All Hallows Eve

 Happy Halloween everyone!  

Joe's urban exploration

I have lived in the Woodbridge district of Detroit for well nigh on 61 years now.  It's a nice place to live. I enjoy my morning walks here.

I can't tell you how many nearby houses I would love to get a look inside. The styles of architecture (don't ask what the specific styles are called; I only know that different houses look different) are fascinating. There are squarish brick structures and clapboard homes, and thin ones and wide ones and ones with turrets. One wonders what imagination developed some of the sizes and variations on homes found in the old neighborhood. 

That thought this morning jogged my memory into the times, three I believe, where me Grandpa Joe and I went exploring old houses. He'd see an older and clearly abandoned home and half bark, "C'mon, boy" to me and we'd go check it out. I doubt me Mom would have approved.

It was keen though to see the insides and how they were laid out. Then, too, you could tell what rooms and shelves and whatnot had been cobbled in, that were not part of how the original interior had been set up. But perhaps I think the keenest thing was being in there with me Grandpa Joe, him just being a bit of a kid himself with a kid in tow.

I think he was a bit of a kid, honestly. And I mean that in a kind way. Yeah, he was ornery and demanding and gruff and arbitrary. Yet I think he was just the same fascinated with the world around him. What was where, what was what, that sort of thing. Creation, if I may risk going way out on a limb, interested the man. That made for a few quiet and calm adventures between me and him as the days went on.

The experiment

In an hour or two, I shall call a fellow and tell him his machine left for repair is ready. I am very happy that it is ready: on repairs, I don't get paid until jobs are done. So be it.

The fellow will profess over the phone to be quite happy too. He has admittedly waited awhile, as we at the Shop have been dealing with the vexing and somewhat paradoxical problem of being quite busy while having trouble getting parts. COVID for us hasn't slowed business (indeed for us at the old barn 2020 has been outstanding) but it has made it tough at times. The rub is that this particular fellow has been rather outspoken about why can't he get his machine, he really needs it, he's losing money, blah blah blah and ditto ditto ditto. 

Fair enough, so far as it goes. But allow me to tell you why I haven't been overly worried or allowed myself to become rushed about getting his repair ready: he won't come pick it up until after the first of the year, about nine weeks from now as I write. He's the type of fellow who rushes you yet takes his time picking up finished projects.

Me Pops used to say that everyone's in a hurry until it's time to lay the money down. That's not true of all people of course but it is true of the squeeky wheel to whom Pops ultimately refers. We've had plenty of them over the years.

I'll let you know how this turns out, and I promise you I'll play fair. But I am quite certain that you will be reading many unconnected blogs before I tell you January 7, 2021, that our fine fellow has finally gotten his machine out of Shop hock.

The Empire of the Golden Delicious

I was hoping today for an inspiring or edgy or perhaps even coy title. Something like The House of the Rising Sun or Day of the Triffids. No, no, no, not Day of the Triffids. But I offer what I offer. And what I offer is about apples.

In the fall I always head out to an orchard and buy apples, both for cooking and eating. I preferred for the longest time Golden Delicious apples for eating while typically buying Northern Spys for cooking. Northern Spys; there's a tale of intrigue in there somewhere. Civil War and all that. But at times I try something different for cooking: Jonathans or Galas or Cortlands or, to be honest, whatever's cheap. This year I chose Empire apples.

They're. Yummy. I tried one just to taste it (why else would you try one?) and you know what? They're better than that old favorite Golden Delicious.

Now I don't want to cook them. The Empire apples I mean. I want to love them and shine them upon my shirt and eat them all up. Yet I'm not sure I should drop another twenty five bucks a bushel (apples seem expensive this year: I can usually find bushels for around $15) just to make Marty's World Famous in His Own Small Mind Applesauce. 

Life is hard.

Sunday drives

Sunday is typically my day with Mom. We go to lunch, do a little shopping; lately we've taken longish country rides to see the fall colors. If I don't let myself become melancholy, which can be difficult, my being sentimental, they are good times. Mostly they are good times.

Her memory isn't what it was, as we expect. Still, we have fun. One of her favorite things to say lately has been, "Have we eaten? Let's go where they have horse." You know, a variation on I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.

