If you apply it without prejudice, then you are unable to comment on any event of which you were not an eyewitness. Which makes it hard to see what goes on the world before it happens in your face. And by the time it happens in your face, it's too late to study. It's test time.

Also, may I be permitted to reason from the general to the particular, at least in a probabilistic sense? That is to say, would you be very put out if I draw inferences from patterns observed in nature, as scientists do when endeavoring to discover natural laws? For it so happens I have seen suck ups like this and what happens to them.

If they suck to people who can give them something, and do it skillfully, they will rise into middle management, or perhaps even the White House, but will have no true friends. If they suck up to people who have nothing to offer, perhaps out of some neurotic sense of guilt, the best they can hope for is to be treated as doormats. The worst is if, as I suspect happened in this case, a suck up with a neurotic sense of guilt misjudges what his audience wants to hear.

This poor dope sees a bunch of Afghans and presumes they must hate Americans, so he says, "Hey, I hate them too! let's be buds!" Either he was wrong, or he made some other stupid mistake of this sort on another topic. Maybe he thought they were "arabs."

This poor slob keeps saying he understands. That's the cruel irony of it. Because had he understood, the unpleasant incident may never have happened. And as long as he clings to the delusion of comprehension, he will never truly understand.