Platonic Shopping

“Hi. I’d like to buy a book.”
“Which one?”
“A good one.”
“Well,” amused, “there are lots of good books—”
“What are some of them?”
“War and Peace, The Sun Also Rises—”
“I’ll have one of those.”
“But,” confused, “don’t you care which one?”
“No, as long as it’s good.”

Mirror, Mirror

There is a widely reproduced image of a cygnet, head cocked, looking into a framed mirror. Gazing back, somewhat sternly, is a large adult swan. The picture’s aim, presumably, is to edify children. It promises the fulfillment, completion or perfection of what the child already is, if only incipiently or potentially. In time, all things being equal, and with perhaps some self-reflection, every cygnet becomes a swan. Read this way, the picture is fatal: one entity is presented in phases of development, its perfected form predetermined and inevitable. If only the swan were wearing a toque or fedora, its maturity could be regarded as a goal, and not a cemented nature. Would not this fulfill the picture’s aim?

The swan’s apparent disapproval might lead one to read it less as the end or completion of maturation than as conscience, directing, hampering, and feeding the cygnet’s growth. Even an imperious swan will benefit, however, from the artfully placed accident: when conscience, the voice or image of assured and mature wisdom, wears a fedora, everybody listens.

As You Like It

As one of the five senses, taste provides flavour.

As an attraction, bent or preference, a taste is often a badge, answering the call of the tribe. How else are tastes motivated? What sense did it make for our parents to say that we could or would or should enjoy this or like that? Tastes change; one can learn to like almost anything. Learning to like something might involve finding out just what it is, something of its history, what can be done with it, what other things typically come with it, how to get more of it, the differences between its varieties many or few, who else likes it and why. Altering, refining or expanding one’s tastes alters, refines, or expands one’s capacity to experience, compare, describe, enjoy, sympathize, and understand. Locking in tastes shuts out this altered, refined or expanded world.

There is a taste for the exotic, for science fiction, jazz, classical architecture, functional clothing, exquisite detail, solitude. Once the morsel is swallowed, all of these developed and learned tastes, aftertastes as it were, are metaphorical expressions of appreciation, requiring knowledge and skill. Good taste and poor taste are appreciations judged, or the capacity for so judging. This brings us back to badges.

If openness is among your aftertastes, if liberal or expansive is the sort of person you want to be, you will try many things, learning to like at least some of them, and judging the tastes you do not share very carefully indeed.

I Want! I Want!

Why should I shape myself into the form of a good man? Well, what’s wrong with wanting to be that way? On our being introduced, I reach out my hand to shake yours. Why should I? To be polite, as a sign of basic respect. Why grant respect? Because that’s the sort of man I want to be.

Can value be as flimsy as desire? What justifies mere wants? Where is morality’s grip on all of this? One longstanding answer is that God’s will justifies wants, grounds value. Whose God? and of what era? Why is His will self-justifying? God’s will is an excuse, a note from home.

Other answers will cite such large concerns as social utility and the physical survival of the race or of the biosphere. And these will serve as handy structures upon which to hang mediant actions, but only for people who have decided already that they care for the well-being of the whole, that they should respond to the needs of future generations or of other forms of life.

So anything goes? There is no wrong or right? Non sequitur. Consider that if value is ungrounded today, it must always have been ungrounded, yet we still ended up with the golden rule. Prisoners need chains; pilgrims don't.

Some people insist that there just are rights, there just is evil, and so on, regardless of the details. This is desperate, but its gesture finds an object: we are, every one of us, born into a world stuffed to excess with values. These values are, however, historically, culturally, sexually, and ideologically contingent, often competing and inconsistent. They cry out to be culled and sorted, woven by those who make the effort into harmonious and productive lives. The moral vacuum is a myth.

There is no easy way here – and that is important. Natures will be shaped, actions taken, values assigned, options rated, choices made. We should not expect these things to be easy.

Truth or Consequences

Why does truth matter? Isn’t it just an iteration? You tell me something and I cavil. You say, “It’s true, you can look it up.” Or I take your point immediately and answer, “True enough.” Truth matters to the extent that things matter.

People who tell the truth are honest or generous or dutiful or afraid, who seek the truth are inquisitive or driven or attracted by puzzles. Of course the truth of what you say matters to me, because lies matter to me, and commitment and friendship and crossing the street without being run over.

Telling me that you want to know the truth tells me absolutely nothing about what you want to know.

Truth is an afterthought.

Fair Warning

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit...” Colossians 2:8