This past Sunday we went by Burger King. She asked me to get her a cheeseburger. As she unwrapped it she showed it to me and asked, "What is this?"

I studied it and replied dryly, "It's supposed to be horse."

Mom got a good laugh out of it. But after a bite or two I think she knew it was a regular old cheeseburger.

Dr. Haffner

Humility should, perhaps, prevent me from writing this. Yet it has been on my mind a lot lately and I want to talk about it, as it was one of the quickest yet most profound moments in my life. And I knew it at the time. So if you would kindly indulge me and ignore any hint of arrogance, I would appreciate it.

Dr. Haffner was my instructor for an Education class called Reading in the Content Areas. My apologies but I do not remember his first name. I still don't actually know what the point of that class was, but so be it.

We argued all semester, as our basic philosophies of education, our outlooks on life, were radically opposite. I won't bore you with details but it began with the fact that he taught that all things, all things, mind you, are relative and that there are no eternal, objective truths. As too many of you probably know by now, I firmly believe in objective truth. Life simply makes no sense without such a doctrine at the core of our actions.

Part of our grade rested on a 20 page term paper reviewing a book about education. I chose to write about The Abolition of Man, a spectacular little book by C. S. Lewis asserting that the doctrine of objective truth is at the center of any good and useful system of teaching. 

On the day of our final exams Dr. Haffner told us that he would give us back our reviews as we handed in our exams, and offer us a word or two on what he thought about them. The students who left before me, I had noticed, had a couple of minutes of quiet talk with him as they were given back their papers.

When I walked up he took my test and handed me my essay. But when I went to grab it he held on, so that we both stood there kind of staring at each other. It's melodramatic to say such things, but it felt as though a hush came over us. Finally Dr. Haffner said to me, in a kind of quiet, thoughtful tone, "You really believe this, don't you?"

"Yes sir, I do," I answered in a subdued voice.

He released my term paper and offered me his right hand. "Good luck, Marty," he said with a great and deep sincerity. I simply said thank you, a very grateful thank you, and left.

I really feel, in that moment, we had truly understood each other and that we parted with an enduring mutual respect despite our adversarial stances. It was no more than half a minute, but maybe the most profound and sublime thirty seconds of my life. I actually choke up a bit when thinking about it.

I don't know where you are these days, Dr. Haffner. But I hope you are well.

A semi-serious question

We are told these days that we must love our children unconditionally and that that means supporting their life choices no matter what. So my question is...

If they decide to become bank robbers do I have to drive the getaway car?

Dear me

A friend of mine was unfortunate enough to hit a deer while driving hone from work early yesterday. Thankfully he's okay, yet he can't say the same for his car. Hopefully it can be fixed and roadworthy soon. 

I read his tale on Facebook around 2 o'clock in the morning Friday, as I was marking time before heading out on a road trip. The little voice we all hear but don't always listen to told me to be extra cautious as I drove, to watch closely for deer.

Sure enough, a little before 5 AM and a few miles north of Kenton, Ohio, I looked to my right to see a doe running at full gallop towards the road, out of a farmer's field. Man, that animal was fast. I didn't think deer could run like that. I slammed on the brakes and it was in front of me before I knew it, but somehow we didn't hit. Whether it missed me or I missed it I don't know, but I'm glad of it either way. I don't think it passed more than twenty feet in front if me crossing route 68.

I'm sad for my buddy's rum luck but I wonder if maybe it saved me my own accident. But I feel I owe him a big glass of chocolate milk, his favorite drink.

Making lemonade

I had a spot of rum luck last night. On my way to the movies a freeze plug blew in my van. By the time I had gotten a tow and had the car at my mechanic, it was too late to see the film. And I had pre-bought the ticket too.

C'est la vie. So it goes. I have just the same been trying to seek the ol' silver lining. It might have been worse: I might have been stuck on the shoulder of the freeway had it happened earlier in my trip. But I had gotten off the x-way and was on surface streets, where I was able to jump into a wide open parking lot when the break occurred. I could get out of my van and walk around without having semis shake me up every ten seconds.

