After I had begun thinking about this idea a few days ago, my friend, Stephanie McLeskey, sent me a link to a blog by Ben Mullinax (see Endnotes for the link) which uses the story from Forrest Gump, at Jenny’s Grave, to make an intriguing case for having both a sense of purpose and the feeling of random experiences in life. But, rather than having to choose between them, he argues, in agreement with Forrest Gump, that both are legitimate and to be valued—“both-and” rather “either-or,” which has long been at the heart of my fascination with paradoxical issues. So, even though my approach will no doubt be less profound, reading his use of “a story with a moral,” pushed me to charge ahead.

The first story may be familiar to some of you:

Several summers ago there was a Scotty who went to the country for a visit. He decided that all the farm dogs were cowards, because they were afraid of a certain animal that had a white stripe down its back. “You are a pussycat and I can lick you,” the Scotty said to the farm dog who lived in the house where the Scotty was visiting. “I can lick the little animal with the white stripe, too. Show him to me.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “You ask the questions.”

So the farm dog took the Scotty into the woods and showed him the white-striped animal and the Scotty closed in on him, growling and slashing. It was all over in a moment and the Scotty lay on his back.  When he came to, the farm dog said, “What happened?” “He threw acid on me,” said the Scotty, “but he never laid a glove on me.”

A few days later, the farm dog told the Scotty there was another animal all the farm dogs were afraid of. “Lead me to him,” said the Scotty. “I can lick anything that doesn’t wear horseshoes.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “Just show me where he hangs out.” So the farm dog led him to a place in the woods and pointed out the little animal when he came along. “A clown,” said the Scotty, “a pushover,” and he closed in, leading with his left and exhibiting some mighty fancy footwork. In less than a second the Scotty was flat on his back and when he woke up the farm dog was pulling quills out of him. “What happened,” said the farm dog. “He pulled a knife on me,” said the Scotty, “but at least I have learned how you fight out here in the country, and now I’m going to beat you up.” So he closed in on the farm dog, holding his nose with his one front paw to ward off the stink and covering his eyes with his other front paw to keep out the knives. The Scotty couldn’t see his opponent and he couldn’t smell his opponent and he was so badly beaten that he had to be taken back to the city and put in a nursing home.

The story is James Thurber’s, “The Scotty who Knew Too Much,” and Thurber supplies the moral: It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.  As Dr. Angel Pinillos said in an op ed article in the New York Times, “No matter how smart or educated you are, what you don’t know far surpasses anything you may know.”  And as I confessed in an earlier blog, the longer I have lived and learned, and the learning never stops—

• the more conscious I have become that the larger the “circle of what I know or think I know” becomes, the more the circumference of that circle touches the vast expanses of “the unknown;”
• and the more I have become aware of and humbled by all that I don’t know;
• and how overshadowed my “certainties” have become by all that remains beyond my grasp in that great repository of the unknown and, perhaps, of the not-to-be-known. 

So, to turn Thurber’s moral around, when you don’t know all the answers, the best thing to do is ask the right questions. Nothing could be more congenial to my own interest in, study of, and teaching of philosophy, which is all about asking the right questions—how do we know? what is at the core of reality? what is good and right? what is a logical conclusion? what is beauty?  Since all of those question, and others like them, have more than one possible answer, we have to decide which ones seem the most reasonable, or coincide with our experience, or we chose to believe based on an authority we trust, or that simply “feel” like the right answer.

Suffice it to say that while I do not think I can live my life balanced on top of a question mark, neither do I think I have the truth neatly packaged. I am a person-in-relationship-and-in-process.  The fact that what I started as a child—and what I am momentarily “freezing” at this point in my life—is not finished and will not be finished until I die, argues for open-mindedness and intellectual humility . . . and asking the right questions.

I’ve applied this first story, deliberately, to myself—I leave you to find your own way.

Which brings me to a second brief story that is told about the writer and actor Robert Benchley.  When he was a student at Harvard he took a course in international law. The final examination confronted him with a question something like this: Discuss the arbitration of the international fisheries problem with respect to hatcheries protocol and dragnet and trawl procedure as it affects (a) the point of view of the United States and (b) the point of view of Great Britain.

Benchley, who had not studied, was somewhat desperate, and wrote as follows: “I know nothing about the point of view of Great Britain in the arbitration of the international fisheries problem, and nothing about the point of view of the United States. Therefore, I shall discuss the question from the point of view of the fish.”

While I cannot vouch for its authenticity, the story does come from a reliable source (see Endnotes, Humes) and no doubt set a tone for Benchley’s later reputation for creative and effective humor. That said, and confessing that I thoroughly sympathize with Benchley’s plight, “the viewpoint of the fish”—for all its creativity—is, after all, another name for “faking it,” and the story makes me wonder how often I have “leaned on the viewpoint of the fish.” I hope I haven’t been too often guilty of it but I’m afraid I can offer no guarantees.

Jumping back to my intellectual humility, I certainly would not pass myself off as an expert on any particular subject, even when I’ve been the requisite 50 miles from home, and, unlike Hegel, I cannot claim to see things from God’s point of view. None of that, however, is an excuse for “faking it.” 

The Benchley story is meant to generate a laugh—and it does—but underlying the story, intended or not, is a serious “moral.” Offering “the viewpoint of the fish,” out of ignorance or with intention to deceive, is both wrong and dangerous any time, but especially now as we live under the current viral threat to our health and safety.  And that’s true whether the ignorance or deception comes from “the top”—does “faking it” while decrying “fake news” ring a bell at all?—from the gathered masses, or from my house or yours.

In a second post, to follow soon, I’ll offer two more “stories with a moral.”  I hope you’ll stay tuned.