Number 94 : November 1998 |
There was once a song which went, I think:
He says "Murder!" he says, every time we kiss,
He says "Murder" he says, "Keep it up like this !"
And that "Murder" he says, in that impossible tone
Will bring on nobody's murder but his own.
Now it seems to me that in the first two lines the word "murder" is used metaphorically and in the last line it is used literally.
When I write poetry I frequently use metaphors. When I try to write for a philosophy newsletter I try to use language literally. Maybe I don't always succeed but to me it's part of what philosophy is about.
I'd like to write more but haven't time this month. And you've made some of the points already. It really would take too long to cover the subject as it deserves. I have a ten thousand word essay on Justice and Law somewhere, so if I can find it I might send you that instead !
I will share with you a comment from the current issue of New Zealand Geographic, though. The writer described how a beautiful area he'd known as a boy was being commercialised and needed protection. Before leaving he took (I'll quote, but without the names) "one last look at the beach and across to the Island, where one of my ancestors 'tidied up' the neighbourhood by having a few of his rivals over for a barbie. Literally."
He doesn't say when but most likely, I should think, round about the eighteen twenties. Which is not long ago on the time-scale of the development of civilisation. We can't assume that our moral values are and always will be shared by everyone in the world.
Sheila Blanchard