Since I have a scheduled trip to Springfield and then Celina, Ohio tomorrow, it could have happened on I-75 in northern Toledo at 3:15 AM on a Friday. That would not have been fun. Or maybe the plug might have blown 50 miles after I was loaded with drain snake equipment and parts on a lonely two lane blacktop halfway between Springfield and Celina. Again, on a Friday, when the weekend beckons. In fact if I wasn't headed to a Wednesday movie, those things become rather scarily likely.

When life gives you lemons, so they say, and why not? Imagining it had gone better, that I had had no trouble and had seen my movie, really is fruitless. It aggravates you all the more. 

Things worked out as well as the could. I may as well believe it for the best.

Road work

I made a 600 mile loop on the road today, but that's nothing. My top run is just over 902 miles. Yes, in one day. And my goal is to trip a thousand. But even I'm sure that total has been surpassed by my dad or my grandfather. Likely by both.

We're drivers, we Detroit Cosgriffs anyway. I come by my affliction honestly. Pops and Grandpa Joe loved to be on the road.

Joe liked to go on the road to wherever it led him. He would simply take off, go out west, say, riding the rails in his younger days, or to Mexico by car. Maybe Alaska even, or up the 401 through Ontario with my brother Phil until they ended up in Quebec where neither understood the language and ate boot tongues with cheese sauce. Je ne sais quoi. Joe had many interesting things happen to him that way. Some will certainly be blog fodder as I recall them.

Pops, he traveled mostly for business. But man did he travel. The folks at Electric Eel, the company dad sold for and I do now, called him the Road Warrior. Forget Mad Max; Pops had him beat by many untold miles, traversing these United States and even Canada for the business, for Electric Eel. He loved the road, and the road, him.

I'm retreading many of those miles now. And I'm gaining a deeper understanding every day of my forebears' love of the open road. There's a freedom to it, an openness you rarely find elsewhere. I flatter myself that I'm anywhere near the men they were. Yet every now and then I hear their voices through mine.

After making a delivery this afternoon, after offering tips and answering questions about the unit I had delivered, one young man was astounded that I was returning to Detroit this very afternoon. "You're going back to Detroit today?", he asked incredulously.

"Hell, yeah,' I told him. "You think we still travel by stagecoach?"

Your rights and my rights

I'm becoming more libertarian as I get older, although I doubt I can ever be fully libertarian as the individual is no more the arbiter of rights than the state. Our rights come from a higher power than ourselves, Lansing or Washington or the European Union or anybody. Further, our true rights are absolute against outside forces: I have the right to life until natural death unless I myself abrogate it of my own volition. If I'm trying to kill you you thus have a right to kill me if that's what it takes to stop me. 

Rights also imply duties. If you're going to argue, oh, um, say, that people have a right to health care the proper first question is, who has the responsibility to deliver it? If you answer society or government, what you're really saying is me. At that point I have the right to ask why am I responsible for your health care? I'm not responsible for getting your food, clothes, or housing. What makes your health care (and I could add many other things to this question, such as education) my job?

Further questions include, what is health care? Is abortion or a sex change procedure health care? Should people who don't believe in the propriety of such things be made to pay for them? Morally, absolutely not.

A very interesting article on these and other issues related to the supposed health care right can be found here:

https://fee.org/articles/is-health-care-a-human-right/?gclid=CjwKCAjwlbr8BRA0EiwAnt4MTnMnlpEJ5R2sN4oc0i90k-muqj7lTU1hYykvMdQesYoUWGBqUMY9hBoCekcQAvD_BwE

The article does allow that true health care, health care truly necessary for people to live rightly, is important, because of course it is. I will even argue that we do indeed as individuals have a moral obligation to help those in any kind of real need to obtain proper health care (among other things). As such, I believe that demanding society or government fund certain admitted needs amounts to passing the buck and neglecting your own duty towards others. God, if you care to be seriously religious about it, tells you to help your fellow man, not make someone else see to it. Any way you slice it, once you start saying that such and such admitted need is a right, you are in a quagmire with no easy escape outside of violating the true rights of others.

You may fairly ask, Marty, who is responsible for health care then? Well, the same person primarily responsible for your food, housing, clothing, education, and myriad other things.

You.

Out for blood

Me Pops used to give blood regularly. One day as he went to do so he ran into an old friend, whom I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. "Where you headed, Bill?" Cloyce asked. 

