On a field trip to the museum, you see a few philosophical specimens. Not as interesting, of course, as the curiosities bobbing in wait for you just around the corner: the brains curing in vats, the elephant men whose feet are mercilessly swollen, the gnarled dwarfs preserved in jars. Still, worth a quick peek before lunchtime perhaps.

A quick turn of the head brings into your field of vision the magisterial master builder, the confabulator of ideal cities. You don’t think to point to him; you don’t see mothers whispering in PC language about how un-PC he looks. Next, ah ha!, the rakish provocateur. You press the button and hear a veritable word salad: “radicalism,” “resistance,” “status quo,” “hegemony,” and other gobbledygook. The label says “Kitsch.” Finally, the great consoler. How ridiculous, you think. We have therapists for that now.

The tedium makes you hungry.