It is difficult to think one’s way out of an ideology. Like wisdom, ideology gives logical and narrative coherence to a lot of disparate experiential data. And ideologies are paradigmatic, so that one feels a kind of intellectual obligation not to discard his scheme without adopting another. When faced with mounting anomalies, data that doesn’t fit the narrative, the ideologue can always resort to, “Well...what’s your alternative?”

Being, at the time, a fellow devotee of anarcho-capitalism, I was taken aback, and asked him to elaborate on these “problems.” That he could make only vague statements irritated me, and confirmed my impression that he was just being soft-headed.