Pops told him. "May I ride along?" Cloyce then asked. 

Sure, Dad told him. He assumed his buddy might want to give blood too. 

They soon arrived at the Red Cross building. As a nurse began to prep the old man she asked Cloyce, "Are you here to give blood too, sir?" 

"No," he answered. "But someone told me that blood donors get a shot of whiskey afterward to help replenish themselves. Bill don't drink, so I figured I could get his shot." 

They made Cloyce wait for Pops out on the sidewalk.

The fight is on

As I take my morning walks these days, I always pass Sam's house. When I do I always think of his relationship with me Grandpa Joe. It was, ah, an interesting friendship.

Sam would come by the old barn regularly. His mission seemed to be to needle Joe. It must be admitted, he was very good at that.

Once Joe had me younger brother painting a car of his with a sponge brush and a can of off the shelf paint. Now, I know that's not the best way to paint a car, but it was Grandpa's car and Patrick didn't mind to get paid to paint it however he was told. Sam happened by and exclaimed emphatically, "You can't paint a car like that!"

"The hell I can't!" Joe replied with an incredibly equal incredulity. And the fight was on.

Another time Sam was paying a visit and Joe was going on about something or other which concerned him. When he finished his rant Sam remarked sullenly, "Ah, I don't care, Joe".

Joe barked in response, in an incredibly accurate and proper response, "Yeah, but I do!"

"I just said I don't care!" Sam yelled in reply. And the fight was on.

Similar events occurred countless times over the years. Sam would show up, a conversation would start, sometimes slowly, sometimes explosively, and those two old coots would end up arguing, howling at each other over some kind of nonsense.

The darn thing is, I think they both looked forward to it. I am inclined to think that the more modern term 'frenemies' would describe the situation well.

A Bob Newhart joke

Several days days ago I told you one of me Pops' favorite jokes. Then I regaled you with one of mine. Today I will tell you what Bob Newhart's favorite joke is.

A man was having an affair with the boss's wife. One afternoon they were alone in a hotel room, and in the throes of passion the wife yells, "Kiss me! Kiss me!"

The man responded, "I shouldn't even be doing this!"

A Marty joke

Yesterday I offered one of me Pops favorite jokes. Today I offer one of mine.

I went into a bar and asked for punch. The bartender told me that if I wanted that I had to wait in line.

I looked around and looked around. But there wasn't a punch line.

A Dad joke

One of me Pops favorite jokes, undoubtedly an old one and retread several times in many ways, was as follows.

Two life long friends were baseball fanatics. I'll call one Cloyce and the other Eb just to give them names. Cloyce and Eb loved the game. They loved it so much they made a pact that whoever died first would come back to let the other one know whether there was baseball in Heaven.

As it happened Cloyce passed away before Eb. And surprisingly Cloyce actually appeared to Eb a few days afterwards. "I have two things to tell you, Eb," said Cloyce.

"Well, what's the first?" Eb asked in anticipation.

"There is indeed baseball in Heaven," spectral Cloyce said.

Eb was overjoyed. "That's great Cloyce, just great! So, what's the second thing?"

"You're staring in left field this Saturday."

Reading into it

My current read is a biography of G. K. Chesterton. But that's not the important point here. It's that in reading that book I came across a laugh out loud sentence which I think may have been a mistake of the author's. Not a bad mistake, but I found it funny.

At one point she mentions that a group of intellectuals during the late 1890s founded "...the Center for Psychical Research in Cambridge." I immediately thought, 'There's so much psychic phenomena in Cambridge alone that it needs its own research body?'

I laughed out loud. I'm sure it was unintentional or overlooked. But I found it hilarious.

Ok. Perhaps I am too easily amused.

Car care

Upon leaving my teaching job one night years ago I found a young woman, one of my students, standing in the cold in front of the school. We struck up a conversation as she was waiting for her ride, and she mentioned that she almost had saved enough money for a good used car. "My Aunt actually offered me her two year old car for free rather than trading it in," she told me. "But as nice as that was of her I didn't take it. I don't want to have to care about a car." Her emphasis was on care.

