Less is more

In the best essay ever written, George Orwell observes that the attempt to love humanity as a whole “marks the point at which the humanistic and the religious attitude cease to be reconcilable. To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.” This closely echoes an Aristotelian adage that a friend to all is a friend to none.

The point is not limited to friendship or love. It’s a linguistic issue. If we must include everything in a statement, if we are unwilling to pick out special targets of our intentions and words in a totalizing effort at inclusion, then we cease to say anything meaningful at all.