>I used to enjoy this cognitive dissonance and an
>outsider perspective it provided, but lately I find it
>more and more annoying. Perhaps I am getting old, but
>perhaps there is a limit how much dissonance one can
>experience in life. I feel that needs to be resolved
>somehow, albeit I am not sure how.
>
So far as this list is concerned, you do often display a deep streak of
misanthropy, variously justified by various theories, but mostly
focusing on the working class.
So far as your wife is concerned, she may have recounted this story in order to share a moment of sympathy/grief and she did not want a sociological/intellectual/lecture instead.
One must pay attention and be sensitive. All Truths vary with time and circumstance.
Joanna