"The mind has its own logic but does not often let others in on it"
About this Quote
A private mind is less a neatly labeled filing cabinet than a locked workshop, and De Voto is dryly pointing out how often we mistake our own inner order for something shareable. "The mind has its own logic" grants intelligence to the messy, associative way people actually think: leaps, shortcuts, half-remembered evidence, moods disguised as reasons. It is logic, but not always the kind that survives daylight.
The bite lands in the second clause: the mind "does not often let others in on it". That phrasing gives the mind agency, like a bouncer deciding who gets past the velvet rope. The subtext is both psychological and social. We are not just incapable of fully translating our thinking; we are selectively withholding. We curate the story of how we arrived at a belief because the real route is embarrassing, contradictory, or too intimate. Even when we want to be understood, our explanations arrive as after-the-fact press releases.
De Voto, a writer steeped in argument, criticism, and the public performance of ideas, is also quietly shading the culture of rationality itself. Mid-century American intellectual life prized clarity and debate, but he implies that persuasion often founders on an asymmetry: everyone experiences their reasoning as internally coherent, yet the connective tissue is invisible to outsiders. The line works because it flatters and indicts at once. Yes, your mind is doing something sophisticated. No, you cannot assume anyone else can follow it - and you may be complicit in keeping it that way.
The bite lands in the second clause: the mind "does not often let others in on it". That phrasing gives the mind agency, like a bouncer deciding who gets past the velvet rope. The subtext is both psychological and social. We are not just incapable of fully translating our thinking; we are selectively withholding. We curate the story of how we arrived at a belief because the real route is embarrassing, contradictory, or too intimate. Even when we want to be understood, our explanations arrive as after-the-fact press releases.
De Voto, a writer steeped in argument, criticism, and the public performance of ideas, is also quietly shading the culture of rationality itself. Mid-century American intellectual life prized clarity and debate, but he implies that persuasion often founders on an asymmetry: everyone experiences their reasoning as internally coherent, yet the connective tissue is invisible to outsiders. The line works because it flatters and indicts at once. Yes, your mind is doing something sophisticated. No, you cannot assume anyone else can follow it - and you may be complicit in keeping it that way.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
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