Eléments de sociologie pratchettienne (6)

Où l'on s'attachera à quelques éléments de cognition, où l'on présentera l'ennui comme le propre de l'homme et où, d'une façon plus généralement, on rentrera au coeur de la théorie sociologique pratchettienne... (oui, parce que tout cela est pensé et présenté dans un certain ordre, qu'est-ce que vous croyiez ?)

You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Even her grandfather* had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up the evolutionnary ladder. Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look the universe and think 'Oh, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head ?'

And along with this had come an associated power, to make things normal. The world changed mightily, and within a few days humans considered it was normal. They had the most amazing ability to shut out and forget what didn't fit. They told themselves little stories to explain away the inexplicable, to make things normal.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time, p. 215-216

* Death. Big guy, wear black, use a scythe, TALK LIKE THAT. You know him. Well, he know you (NDM).