House of Eratosthenes

Well, the election is over and I’m ready to think about turkey. There are some people who disagree with me about this, wanting to hash out the election some more, march in “peaceful protests” about it, shouting slogans like “Love Trumps Hate” and so on. Which somehow involves a lot of necessary fighting and vandalism. I have no way of knowing how many people are in that camp, especially as a proportion to everyone else; I only know that they’re very loud. But even if we can somehow afford the luxury of leaving the election in the dust for the time being, the thorny issue arises to confront us: Dealing with other people. There seems to be a quickening in the air. I noticed it before others had mentioned it in my presence. I think it’s the upcoming holidays.

High drama people and low drama people, all mixed up together, having to share oxygen. And, in a week, a dining room table. A week! Wow. What happened. Some people have it bad. We’ve already made one “contingency plan” invitation, something we never do, to someone at work who really needed it. The idea of things going sour somewhere, and as a result some couple has to spend Thanksgiving dinner at a Chinese restaurant…awful. Couldn’t let that go.

I’m thinking of what I’ve learned over fifty years about how people get along with each other…especially what I learned lately, as I watched half of a nation wax lyrically of the evils of “not accepting the result of an election” — and then, after the election went the way they didn’t think it would go, proceed to demonstrate for the other half, without a trace of irony, exactly what that looks like…along with some other recent lessons I’ve had that I’ll leave unmentioned here. And I’m reminded of something I wrote years ago about how different types of people get along, not with other people, but with things.

3. Because Architects see all things as an assembly of other things, when a complex device is not working properly they want to break it down, find out which component is faulty, and fix or replace it. Then they want to put it all back together again and watch it begin a second functional life.

Medicators evaluate complex mechanisms in bulk. If the entire assembly does not work as it should, they infer that each piece of it must be contaminated by whatever flaw is inside, and their tendency is to counsel toward replacing all of it. If this does not happen, they get frustrated.

With all these issues in circulation in the lead-up to the election, I have often been compelled to make reference to Chesterton’s Fence. What we’re seeing here, is a little bit like that.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

With the Obama era coming to an end, we can look back and see the great part of the damage America’s First Holy Emperor has done to His country, has been not legislative but cultural. He has managed to normalize this practice of going gaily up to fences and pushing reformation plans involving their removal — motivated by admitted ignorance of how & why the fences were built in the first place. It wasn’t racism or sexism that persuaded people to vote this to an end, it was simple fatigue. It was recognition of what is destructive.

But…you can’t vote immaturity out of existence. If I may borrow from Chesterton’s entertaining and insightful thinking model, human relationships can be likened, for sake of simplicity, to the estate of a recently deceased eccentric. Let us say the little old man had made a practice for decades of getting his hands on lamps and extension cords, taking them home, tying them in knots — no two knots in the entire bunch, it seems, are the same — and, going out to acquire more lamps and extension cords. Why did he do this? Who knows. All that’s known is that there is now a little old house packed basement to brim with lamps and extension cords tied up in knots. Worth, perhaps, some great amount of money. But what a raging pain in the ass.

Now as his heirs think about the problem, it is quite predictable we’re going to see the emergence of these two personalities. Some will invest the time in untying the knots. Some will wish they had the time, finding the project captivating. A few will even marvel at the discovery of some knots they didn’t know existed. A lot of us fancy ourselves the practical type, and we might think of ourselves as making the most intelligent decision about each item on a case by case basis. Older, cheaper items with bare wire exposed, are obvious throw-away items; the newer, expensive, construction-grade exterior cords tied in simple overhand and square knots, are keepers. But a great many, perhaps more than half of those assembled, will take the “aw, fuck it” approach to the entire house. It won’t matter to them that they may be throwing away a good chunk of money, perhaps the better half of a million dollars. What fascinates me about the whole thing is, if you were to follow around the aw-fuck-it people minute to minute in their everyday lives, you’ll see they do that with everything. Something — someone — gives them some trouble, they say aw, fuck it. They’ll do something destructive, pursue some other endeavor, get into a jam, and repeat the exercise.

That’s what these Trump protests are. Hillary, as their champion, said it herself: “Half,” which is the one word out of the statement she regretted saying, so maybe less than half, or maybe she meant more — of her opponent’s supporters are in a “basket of deplorables.” That’s merely the “bulldoze the house full of knotted lamps” mindset, on steroids. If people don’t agree with you about everything, deplore them, which means don’t try to get along with them, alienate them.

It’s a lazy mindset. It’s why she lost. She made the mistake of looking like what she really is. We have these very destructive “peaceful protests” right now, because the Hillary supporters would like to practice their aw-fuck-it modus operandi on the rest of us, but they can’t. They don’t have the votes.

A few of them will go through the motions of being thankful for what they have, while following Hillary’s lead and deploring everybody who doesn’t say aw-fuck-it at every houseful of knotted lamp-cords that comes along. Some of them will practice this holiday paradox in front of children. I find that exquisitely sad.

Excuse me but….
I DO see the use of this; let us clear it away.
- CaptDMO | 11/17/2016 @ 08:35
Ha! I like it.
- mkfreeberg | 11/17/2016 @ 11:34

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Memo For File CCIVThursday, November 17th, 2016

Memo For File CCIV
Thursday, November 17th, 2016