I've been struggling lately trying to re-wrap my mind around the somewhat-infamous "small-souled" passage in Godel, Escher, Bach. I'll have more to say on this in future (much more, trust me), but the the central idea discussed by the author, Douglas Hofstadter, is that we cannot help but value some "souls" more than others, and that the reasons for doing so are more complex than we can easily understand or accept.