Here's an idea that Stanley Fish (a celebrated English professor in the US, now a columnist in New York Times) popularized and coined a name for it - crative adhoccery - by borrowing a phrase from a philosopher Charles Taylor. The idea is simple, tramples many social philosophy discussions including a handful of my favorite arguments, and it feels true, that's how our society actually works.

This is a description of the idea that I found on www.slate.com.


If there are no rules for living peacefully in an ethnically mixed society, what do we do now? Why, says Fish, we do what we have always done, since we have never really practiced multiculturalism. We improvise. We engage in something Fish calls, borrowing the phrase from a philosopher named Charles Taylor, "inspired adhoccery." We decide what to do on a case-by-case basis. When it makes sense to offer a major in Hindi studies, we offer a major in Hindi studies. When animal sacrifices become sufficiently offensive, we outlaw them. This, he adds, is not a recommendation. It is how we do things already, and the sooner we admit that, the better we'll get at it.


For some, Stanley Fish might be known through David Lodge's dramatization in Changing Places, Small World and Nice Works.