re: Walt Whitman
When you're trying to make a reasoned argument from one point to the next, "containing multitudes" is not very useful. In other words, trying to hold two conflicting positions at once isn't going to work.
If you're a poet, you can spout gas all day long, and it doesn't really affect your line of work. In fact, in more recent years, the less sense you make, the more likely you are to be hailed as a great artist.