The Oreo Magnification Hypothesis

Oh, a kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo first. Or will he, if the flavor is waffles and syrup?

Nothing appears sacred anymore. When the most popular cookie in the world feels that it has to try unusual things in order to appeal to the market, as it has recently with waffles and syrup (as well as myriad other flavors), it is easy to wonder just what's going on around here. Sure, there's no evil in trying new tastes per se, and if that's what folks want, well, so be it. After all, waffles and syrup do seem popular with breakfast.

But why do we see all this, I don't know, innovation seems an overwrought term to use. There are lots of tasty treats out there, and sugary ones are prominent. Yet waffles and syrup in cookies? Especially beloved ones such as good old Oreos? The whole idea simply strikes me as bizarre. If you want waffles and syrup, just go get them.

One easy explanation is that the makers of the famous treat, Nabisco, are merely responding to market forces. There's nothing wrong with that, again adding the caveat per se. Markets tend to make things better indeed by offering choices and making improvements on various levels and in various ways which are sometimes heretofore unimaginable. Having said that, I cannot ignore the implications of changing things simply to change them. If the markets are doing nothing more than reflecting such, what does that say about us?

What are we looking for, that we can't be satisfied with good old Oreo cookies? Why ought things change merely to change, merely to be different? To display our individuality? Surely, though, when we have to do things differently solely to display our independence we are in fact the most dependent of creatures. We have to watch society for what it likes and then act differently. At that point we're merely being contrary, if not obstinate and contradictory. Our personalities and outlooks, if dependent on change (which is after all merely doing things differently today than yesterday) are actually rather shallow.

Yes, yes, yes, I realize the hyperbole in what I've just asserted. I know, I've already said, that there's nothing wrong with experimenting with new cookie flavors let alone habits of fashion per se (yes, I must again add that dreaded as such). I'll even readily concede that the flavor of an Oreo isn't substantial in any useful philosophic sense. And I certainly do not want to be the reactionary conservative who opposes simply to oppose, who sees every change as dangerous if not sinful. Those reactionaries can be as wrong in resisting change as the revolutionaries who want to alter everything. I simply want people to understand that what was once accepted en masse, particularly the tried and true, can continue to be accepted without surrendering any valuable individuality on our parts. I want folks to accept the converse of eternal change: a single, basic, underlying outlook which holds all our choices together. That means if you must change what are mere habits, simple personal proclivities, merely to assert your person, you aren't particularly individual at all. You may be becoming something worse.

Same difference

Chesterton believed that the farmer in India had a lot in common with the farmer in England. They each wanted rain. Can that be said of the English and Indian utopian?
I am not impressed with calls for individualism. Being an individual requires little; just don't be like Jones. That is within the power of everyone.
But being like everyone else, ah, there's the challenge. Getting up in the morning, doing your job, being nice to people; there's the challenge. Being considerate of that old hag down the street, there's a challenge. Being agreeable with the one preaching his worldview, there's a challenge. Liking the fellow who doesn't like you; there's a challenge.
Sameness is a challenge. Difference requires mere obstinacy. We are all capable of that.

Karl Rodig's idea of Love is destructive

Self-proclaimed Bishop Karl Rodig of Detroit considers himself a 'rebel' priest. “I believe in love,” he says. “I think that love is for everyone, not just a few.” How quaint of a rebel to think that.

Of course, he is right. Love, understood properly, is for everyone. The flaw in his belief, however, is really the same flaw which is found with the folks who preach peace, tolerance, respect, education, liberty, and a great many more overused buzzwords. It is summed up in an amazingly simple question: what do you mean by love?

If our dear little revolt leader means that to love is not to judge (as so many liberals and non-traditionalists say it means), well, he violates his creed from the very start. As he is for women priests, married priests and same sex marriage, then espousing those views amounts to judging those who disagree (accepting another liberal axiom that to judge an action is to judge the person). If he doesn't mean that then he must qualify his statements. Otherwise we must ask: can a self contradictory message really help the world? Will it lead followers to humility and introspection, or would it actually give its practitioners a sense of self aggrandizement that will only keep them from a healthy and necessary questioning of themselves and their motives (something which real love calls us to do)?

You see, the problem with calls to love, to tolerate, to respect, to be peaceful is that they only work among those willing to be loving, tolerant, respectful, and peaceful. Not everyone will choose to be that way. Part of that reason is the abuse of free will. Left to its lonesome, it is quite liable to devolve into selfishness, and selfishness doesn't serve anyone well, even and perhaps especially the individual. Then there's the fact that some people simply won't give quarter to those who really believe in love and all the rest. That's why we have war and poverty: enough people in enough places dispense with love and its siblings so that no appeal to real and decent sentiment will sway them.

And we will not have real and decent sentiments until we realize that some things are not tolerable, not deserving of respect, and not in themselves lovable. Sometimes we must act in ways which are not peaceful because of the people who will not be peaceful, loving, or tolerant. This is the way of the world. To think anything else is simply irrational and naive.

Karl Rodig thinks himself loving. That thought might well lead to a far greater despotism than he sees held against those he supports. The despotism of the individual may well be the harshest tyranny there is.

Ty Cobb and Reality

We want to be remembered. But after that, we want the folks we admire to be remembered. And that, perhaps, speaks more of us than we may imagine.

The wish always survives. People will speak of it well after we're gone. In Detroit, we wish that Tyrus Raymond Cobb should be thought of as the greatest baseball player ever. But more than that, we wish that he was a better man than much of history portrays him.

This sort of enigma plagues us. We want our heroes to be larger than life; that much is understandable. Why worship them otherwise? Yet life gets in the way. We hear things, we read things, and even our conscience tells us we should think one way rather than another. Still, we want, very much in fact, to think another way.

The fact of the matter is we want heroes. Really, we need heroes. We need people to aspire towards. We need to know that there are others who care for others more than we do. So we overlay our needs across the imperfect.

So, enter Ty Cobb. The dirtiest player in all of baseball history. No one seems to dispute that. Yet there are many stories coming out which attempt to tell an alternate tale.

There's no point to going into the bad now. Cobb is dead and gone, and the dead deserve their good name. He was philanthropic in his private life, a demon on the diamond. An enigma; something we simply don't get. We wish that we were like the former. Yet we want to be the latter, even knowing there's something wrong with that.

We are of two such minds in America today. Does it drive us, inspire us, or condemn us? Does it make us all that we can be, or less than we should be?

Just asking.