Imagine being given a choice between two options.
The first option is that you would be given a desirable attribute, such as being intelligent or gifted in a particular art. Whatever trait you most admire in others, you would have. However, no one would ever know you had this trait. In fact, people would believe you were deficient in that area. So if you were actually very smart, everyone would think you were dumb.
or
The second option would be the inverse of the first. Everyone would believe you were extremely gifted in an area where you were actually not.
No matter what you did, no one would ever find out the truth, so there would be none of the stress of having to maintain a false appearance.
I imagine most people would choose the second option.
Wouldn't it be weird if these were choices we actually had to face in life? I suppose we do to some degree, in terms of weather or not to lie or cheat, or pull a Milli Vanilli, but it would be weird if choices of this magnitude were things we faced occasionally.
There was something I had been wanting to write, but it slipped my mind. So instead I wrote about this and the heatwave. I hope I remember.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's very hard to imagine. Partly this is due to the paradoxical nature of your options. How could you have a gift or trait that no one would ever know about? I cannot imagine that. How could everyone believe you are gifted if you are not?
ReplyDeleteNow to the other part of my difficulty. Perhaps in Plato's day you might have got away with this thought experiment. But today the view that truth must be supported by evidence is in the ascendant.
What would be the evidence in first option that you were smart and that others thought you were dumb? & similarly for the second option?
On what basis do you imagine what most people would choose? May your readers assume you would choose otherwise? Why don't you admit your own choice?
from Vincent the attack-dog, with best wishes
chris i have to make choices like that all the time. the other day i had to choose between a bottle in front of me or a frontal lobotomy. Also I had to choose if I would rather loose the use of my right hand or have diarrhea forever
ReplyDeletep.s. is that vincent guy joking? I can't tell
ReplyDeleteIf you cannot tell, it merely demonstrates you are not English.
ReplyDeleteNah, I'm super English. If you get english enough you go full circle and you can't tell again
ReplyDeleteThere must be a set of tests I can run on you to validate your assertion. In the novels about WWII I used to read, men would be interrogated with trick questions to delve into their true nationality. Usually these questions would involve Picadilly Circus or life at Eton or Harrow.
ReplyDeleteOK Coolio (your name is frightfully unEnglish, old chap, if you don't mind my saying so).
1) What is Picadilly Circus most famous for?
2) Is Eton a public school or a private school?
3) at Eton, what is Pop?
4) How do you get there?
5) If you do, what can you do that you otherwise could not do?
Get all 5 questions right & you are super-English. 3-4 right and you are English of the semi-educated kind. Less than 3, you are a Yank masquerading. Hand over the chewing gum, but leave our big sisters alone, unless your intentions are honourable. Honorable is not good enough.
Vincent,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe such a choice could ever exist in real life. It is true the question does require some stretch of the imagination.
The only reason I was thinking about such a thing is because in my class my teacher mistakenly thought I had misunderstood something and I never corrected him. I was surprised how frustrated I felt that he thought misunderstood it, when I actually did. I realized that, to some degree, i valued being perceived as having some quality more than actually having the quality. I suppose I should have mentioned all this in the actual entry. I was curious what other people's thoughts were on the subject, and tried to imagine the most extreme case example I could, although I realized it was improbably.
luke, cooliosaurus, you have crossed the line. Just kidding, whats up? how was heather's kegger?
it was great but i don't remember most of it. i do remember that at one point i was really drunk and i was in a handstand contest. i kept yelling "i'm gonna break my neck! I shouldn't be doing this! THREE TWO ONE" and then do another handstand
ReplyDeleteI hate it when the weather makes me lie and cheat.
ReplyDelete