I get that. Nice and shiny and new is, well, nice. So nice in fact that you have to care about it. I understand of course that you have to care about it enough to keep it in good running shape: change the oil, have good tires, fix a cracked windshield perhaps. But this young woman's point was more that, when something is in really great shape, you care about everything. A little ding or scratch becomes a catastrophe, because it ruins nice and new. A ding or scratch on something already dinged and scratched means nothing. Especially with something like cars, whose only purpose is getting you from point A to point B, why worry over minutiae?

That's part of why I always buy used cars. Perhaps I take it to extremes (quiet Ron) but I've never cared about an extra ding or a new scratch. It's only a car. Nothing more.

Short sighted

One of the nice things about Saturday (even when I still need to put in a few hours at the Shop) is that I can take my walk later. Yesterday I wasn't out the door until almost 8; 6:30 is more typical because work starts earlier Monday through Friday. It was also 66 degrees above Fahrenheit, positively balmy for October. I wore shorts and a tee shirt.

This was a conscious decision on my part. 66 and with a light breeze blowing meant it was likely to be the last day this year I could dress as though it were still summer. I meant to take advantage of that. 

This morning it's projected to be 51 by eight AM, cool enough that sweats and a hoodie are sure to be the suit of the day as I traverse around Woodbridge. Yesterday was surely the last hurrah: after going through the wash, the short pants won't see the light of day again until, maybe, April. The long cold winter has begun.

TGIF

Today is Friday. It absolutely is Friday. I made my stops in Indianapolis as scheduled and made great time getting back home. Everything went exactly as it was supposed to, because today is Friday. Not Thursday.

Doesn't feel like a  Friday though.

What did I miss?

I woke up this morning thinking it was Friday. Honest. I even noticed that a Facebook friend woke up with the same feeling.

This feeling persisted even as I took my morning walk. You know how days 'feel' a certain way, right? I spent the whole walk feeling as though it were Friday. It reached the point where I was actually reassuring myself, Marty, it's Thursday. It. Is. Thursday. I was reminding myself of what I did at work yesterday, what I ate at meals and who I spoke to on the phone. Yes, yes, it's quite certainly Thursday, I kept repeating internally.

Then I rounded a corner to be greeted by two entire rows of trash cans and recycling bins lined along Commonwealth Street. The screwy thing about that is that Friday is our trash day. And this wasn't an isolated can or two but whole rows. Needless to say I immediately questioned my own sanity all over again. I even pulled out my cell phone for reassurance. The screen was blank, the battery dead.

Arriving at my shop, which does not have a clock or a calendar because hey, we have cell phones for those sorts of things these days, I was still confused. But getting back home for a few minutes has assured me that yes, this is Thursday.

Friday, please stop messing with me, okay?

With apologies to Dr. Donoso

As well as reading more I'm trying to get back into writing more. As faithful readers know this particular blog has been around since 2008, but I also have books available. My first, A Subtle Armageddon, is out in both print and a kindle edition. You may find them here:

https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Armageddon-Infinity-Book-ebook/dp/B076TSSGT4

Don't worry, this isn't entirely a sales pitch, although my offerings are selling like cold cakes and my mother desperately needs that surgery. I simply found myself thinking about that day in 1982 when I had my first real and deep inspiration to begin work on what became ASA. 

I was sitting in a philosophy class in room 332 of the Briggs Building on the University of Detroit campus. Dr. Anton Donoso, a truly fine teacher whose class on American Philosophy I thoroughly enjoyed, was lecturing, I think, on William James. For all I do remember of that day I don't recall exactly who he was talking about. Anyway, I had had this germ of an idea for a book for a few years by then. I even knew where it would end, though I didn't know how I'd get there. And that particular evening, well, in a fit of inspiration, I began writing. By the time class was over I had hand written almost ten pages of that first novel.

I have long wondered whether Dr. Donoso even noticed what I was doing, and if he did, did he think, wow, there's one student really into my lecture, the way he's scribbling on his notebook. And that, if it was the case, I've always felt bad about. So, wherever you are today Dr. Donoso, I apologize. I really did like your class. I was just distracted that day. I hope you forgive me.

Best of all possible worlds?

I have made no secret of the fact that I have become something of a night owl. It's really neat to be wide awake and active (well semi-active; how much can actually you do in the middle of the night?) (quiet Ron) when all the world is still and serene. Yet I have to admit that I'm finding even that world beginning to distract me.

