He laughed when she called him a philosopher.  "I tried reading them.  I... didn't make it.  There was this one and he said that the slave is more interesting than the master because when they serve their masters they learn more than the master ever will.  But this other one said that slaves drag the masters down because they're lying, cheating, underhanded assholes.  And this other guy said that the people in control decide what 'truth' is because they order scholars and shit to study things that are interesting to them, so the arc of knowledge is slanted towards the needs of the rulers.  This other guy said that the biggest problem in the world was, get this, 'rectification of language.'  What the fuck does that even mean?  It makes my head hurt.<br/><br/>"It isn't as depressing as I make it sound.  I'm a moody bastard because I'm a moody bastard.  But if there isn't anything else out there, no guiding intelligence or moral order to the universe, it's on then that what we do and say and think matters.  If there's a Gaia or a God or the Devil that is pulling all of the levers, we're a cog.  Or, at best, a bit part.  If they don't exist, we are free to do what we want, what we please, and that doesn't change because there's no 'free will.'  The freedom to spit into the eye of the executioner is better than the cosmic slavery to some infinite being that has decided to fuck us.  And I find it easier to accept a work that is as fucked up as this one has happened because that's just the way things are than if there<i>is </i>someone in charge who has<i>decided </i>to create all this pain and suffering, or at least to let it happen.  Better cosmic meaninglessness - which admits to us providing meaning - than some divine asshole fucking things up for some divine asshole reason."<br/><br/>He paused.  "The witches and I disagreed about a lot of things."