Conjecture

Shared facts do not bridge two coherent constellations, because each element takes its meaning from its place in the whole; common humanity was in plain view and did not register. Ansary's ch. 19: "Two galaxies of civilizations were overlapping here, each one a coherent whole in its own right." "Even the elements they obviously did share, they all loved their children, they all bled red when they were caught, and so on, had different meanings because they were parts of different constellations." The settlers "didn't see their conflicts with the natives as war. War was something civilized people did with other civilized people. They saw it in the same light as battling wild animals in a wilderness." Clay's step, speculative: pointing at common ground persuades inside a worldview and fails across one; a bridge has to be a shared role or stake that both wholes can place, not a fact both already hold.

Stories that make people act