Life & Wisdom Quote by James Robinson

Reason, in James Robinson's telling, is less a lantern than a legal defense: a post-hoc brief drafted to justify the verdict we reached before the trial began. The barb sits in the phrase "so-called reasoning", which punctures the sanctimony we attach to being "rational". Robinson isn't denying logic exists; he's accusing us of outsourcing it. What we often practice isn't inquiry but loyalty maintenance, a way of staying faithful to our identities, tribes, and sunk costs without admitting that's what we're doing.

The line works because it flips the prestige hierarchy. We like to imagine belief follows evidence like a disciplined student. Robinson suggests the opposite: belief hires evidence as staff. "Finding arguments" implies a scavenger hunt with a predetermined prize. You're not weighing possibilities; you're shopping for language that makes the existing position sound inevitable, even virtuous. That subtle shift turns reasoning into a social performance, not an internal compass.

Contextually, the quote lands cleanly in a culture where opinion is content and conviction is currency. Social media rewards certainty over revision; partisan ecosystems make changing your mind feel like betrayal. In that environment, arguments become armor. Robinson's intent is corrective and slightly unforgiving: if you want to call yourself a thinker, you have to notice the comfort in your conclusions and the incentives that keep them intact. The subtext is a dare to treat belief as provisional, not property.