Phil Paine is reminded of the caterpillar who, when asked in which order it moved each of its feet, found itself ‘distracted in a ditch, wondering how it walked’. He suspects that there are misapprehensions about the role of definitions in advancing democracy
Phil was born in a small subarctic community in Canada, and subsequently did much rough travel in North America, Europe and Africa, supporting himself first by farm labour, then by a variety of jobs.
He undertook a solitary but systematic study of world history and anthropology, and currently survives as a writer, translator and blogger in Toronto.
