On knowledge as a trapping net

Letter: ‘I’m So, So Tired of Having to Justify My Writing.’

In rural New England, when summer finally starts in late May, tag sale announcements pepper message boards and signposts across the town I live in. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, thrifting being, of course, the last great treasure hunt.

At one of these sales, which are mostly on people’s lawns, I followed a “sale continues” sign into a sunroom full of random objects. I heard the seller, a white woman, tell someone to follow me...