Reading has become my pastime, as I've let known on these pages. I can't read enough and am always looking for new books. So there's point one. But a point two has arisen lately: with the Kindle my kids bought me  a couple of Christmases ago (Sure Marty, throw them under the bus) I find things to read on there. It's more than entire books which cost me nothing. It's also short articles, some worthwhile and some tripe which I still waste time on. Time on those adds up, especially when you figure in the typical Facebook and Facebook like diversions.

Now Decades TV has throw itself into the mix as point three. The Bob Newhart Show (the one from the 70s where he is a Chicago psychologist, and boy could Chicago use some psychology now) airs at 12:30. Get Smart is on at 1:30. Car 54, Where Are You? follows quickly at 2:30. Three all time faves of mine. 

My nights, well, my wee hours of the morning, are packed. Roll over, turn off the alarm, watch Bob Newhart. Read a half hour, tune into Maxwell Smart. Troll Facebook and adroitly comment on the past day's events if I'm not too interested in The Phil Silvers Show (Sgt. Bilko you are a conniver) until Toody and Muldoon's antics at 2:30. Then read again, if, and only if, I am not intrigued by The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (Maynard G. Krebs sure is lazy, eh?). Then read until I take my early morning nap (catching glimpses of The Abbott and Costello Show), waking anytime after 6 for my morning walk.

My worlds are colliding. How can I distract myself from my own distractions?

The right question

Same old Lions?

It just seems the right question for a Monday morning in the fall...and now you get two weeks to think about it.

The two edged sword

Knowledge is good. I believe the movie Animal House taught us that. Following the theme of what we can learn from movies, I want to briefly mention what I think we learn from my personal favorite movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It addresses the question of knowledge too.

When the monolith appears to the apes early in the film (Spoiler alert: a monolith appears to apes early in the film) the pre-humans are frightened, then curious. Summoning up their courage, they touch the monolith and are given knowledge. Well, what's the first thing they do with it? They learn how to better get food. They eat better. That's a good thing, of course. But what's the next thing they do?

They attack the neighboring tribe of apes.

What does that tell us about knowledge? First that, yes, John Belushi is right. Knowledge is good. But is our use of knowledge good? And that, my friends, is what I will leave you with today.

A scientific theory

There is one very vile habit that the pedants have, and that is explaining to a man why he does a thing when the man himself can explain quite well — and quite differently.  If I go down on all-fours to find sixpence, it annoys me to be told by a passing biologist that I am really doing it because my remote ancestors were quadrupeds.  I concede that he knows all about biology, or even a great deal about my ancestors; but I know he is wrong, because he does not know about the sixpence. 

Now you may very well ask, indeed I hope that you do ask, just what the hell this is all about. Well, it is about Mr. G. K. Chesterton, or more to the point, about an argument he is making which is quite worth making. And that point is that we cannot actually explain everything about ourselves by presuming to understand our remote, prehistoric past. 

Such presumption can be rather arrogant. It is being made about cultures which we have not and cannot see. We do not know that our ancestors were quadrupeds precisely because we did not live with our ancestors; in fact we do not know with any certainty who they are or were. We might make guesses, and very educated guesses about them indeed. But that is all we're doing. 

Science has its limits, particularly science which has no power of observation. And that is why I do not trust presumed science. It is all too often inference rather than observation based. With science, inference, while sometimes necessary, isn't fact. And that's the fact of the matter.

May firsts. Sorta.

My furnace kicked on at about 6:50 this morning for the first time since May.

On my morning walk I could see my breath. Very starkly. For the first time since May.

I thought I had layered enough but I didn't get past being cold on my walk until after about 15 minutes. That's the first time that's happened since May.

What worries me the most about all this is that in May I had seen snow flurries on my walk as late as the 12th. That's how long the cold held this year. Not that, with the 2020 we've had, that should be surprising. So, I wonder with trepidation, how soon will I see flurries again, for the first time since May.

The furnace just kicked on. For the second time since May. I hope that's not a portend of things to come.

Uncle John's pep talk

 Me Pops, you need to know (as many of you do) was the oldest of eight in his family. Me Uncle John whom we call Zeke was the youngest, and there were twelve years between them. Just in front of Uncle John at positions 6 and 7 in the family order were two other sons. The four of them at one time or another worked for me Grandpa Joe in his welding shop. Now you have all the information you need in order to understand my tale today.

