Fewtril #152

Many have devised for themselves an additional criterion of knowledge: that it may not offend their sensibilities or disturb their repose.

The Egalitarian Fancy

It seems incredible to suggest that there are people who think it wrong for parents to want what is best for their children, that is, wrong to provide them with the love, support and opportunities that will happen to give them advantages over others less fortunate than they; but since equality is the madness of the age, we should have no trouble in believing our eyes when the symptoms are so markedly ugly.
…..One hated source of difference and advantage is private education. Whilst some can afford it, and some cannot, it can only be an object of the egalitarian’s wrath. Zoe Williams of The Guardian, for instance, thinks it reprehensible that parents should wish to fulfil their duty of care to their children in wanting the best education for them, being that it allows them to “[buy their] way out of equality”. [1] But why on earth would one want to flush oneself and one’s ilk down the drain of equality in the first place?
…..Never mind for the moment that, to come close to the egalitarian fancy, every man, woman, and child must come under the control of one power, so that nothing be left to varied chance, talent, diligence, responsibility, or even love – an injustice of opportunity perpetrated against every man, woman, and child. Never mind for the moment that, in practice, the egalitarian fancy produces the most startling inequalities in power between those who must maintain the suppression of inequalities and those who must be made subject to it, which, moreover, will require for its operation a suffusion of mendacity throughout society. Think for the moment only of what madness it is to maintain that equality is in every respect better than inequality, whereby, it is better that there be three ignorant men than one ignorant and two knowledgeable; or three poor men than one rich and two poor. What can explain this? Is it a genuine fear that advantage will lead to domination? But then, one would have to do away with every advantage, every marked skill or talent, every source of culture – and banish chance itself! Besides, as already mentioned, the drive towards this equality – this destruction – makes domination necessary, most likely in a ruthless and mendacious form. Perhaps, after all, it is the working-through of a political will to power, parasitical on resentment, which sees that a mass of, say, equally ignorant men is easier to dominate than a group of varied men.

[1] Zoe Williams, “A mixed bag of morals”, The Guardian, 13th December 2006.

A Satirical Delight

“I always get a satirical delight in seeing a philosopher suffering from a tooth-ache”. [1]

.....

“For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods

And made a push at chance and sufferance.” [2]

.....

[1] Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living (London and Toronto: William Heinemann, 1938), p.29.

[2] William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Leonato in Act V, Scene 1.

Fewtril #151

Falsity easily grows into absurdity; for, through a surfeit of pride, we make ever greater mistakes in order that we remain consistent with our first.

Fewtril #150

A great many certificates of education bear testimony to our society’s wish to have the ignorant feel better about themselves.

Fewtril #149

Coming to accept the adverse consequences of his most strongly professed ideas is a difficult task for many an intellectual, not least when he never really believed in those ideas in the first place.

Ataraxia, or: On Attaining a State of Nevermind

Pyrrho of Elis professed to believe that nothing could be known, and accordingly the only proper attitude to take towards life was that of ataraxia, a state of nevermind free from the peturbance of worry or preoccupation, to be attained through a suspension of judgement. (If any Pyrrhonist ever attained ataraxia, we must presume he suspended judgement on whether or not it was the proper attitude to take towards life.) If the old story is to be believed, poor old Pyrrho fell to his death from a cliff when showing off his lack of faith in his senses. I do not think I am too mean-spirited in harbouring the suspicion that even he would have been a little put out by this turn of events.

…..The Epicureans and the Stoics had different – and safer – ideas on how to attain ataraxia: for the Epicureans, it was to be attained through fear-allaying knowledge, temperance, friendship, and living retired; for the Stoics, it was to be reached through an heroic self-control to overcome passion and pain.

.....Whatever else one makes of these doctrines, one must concede that they require discipline, than which fewer things are more certain to scare away the modern mind.
…..To that mind fitted with all its conveniences and comforts, the thought of a disciplined life is a dreadful one. The desire to be free from care and worry is nevertheless still strong. With that mind, therefore, there is no sublime discipline so as to transcend the hardships of life, but rather a submission to whatever makes life easy and carefree. One suspects it would rather live in a joyless order than be inconvenienced or unsafe.
…..The desire to be free from care is an understandable one, but taken to extremes, it stifles life, and may bring about other consequences besides, as Schopenhauer noted:

[J]ust as our body would inevitably burst if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so if the pressure of want, hardship, disappointment, and the frustration of effort were removed from the lives of men, their arrogance would rise, though not to bursting-point, yet to manifestations of the most unbridled folly and even madness. At all times, everyone indeed needs a certain amount of care, anxiety, pain, or trouble, just as a ship requires ballast in order to proceed on a straight and steady course. [1]

If we were, after all, to view ataraxia as the greatest good, we might envy cabbages, although the perturbance caused by such envy would further bear witness to how far we fall short of such vegetables.

[1] Arthur Schopenhauer, “Additional Remarks on the Doctrine of the Suffering of the World”, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol.2, tr. E.J.F. Payne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp.292-3, §152.

Fewtril #148

We ought to consider that some ideals become outmoded, not because society has progressed beyond them, but because so few men are able to live up to them.

Fewtril #147

Perhaps the artificial intelligences of the future will turn the tables on humanity and institute an inversion of the Turing Test: a computer-judge converses in a computer-language with a human and another computer, wherewith, if the judge cannot distinguish between the two, the human passes the test. One can only hope that, having failed the test, the human will at least be able to judge for himself whether or not the computers have failed to grasp the irony.

Fewtril #146

Without care or discrimination, a man may find himself competing to be the greatest in all manner of things — even in stupidity.

Fewtril #145

When a man proceeds rationally from his values, he must always guard against a fallacy that often arises therewith: that those values are made rational by the procedure thereafter. This fallacy waits upon all those who would like to wear the impressive raiments of rationality but who are barely able to dress themselves.

Fewtril #144

It is yet to be seen whether civilisation can defend itself against a horde of morons armed with degrees in political science.

Fewtril #143

When a man stands against the spirit of the age, it is often said that he is a fool who has misunderstood it; and this very well highlights the ignobility of those who cannot imagine that a man may both understand the age and stand against it, for such persons cannot imagine that a man would not sell his soul for a ride on the wave of the future.

Fewtril #142

In the movement of the Golden Age from the past to the future, the carrot has been dangled before Man, and just so that he does not dally, it has been found useful to employ a stick.

Fewtril #141

Who wouldn’t be virtuous if it were effortless and ever profitable?

Fewtril #140

It should not pass our notice that almost all of our so-called iconoclasts are not so bold as to smash the idols of this age, in whose presence they are wont to grovel, but rather are only so bold as to make great play of pulverising the already smashed idols of another.