“I admit to what may be an obtrusive curiosity.” “The quality signifies an active mind,” said Reith. - Jack Vance

If the study of human interactions could become a science, I suspect that an inviolate axiom might be discovered to this effect: Every social disposition creates a disparity of advantages. Further: Every innovation designed to correct the disparities, no matter how altruistic in concept, works only to create a new and different set of disparities.

Komeitk Lelianr said in a colorless voice, “Barch is from the planet Earth.”
“Earth?”
“Out in the Efrstl region.” Komeitk Lelianr looked at Barch dispassionately. “His people are socially disorganized, technically limited, ruled by emotion. But any kind of challenge seems to arouse in them a feverish energy. Burch thinks of it as dynamism. It is a necessity for action, no matter whether or not towards impossible ends. Rationality is a curiously ineffective argument against him; you are forced to think in his terms.”

The tighter the discipline of an art form, the more subjective the criteria of taste.