The Main Event
Imagine if you will, a warehouse filled with shadowy figures and hazy tobacco smoke. In the center of the crowd, bright overhead lights shine down directly into the center of the room, illuminating two men standing toe to toe in a boxing ring. This scene, a fictional construction, a parable anchors for us the battle between two opposing views on the responsibility individuals ought to have regarding politics and public opinion. The two men, separated by centuries of death, stand momentarily resurrected as necessary avatars to wage battle. Marcus Aurelius, Caesar of Rome, touted in history as the Caesar with a blameless character and temperate way of life, raises his gloves, and speaks aloud.
Marcus: "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments.”
The challenger steps forward and drops his hood. John Stuart Mill, disciple of liberty, and evangelist of freedom, touches gloves with Marcus and says aloud.
John: "Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
The announcer steps between them and grabs the microphone lowered from the ceiling. His voice echoes across the crowd.
"Ladies and gentleman. Lovers and haters of politics alike, these men contest whether or not each of us must hold opinions concerning public policy and civic duty. Now let’s get it on!"
The announcer steps away, the crowd cheers wildly, and the bell rings for round one.
The Plunge (The Nappy Story Continued)
While the two icons of history mentioned above battle in this thought problem about one's responsibility to politics, a similar battle continued to take place in my mind as an afterthought of my episode with the exploding diaper mentioned in Part 1 of this essay.
When you have absolutely no doubt that the mess you are in rests entirely on your shoulders alone the question is no longer,
“Whose responsibility is it?" Instead, the question is solely,
"What should I do?"
Those four words, a cankerous burden that clings like the worst uncomfortable hemorrhoid, seed most of my grief, and simultaneously present to me much of what I find humorous in life.
The same question was flashing like a neon light in front of me and I couldn't think. My ears were peppered with the screams of my son, demanding relief from his raw bottom. What most refer to as ‘gut instinct’ could be understood as the summation of past experiences, nonsensical fears, half-remembered parental instructions, and a blended mess of every book or movie that provided our entertainment. The sound of my son’s screams sounded much like the grind of the kitchen blender as all of those fragmented nuggets of wisdom and folly and Hollywood fiction merged into my current incarnation of a ‘gut feeling.'
In the end, it wasn't the wisdom of Solomon, Marcus Aurelius, or any of the U.S. founding fathers that forged my intuition that day. Rather, it was the sum of suspenseful experiences sitting in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn, and over-priced soda. A series of flash moments from long favorite movies collided from memory.
I remembered when Mikey (Sean Astin) from the 1985 movie, “Goonies”, stuck his hand into the locking mechanism to try and release the treasure, only to find himself caught in a booby trap.
Mikey, caught in the trap! (Goonies)
I remembered Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Jones is stuck in the spike trap. To release the trap, Willie has to stick her arm into the hole filled with slime and bugs to reach the lever.
We are going to die! (Indiana Jones And Temple Of Doom)
I remembered Paul Atreides (from the 1984 movie, DUNE) with his hand caught in the Gom Jabbar, feeling the flesh burn away.
The resurgence of those nostalgic moments gave me great discomfort, urging me, the fool protagonist of my own story, to take my turn dealing with a nasty dilemma. There it was again: that lingering question that throttles my blood pressure.
“What should I do?”
While, at the time I was not very versed in the wisdom of John Stuart Mill or Marcus Aurelius, I was however very fluent in Captain Kirk.
"I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I only know what I can do."
-Captain James Kirk (Chris Pine, Star Trek 2009)
I only know what I can do! (Star Trek 2009)
I hurled my curses at Chris Pine very loudly as I squeezed my eyes shut, and plunged my right hand into the murky horror, trying desperately not to vomit. I clenched my teeth shut so hard that my jaw muscles cramped. My fingers sank into the obstruction perfectly filling every gap under each of my fingernails with God only knows what. The clump began to break away as the grimy fluid climbing up my arm was millimeters away from spilling over the rim of the commode. Suddenly, the crud receded quickly down the drain just in time to prevent further catastrophe, but not fast enough to prevent one last splash from spewing against the side of my face. I screamed in horror and disgust.
With my one clean arm, I scooped up my boy, letting the diaper fall away to the floor. With both of us covered in filth too awful to describe further, I stepped fully clothed into the shower with my screaming boy and turned open the faucet.
Back To The Fight
In the boxing match between John Stuart Mill and Marcus Aurelius, while each man takes jabs back and forth deciding when a man must hold opinions beyond his private life, the sparring match moves very slowly and makes little progress.
Marcus Aurelius jabs with the proclamation that a man has to have peace within himself if he is to rule and govern. He cannot allow his emotions to be hijacked by every opinion tied to a grandstanding of moral righteousness to appease one tribe or another. He attacks with a right hook, claiming that a man has no obligation to hold an opinion. The dialogue heats up.
Marcus: "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8, Passage 47”)
John Stuart Mill dodges and counters.
John: “That is true, but turning your eyes from the truth is a two-edged sword, Marcus. It might ease your anxiety for a minute, but you ought to know now how the worst of rulers keep power because the people have no power to cast them out. If a man holds no opinion towards civic responsibility, he is like the ostrich that shoves its head into the ground with the rest of its body standing in view for all to see. The ostrich can pretend the world need not affect him if he can’t see it. When the lion walks by though, it finds the careless ostrich has served itself up for an easy meal.”
Marcus: “Ostriches don’t stick their head in the sand. That’s a myth, John.”
John: “Well you get my point, Caesar. The people who wish to live freely must accept their obligation to understand how public opinion becomes the law that either guarantees freedom to their children or fits them for the shackles they are to inherit.
(I take a lot of fictional license here in this dialogue, I admit it. The idea was to create a thought problem, not a debate about the accuracy of my portrayal of these two men.)
The debate between the two continues round after round, each gaining ground and then giving it back, both of them determined to go the distance.
A Word From Our Sponsors
After the eighth round, the match breaks for commercial. The scene drastically changes from the smoky, dimly lit boxing arena to the scene of an immaculately clean kitchen. The warm rays from the sun streak shafts of golden serenity through the window and illuminate the walls of this peaceful home. A man stands in front of a marble basin filled with water as he looks through a window watching children play outside. The camera cuts to a slow-motion shot of his hands going through the motions of washing in the basin with a rich lather of white foam that seems to sparkle in the sunlight. Open for display with perfect marketing and product placement, a liquid soap dispenser rests next to the basin so that the label catches and holds one's attention.
The brand's title, prominently displayed with the most engaging font, reads, "Slippery Slope."
As the hands continue to rinse themselves clean, the feminine voice of the narrator speaks with the most soothing of tones.
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A small fine print disclaimer message aligns the bottom of the television screen with words too small to read. The narrator continues.
So for those of you burdened by that pesky question that asks,
"What Should I do?"
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(to be continued)