[Haskell-cafe] philosophy of Haskell

When I started to study Haskell, I was surprised that so much emphasis was placed on simple things. Monads were introduced to me as basically a wrapper, and a bind function that unwrapped something and wrapped something else back up again. I didn't understand what the fuss was about. Later I saw the amazing feats of expressiveness that were possible. I scratched my head in confusion---"Wait, say that again?" Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell about philosophy (read: Haskell). He's actually being humorous, but it applies, in a way: "The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical no one will believe it."