Grant Campbell — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:51:07 GMT

You’re quite right, Richard: I didn’t make that point as well as I’d hoped. A better analogy would probably be having dinner with your in-laws. While there’s no question (hopefully) that your in-laws care about you, and welcome you, and want you to be there, they have a rapport with your spouse that goes way, way back, and to some extent you have to be a good sport and listen to that history play itself out in anecdotes, news of people you’ve never heard of, and old jokes that don’t split your side the way they split everyone else’s. That’s what I mean by “insularity”: I was trying to rescue the word from its negative connotation, and suggest that the awkwardness a newcomer feels is not the result of deliberate exclusion, but simply the inevitable discomfort at being among people with a history that he or she hasn’t yet begun to share. And frankly, I’d rather have that then the reverse phenomenon: being fastened on to voraciously by veterans who are lusting for new blood for their task forces and committees.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Grant Campbell