Holiday reading quote #2, from the I thought disappointing Freakonomics. (Steven Levitt is clearly frighteningly clever, but I felt that the “rogue economist” label, and the profusion of hyperbrilliant, superintellectual and ultragenius tags actually detracted from what was being said. Ho hum.)

“It was John Kenneth Galbraith, the hyperliterate economic sage who coined the phrase ‘conventional wisdom’. He did not consider it a compliment. “We associate truth with convenience,” he wrote, “with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem.” Economic and social behaviour, Galbraith continued, “are complex, and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding.”"