Why does our sense of individuality prevent us from correcting our weaknesses? - Greg Bear

4. “You’re a romantic, aren’t you?” she said.
“I suppose I am.”
“I am too. The silliest people in the world are romantics.”

“Maybe you administrators can work it all out in the council.”
You administrators. That put us in our place. Paper pushers, bureaucrats, politicians. Cut the politics. We were the ones who stood in the way of the scientist’s goal of unrestrained research and intellection.

That’s what politics is all about—coercion and lies.