Herzog tells us that civilized people hate and resent the civilization that makes our lives possible but that the human intellect is one of the great forces of the universe which can't safely remain unused . And finally he tells us that relief from the pursuit of absolutes is what makes life pleasurable. Indeed, what Moses Herzog does with the magic of sleight of hand is to think his way out of his troubles without being seen as having done so. He has murder on his mind but kills no one. He breaches his existential wall of anxiety with the solace of the very range of his intellect.
Pedantic scholars fail to recognize knowledge as something other than a possession.
Possessed of certain knowledge, they have difficulty imaging what it would be like to be without it. Partaking in the great conversation is a setting aside of absolutes while you search. By nature the great conversation is unsettled business supporting the notion that life is a journey and not a destination. Historian Daniel Boorstin puts this in perspective when he says, It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan a heretic or an unbeliever .