Borges’s point still eludes many social scientists today: understanding requires simplification. The best way to respond to the complexity of social life is not to devise ever-more elaborate models, but to learn how different causal mechanisms work, one at a time, and then figure out which ones are most relevant in a particular setting.
许多当今社会学家无法抓住博尔赫斯的中心思想：理解需要简化。应对社会生活的复杂性的最佳办法不是设计详尽无比的模型，而是了解不同的因果关系在每一次如何起作用，然后指出哪些在某个具体环境中最重要。