Reading a society’s direction requires informed detachment

Evidence

Instances of crepuscular insight, coupled with the qualms of self-doubt, are for the privileged but disinterested eye; they come more readily to the artist than to the politician or the aid worker or the hard-hatted man driving a digger into the jungle. You have to pick your place to stand, and work by the light of informed intellect, before you can judge whether social institutions or indeed whole societies are accreting meaning or leaking it away. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 734

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s interest in how a writer finds a vantage point — the ‘pick your place to stand’ idea parallels James Wood’s ‘point of view’ craft discussions. — connects to: Outsider status enabled clearer journalistic observation — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 11; People forget their purpose while being carried by societal pressures. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 179; Critique of one-dimensional society must stand outside it yet remain historically grounded — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 95
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 734