COMMENSAL ISSUE 94

Thank you for C93. As I'm sure you appreciate, I didn't mean to suggest that you should refrain from commenting on submissions merely to permit others to get in on the act, rather that if those submissions were on the net we could all do it at the same time. Commensal would not be quite the same without your input. No, I'm not in the Mensa news group as I find I'm quite busy in other areas. (Your opinion of it doesn't exactly send me rushing to subscribe either, but if I do in the future I'll let you know what I think.)

In your response to Valerie Ransford (C93/13-14) it occurs to me that the issue of "knowledge v. belief" was satisfactorily packaged by Plato in his accounts of the two levels of reality. Since reading "Republic" I have been reasonably content to accept that I can only "know" the "thing-in-itself", ie, elements of a priori knowledge, and that everything else has to fall within the realm of "belief". Therefore, I "know" that a square has four sides (etc), but I can only hold an opinion about whether my kids are in the lounge watching TV at the moment (although that's probably as near to certainty as I am likely to get in the "visible" world!). This doesn't mean that I'm heading down some path of Cartesian deconstruction, having self-doubt that I may be living a life that is merely a dream, but for the purposes of consistency in language, this will do fine. (It perhaps also means that Stef Gula (C93/24) hasn't really got a dilemma at all, it's just a question of labelling?)

Whilst sharing your doubt about whether it was in fact philosophy, I appreciated the article on the problems of Northern Ireland by Alan Carr (C93/27-29), made all the more pertinent by the tragic events of the 15th August. Maybe there is a relevance to the question of philosophical enquiry here, inasmuch as how the pursuit of practical truths can be distorted by prejudice and historical baggage. I find it interesting that Alan does not consider the intransigence of the religious institutions to be a major hindrance to the peace process; surely their rigid position lends some kind of legitimacy to the stubbornness of groups on both sides of the divide whose vested interests do not coincide with the objectives of the peace lobby?

I have to say that I found Sheila Blanchard's (C93/30-32) contribution fascinating and, in the matter of the horrors of World War II, must defer to someone who was there. However, isn't the suggestion that those who were not able to contribute "at the front" "avoided their share of the communal guilt" a little presumptuous? Is it not at least as much a possibility that they felt they had missed out on their share of the "team pride" of the fighting forces who vanquished the Nazis and liberated the oppressed, notwithstanding the sterling work done by Land Army, fire-fighters, farmers et al? Also, isn't the main purpose of army training to be an effective soldier, of which being an effective killer may be an unavoidable part, but which principally means being available to the democratically elected government of the day to do their (our) bidding in pursuit of political objectives once diplomacy has failed? Finally, on a more supportive note, I was more on Sheila's side than your's (ie. Mine, Ed) about the justifiability of killing human beings if it prevents more suffering than it causes. Who could doubt the sense of that when contemplating Hitler or Saddam Hussein? This has satisfying echoes of the Greatest Happiness Principle about it, but, as usual, would falter at the point where someone had to make the judgement about who had to go and who should stay; it would get particularly complex when putting historical figures like Napoleon or Alexander the Great under the microscope, given the raft of benefits to civilisation from their reigns, weighed in the balance against their warmongering and the associated human costs of that. Some form of felicific calculus, understandable to and auditable by all, would certainly be a prerequisite.

Graham Dare (C93/35-36) yet again provokes a response. The issue of killing animals is the easy example for the sentimentalists, isn't it? One may not be prepared to kill an animal oneself, but as a member of a society that is prepared to, one is entitled to eat the resultant product. One can choose to do this with one's eyes wide open, accepting the vicarious responsibility, and perhaps contemplate the flesh being stripped from the bone, the slaughter process etc as one is chewing, if this assuages the guilt. Or, more sensibly, one can forget that and accept the frozen, shrink-wrapped item which tastes good in the recipe simply as something that constitutes one of the benefits of living in a society. Do the hand-wringers really agonise over the chick's life that has been lost whilst eating their boiled egg? Do they agonise over the coal miners' deaths and injuries whilst warming themselves by the coal fire? I guess not. Perhaps future articles condemning the way we live, vis-a-vis our furry friends, could have a hypocrisy quotient with it? (PS; despite the opinion readers may be forming of my view of animals, in fact I like them (particularly my own five) and oppose any form of cruelty to them; its the humbug I can do without).

Theo; I think that in your response to John Neary (C93/37-38), concerning the "altruistic" voting patterns of politicians in our elective oligarchy, you ended up saying that all voters, in whatever forum, ultimately vote for themselves and their own interests. If that is a correct interpretation of your position, I agree. If, however, we are not content with that state of affairs, and do not subscribe to the view that the best political representation is given by those who put themselves forward within the current framework of democracy, perhaps we should once again turn to Plato for guidance as to an alternative?

Kevin Arbuthnot