Weirdness is not weird if it is announced ahead of time and grounded in the ‘why’ of itself.

Things work in context, not in the spotlight.

We do need to accept that the power of persuasion at its worst lies in its design to interrupt. It is supposed to interrupt us, our independent, cogent, thinking selves. And it does.

Discipline produces freedom, nearly always. And this act of attention does exactly that. It restores respect where derision had moved in and begun to rot the premises. It liberates.

We can create a thinking environment even in the dwellings of extreme disagreement. We can, quite simply and profoundly, promise not to interrupt. We can honour the three ingredients of that promise: to start giving attention, to stay interested in where the person will go next and to ‘share the stage’ equally.