BZ Lambeau is a frictional person, who grew up in a large family in the Rust Belt. His love for and dedication to language is rooted in family tradition, and a high school teacher who imbued him with a love of poetry. He is not fluent in French, German, Spanish, Russian, Latin, Greek and Irish. His fluency in English is left for the reader to determine.
A second pillar of his character is argument: remember, he grew up in a large family. Joining the high school debate team was only natural. High school and college Greek classes where Socrates battled the sophists were capped off by a legal education using the Socratic method, and later by years of arguing for money. Blessed relief came in the discovery of mediation, facilitation and collaboration, and in an introduction to the revolutionary while obvious thinking of Nancy Kline. But as this blog demonstrates, you can take the boy out of the country . . .
The third pillar of his thinking is an outlook on life and politics shaped by a working-class upbringing and a faith in Jesus Christ. (No, not that Jesus Christ — in the real Jesus who actually liked poor people and sinners.) The working-class background brought with it a dislike for bullies and bullying of all kinds. When he discovered the extractive/inclusive paradigm of Why Nations Fail, he gained insight into why bullying by a select few is bad for all of us. Calling out bullies who abuse language and logic, while helping them to see the error of their ways, seemed like the only reasonable response.