"People accept all sorts of attitudes-about racism, sexism, and class-simply because they don't have the time or the energy to think these things through. It's easier to accept the status quo, especially if you're part of a privileged group and want to think well of yourself. So one way to make people aware of how morally atrocious and even downright stupid many of their assumptions are is to confront them with a pattern whose meaning they think they're comfortable with-and then to undermine the whole thing, forcing them to see how arbitrary and wrong they've been."