, bail bondsmen, prisons and habeas corpus. Then think of what you lose without disease. Physicians, nurses, surgeons, lab technicians, health plans, pharmacists, to name a few.... Lately you’ve even talked of ending war. That means no more marines, sailors, soldiers, bunker-busting bombers, drones and clusters in reserve, and all the industries 312 of ordnance that offer jobs to millions. Think of the losses. My view for what it’s worth would be to let perfectionism die because it’s unattainable. Such currency’s been long debased by what’s imperfect now and always. It makes us see that we must earn our lives by learning how to compensate for our deficiencies. That’s never going to change. You’d think that poetry would be exempt, but you’d be wrong. Compared to silence, which can say without a word what nothing else can say, all poets are deficient. No matter how they’re moved to say what never can be said, silence says it better. ...

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