on the possibility of critique

I remember the following description of a raccoon trap from a book I read as a child:  a narrow tube,  just wide enough for the animal’s clenched paw to pass through, opens out into a slightly larger cavity where a shiny piece of metal has been placed.  The raccoon reaches inside, unclenches its paw to grasp the shiny metal, and remains stuck. It does not think to relax its grip, even though, if it did, it would be able to free itself.

For the dogmatist or the skeptic, every trap is like this. The only difference is that the dogmatist keeps on grasping, while the skeptic always just lets go.  The critic, however, clenches his entire body, fits his way through the narrow hole, forces himself  into the tiny cavity, and finds a way of escaping with the shining silver. His impossible entry allows an impossible exit.