Shayaz Dani

“All texts are, always, to various degrees, contradictory, multifarious, polysemic. This is not license for epistemological anarchy, according to which anything, any reading, always goes. But it is to acknowledge that no next, whatever its author's (or reader's) intent, can have a simple, singular meaning. Every text will generate something like a tangle of meanings and connotations, more or less concentrated around a core, more or less protean or stable, according to political, social and linguistic context. As one playful formulation has it, rather than being straightforwardly 'about' something in particular, every text is inevitably surrounded by a 'vibrating aboutness cluster'. The context, content and range of that cluster must be accounted for as part of an analysis. Some writers in some situations may strain against rhetorical shenanigans, for example striving for the specificity of logical notation: the cluster of reasonable meanings of such texts may well thus be less diffuse than for those which, say, revel in pun and performance. But a text with one 'true' meaning is a chimera. Analysis is not closure, but an attempt to discern reasonable meaning(s) close to the core of that cluster, and to contest those that range too far from it.”
― China Miéville

“You love or hate someone, only when you don't know them enough.”
― Shayaz Dani

“An individual analyst also can brainstorm to produce a wider range of ideas than a group might generate, without regard for other analysts’ egos, opinions, or objections.
However, an individual will not have the benefit of others’ perspectives to help develop the ideas as fully. Moreover, an individual may have difficulty breaking free of his or her cognitive biases without the benefit of a diverse group.”
― Central Intelligence Agency, A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis - Cognitive and Perceptual Biases, Reasoning Processes