Zeke was a young teenager and work simply wasn't going well for him one day. Try as he might, whatever he touched did not turn to gold. All turned to dust, maybe, and he'd even have to sweep that up. It was, according to me Pops, a rough day for the kid.

So Pops decided to do what a good elder brother should. When there was a break in the action, he sat down with his youngest sibling to offer encouragement. Ah, give it time, things will go better, stiff upper lip and all that sort of thing. Pops decided to finish the speech with a flourish. Waving an arm across the inside of the Shop he said, "And remember, Zeke, one day all this will be yours."

Uninspired by the sage words of me Pops Uncle John sat, dropping his shoulders a bit and becoming even more glum. "When you and Mike and Jim get done with it, I don't know if I want it." he said.

Until the last time he told that story, me Pops laughed loudly over it. Honesty can hurt. But it can be darn funny too.

The One not so Absolute Truth

I am loathe to write this, in part because of the stink hole it nearly always leads towards. Yet it springs from something which is profoundly irritating and merits, indeed demands, refutation. I become almost instantly furious whenever anyone in trying to defend a position makes a statement either exactly, or very similar to, everything's subjective.

That is wrong on many counts. It is vapid. It is banal. It is trite. It is, I will say it, evil. And as subjectivity claims to hold the One Absolute Truth, namely that there is no truth, it is arrogant. It is, and I think this is the premier philosophic charge to be brought against it, intellectually dishonest. The person asserting it should almost always know better.

Yet they argue it, with passion and, well, finality. It is a tiring and endless assault to counter them. As Plato says, if you challenge them in detail they will simply continue to produce detail, and tie up the debate in useless nausea. They may get away with this tactic in the abstract, but in the concrete, in the world where we need to know what is actually true (was George Floyd murdered or not?), where there are actual facts to be gathered, analyzed, and from which are drawn true and just results, it is the realm of the charlatan. 

Murder of course is an abstraction, and facts as facts are meaningless. In the realm of mere fact, all that happened in Minneapolis was that someone killed someone else. End of story. If you are going to argue that what happened was wrong, you must go beyond mere, hard fact.

Plato further teaches that if you challenge the subjectivists on principle they will merely assert there are no principles. Remember, they own the One Absolute Truth. But if all is subjective, and this is where the true intellectual dishonesty comes in, what exactly are they debating? What are they arguing for? How can even they know the One Absolute Truth is true?

I believe part of it lies in the idea that because there are different opinions among different peoples there cannot be one truth. The subjectivist argues an oversimplification: that the simple existence of differing points of view means all views are valid. They are confused about two things: one, that differences may come from a simple lack of understanding (and thus, if all involved are open to honest debate, truth can be found through conversation and logic) and two, that there are mistaken and sometimes evil people in the world who will create confusion merely to further their nefarious goals. Such people know the truth. Yet they actively seek to subvert it.

The subjectivist cannot, by definition, be arguing for any positive moral good because there can be no positive moral good in pure subjectivism. If all is subjective then no one thing is any more true or good or valuable than any one other. On that level, the murderer is equal to the one who dotingly cares for his ageing mother. 

The case against subjectivity and subjective morality is so plain that I cannot imagine anyone really believes it. I think rather they talk themselves into believing it. Subjectivism of necessity involves deceit, and particularly self deceit. It involves lying to yourself, and, by easy extension, others. It involves the worst type of misleading: piping yourself and friends and family into the abyss of nothingness.

C. S. Lewis opined you will invariably find that the one who argues all is subjective most certainly holds beliefs which he does not think subjective. He wouldn't debate you otherwise. For the true subjectivist logically, when challenged, must respond to adverse opinion simply by conceding whatever point is at hand, because that belief, and again I stress subjectively, must be as good as his. In short, we really have nothing to discuss, and can only be left with a might makes right world. The stronger person, or the one who gets the drop on the other, gets his way. Or hers; whatever.

If there is no objectivity then there is no truth. And if there is no truth, all human acts are pointless. The only rational approach to our earthly condition, if all is subjective, is rank despair.