The Secret Knowledge

But why, then, offer me the choice? Perhaps to offer the client two options, each of which would lead to different enthusiasms and the disagreements potentially resultant therefrom.

Perhaps, that is, to dissuade against recriminations. But not, though it might so appear, to offer a bargain.

My greed blinded me to the offer’s nature: Had the offer been of a bargain, that is, had it contained any possibility of my gain, the architect would have offered me the choice after the fact: that is, at the completion of the job. The architect then might have said, “There are two ways to figure my compensation, you will note that one is higher than the other, which do you choose?” But why would a rational architect offer me a choice which must redound to his loss? He would not. There was a choice, but only the illusion of a bargain. Which is the essence of a confidence game.

Someone, and it may have been William Styron, said that a drinking problem is like a little Latin—sooner or later, it will find its way into your writing. That’s how I feel about the Monty Hall problem—I worked for it, and darned if I am not going to use it in my writing.

The human body is 55 to 75 percent water, and an equal percentage of our endeavors, after food, clothing, and shelter, are nonsense. I play soccer with my dog, but I cannot fool her, for she cares nothing about my elegant and deceptive movements; she is only looking at the ball.

That Iraq was “not another Vietnam” can only be interpreted as a proclamation of identity—else why make the comparison? See also, that the foreseeable bust of 2008 was “not another 1929.” There are only so many ways in which things go wrong; there are only so many things one may do with his money, health, and talents. Many make a living suggesting that they hold “the Magic Feather,” possessing the hidden knowledge which will spare us toil and grief (Bernie Madoff). And we late-appearing Moderns, and the Trobriand Islanders of 10,000 AD, fall for it every time, e.g., “the New Economy,” “Change,” “Compassionate Conservatism,” “Shark Cartilage.”

There was a book called Sharks Don’t Get Cancer, which recommended that one concerned should buy and ingest shark cartilage in order to avoid the disease, his reasoning contained in the book’s title. But neither does a Buick get cancer, and who would suggest the afflicted go lick a bumper? No, we are a crazy bunch of monkeys. We have survived through the adaptive mechanism of a brain which is always trying to find the easy way out, and our devotion to our special skill, having allowed us to flourish, will surely, in God’s Good Time, kill us off and allow for another variation.

Quantities may have different meanings. It is hard to divest oneself of their connotations. This may, I think, be accomplished in mathematics, where values are set, but, as the task of philosophy, it is certainly difficult to use reason to determine reason’s operations and their worth.

There is, historically, much rancor on the Left against the existence of the State of Israel. And frequent mention is made, and, more destructively, implied, of Israel’s “aggression.” But what does the State of Israel want? To be left in peace within its borders. What does the Arab world want? To destroy the State of Israel. Whatever allegations or sympathies may otherwise be adduced, these demands, as above, are observable, oft-proclaimed and incontrovertible; Western Sympathy for the Arab cause, then, can only rest upon a sliding scale of Humanity—the Arabs, and, thus, their demands, being of a weight sufficient to nullify those of Israel, though the former wants slaughter and the latter peace. How can we know? Return to the mathematic certainty: Israel has no territorial demands (or was willing in negotiations with Arafat and after to concede any scant and still-disputed land). The Arabs want all of Israel.

There can be a sentiment of sympathy with the Arabs only based upon a pre-facto assessment of them (rather than their cause) as “better” or more worthy than the Jews.

This illogical sentiment, which can only be called “racism,” is found again in the Liberal love of the idea of “apology”—that the Government should apologize for Slavery, Japanese Internment, Coolie Labor, and so on. But the Rabbis teach that no apology is legitimate unless the offender (a) expresses remorse stating specifically what he has done; (b) makes restitution; (c) refrains, in similar circumstances, from again committing the offense.

But upon even the first of these, a governmental apology founders. For who is the “we” and who the “they” of the apology?

Is the American Government of today guilty of slavery? If so, are those African American members of the Government equally guilty? Or, are the American People alive today guilty? If so, which citizens? The Black as well as the White? Is the guilt heritable, or not? If so, then would not those (the great majority of) Americans whose ancestors did not arrive until after slavery be exempt from apology? Are the ancestors of the 300,000 white males who died to defeat slavery excepted from apology? If not, on what basis are the descendants of slaves entitled to it?

Is one entitled to apology by genetics? If so, then those making the apology must be tainted by their own blood. Is this an American concept?

How is it that, sixty-some years after the West defeated Nazi Racism, we are enmeshed in a race-based culture, and making governmental decisions on the basis of genetics?

Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, had, as his second in command, Erhard Milch. It was pointed out that Milch had a Jewish father, and so should not be employed as a Nazi, but rather executed as a Jew. Goering replied, “In Germany I decide who is a Jew.” Equally, to indulge in any racial preferences is not to award to a Race, but to the State the power to create differing classes of citizens, and to rule on who shall belong in each class. For all our blood is mixed. Our country, like all in recorded history, engaged for a while in Slavery. It also produced the white, northern males who enlisted and died to eradicate Slavery during the Civil War, and fought it and, again, died during World War II; and the white males who voted in the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. Is it not evident, after a clinical look, that the desire for Justice cannot be served quite so easily, and that a reduction of human beings to classes deserving differing grades of the same is the beginning of the end of Democracy? It costs politicians and legislators nothing to apologize, but costs us citizens much to award them or ourselves credit for the indulgence.

13

MAXWELL STREET

Her conclusion was that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organization, and from this she never varied.

—E. M. Forster, Howards End, 1910

Most legislation aimed at eliminating unhappiness and discontent has resulted in misery. Human beings are flawed, and as unlikely to create contentment with amended or increased legislation as they were to create perfect legislation in the first place. The best we might do would be to create a set of laws which made allowance for the imperfection not only of the legislation but of the judges and the administrators who would pass and implement it, and, indeed, of the Electorate.³⁵

Within the memory of many, groups who believed in their own rationality voted for laws against miscegenation. They did not do so because they were white, but because they were human, which is to say, flawed—betrayed by their belief in their own rationality, and compromised by reliance on their own indignant