Michael Vassar has this quote on Twitter: “Every distinction wants to become the distinction between good and evil.” Which I’m sure I would have understood differently had I not previously read the post from which it (I believe) originated:

Math/Logical style analysis seems like the original of the far-mode paradigm. Fiddling with things with your hands without explicit executive scrutiny over what you are doing while trusting in non-conscious cognitive processes to figure out a solution seems like the paradigm for near-mode thought. Both have an important place, but it seems to me that placing math in near mode is simply an attempt to place everything that works, or that you have affectively labeled as good, in near mode. Every distinction wants to become good versus evil.