Sunday, February 26, 2012

Puck on... Superiority


What kinds of tools?

I’ve piqued your curiosity, have I?  Careful, you’re teetering on the edge.  That subtle tinge is taking on a distinct flavor.  Perhaps we should hold off on discussing that, lest I inadvertently put a bellows to the fire of your superiority.  I could never forgive myself if I turned you into a full-blown hypocrite.

Oh, come now.  Surely, you have something well picked and defensive in response.

Really?  My boy, it’s no fun, if you don’t play along.  Have I angered you?  I can’t think why you should take offense.  After all, if I’m lying, if I’m mistaken, why should that hurt you?  I am a demon, a born liar.  You shouldn’t give two cents what I think.  The really mature know they are, and don’t need someone to tell them nor take it seriously when someone claims they aren’t.

There really is no reason to be annoyed.  Unless, of course, I’m not mistaken.

Hurts, doesn’t it?  When that bolt find it’s mark, pinning you to the chair.  What will you do I wonder?  Deny it?  Defend yourself?  Try to play the martyr?  Be the hero and take umbrage?

Or will you double down and go for broke?  Oh, how I would love that.  Commit.  Damn the offense!  “You won’t talk to me that way, Mr. Puck.”  Oh, do please insult me.  Call into question my trustworthiness.  Oh, sweet wine is that to my ears.  You claiming superiority to me and feeling vindicated.  Like Christmas morning!

Come on.  What will it be?  Oh, the anticipation is killing me.  How long can you hold out?  I’ve wrestled with men and angels, boy, I assure you, you cannot stare me down.  Out with it.

You said you wanted to hold off on talking about how to fool the wise.

Denial!  The third option!  Oh, so predictable.  Then again, I suppose I didn’t give you much in the way of alternative.  Still I thought you’d be more creative.  Perhaps you’re not as smart as you think you are, or just not as quick on your feet.  But you know what, I’ll play along, for your sake.

Yes, I did want to hold off on that discussion, why do you ask?

Because I think you’re talking about it now.

Oh, my boy.  My sweet, naïve, thick-headed, mule-stubborn, simple-minded boy.

You.  Are.  Catching on.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Puck on... Truth


Does that surprise you?  That people would find truth more frightening than a lie?

No.

As it shouldn’t.  Truth is scary.  Weighty.  Truth demands things of you.  Truth will not be ignored.  You can’t escape truth.  But, oh, how people try.  As previously stated, if you can debunk it, you don’t have to listen.  And so that’s what people do to truth.  They try to make it untrue.  That’s what relativism allows them to do.  Funny.  How willing humans are to dismantle the very foundations of thought and understanding just to escape responsibility.  Like burning down your house rather than clean it.  Then again, someone did once describe it as cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Seems so pointless, doesn’t it?

Yes.  It does.

What?

Don’t “what?” me.  I hear it, though you may not.  That subtle tinge of self-righteousness in your voice.  You think you’re better than them.

I don’t-

Oh come now.  Be honest.  You’re with one who understands.  It’s natural.  It’s quite human.  You see the truth, they don’t.  It’s perfectly normal to feel just a little superior.

I don’t think I’m superior.

Don’t you? 

I don’t.

Maybe not your person but perhaps your position.  After all, shouldn’t the man standing on the mountaintop feel superior to those wandering aimlessly in the valley below? 

I think that’s different.

Is it now?  Oh come, my boy, enough beating around the bush.  You’ve been caught.  It’s all right.  I won’t make you admit it.  I can understand why you would not wish to say it out loud.  After all, once you do you can’t take it back.  And the hypocrisy would most certainly be obvious.

That I’m not superior.

No.  You’re not.  Though not for the reason you’re thinking of.  You think it’s because you are just a lowly sinner in need of grace like them.  That the fact you realize the truth does not make you any better.  That’s the wonderful thing about hypocrisy: it loves to mask itself as humility.  The truth is you’re not superior because you’re not any different than them.

You say you value truth, but you don’t.  The only difference between you and the rest of the world is you bother to say you value it at all.  They don’t.

I don’t value truth?

No, you don’t.  Not as much as you think.  Not nearly as much as you should.  That’s the tough part about maturity.  The higher you go, the sins don’t become easier, they get more cunning.  It’s easy to dupe a fool with simple sins.  If you want to fool the wise, you have to be crafty.  But there are tools for that as well.  Oh, yes, there are indeed.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Puck on... Relativism, pt. 4


So, why?

My boy.  My dear, dear boy.  You have a talent, an absolute talent for asking the question you already know the answer to.  Why?  Why?  Why?  Why?

Yourself.  What other reason could there be?

Because you want to.  The same reason you do everything else.  Why would people choose self-delusion over truth?  Because they want to.  Why would they claim a belief system that makes no sense, that defies sense itself?  Because they want to.  Why would you follow a path that will only lead to destruction, whose consequences contain nothing good?  Because you want to.

Everything.  All sin, all sorrow, all the self-inflicted pain of your simple lives are summed up here.  You.  Because you want to.

Relativism is the unraveling of the universe.  The death and destruction of all law and order and the rise of chaos.  The reign of Pandemonium.  The antimatter of conscience.  And yet you choose it.  And it is such a thing, indeed it is so ridiculous, that you cannot simply accept it once.  If you did it would undo itself.  The only way to make it work is to constantly accept it to a level where it never actually takes hold but remains a continuous presence.  This is not easy.  Or I should say it shouldn’t be easy, but it seems to come very easy for you.  That’s the thing about you.  You have the ability to make any idea, any truth completely ineffective for you while still holding it enough to make yourself think it is.  If you never truly accept it, fully accept it, then it does nothing.  It is but a veneer.  Just enough of the coloring to make you think it’s working, but it never soaks through.  The great white wash of the universe.  But, oh, the waste beneath.

It requires a lot of effort.  Holding it steady just above your lives.  But it works!  You make it work.  A shield between you and reality.  It might seem pointless.  Why not just be done with it?  Ah, but, what is the alternative?

If you dropped it, let it settle fully into your lives, of course, it would mean the destruction of everything.  Order, life, right and wrong.  Everything is up for grabs with relativism.  That’s what people miss.  Relativists are quite content to convince themselves that there is no real truth higher than “what makes me feel good.”  It seems like such a good idea.  But when you play with fire you soon learn you can’t control it.  It will burn anything that it can.  If there is no truth, then there is nothing that can be true.  And this is fine for guilt and commitment and all those things you would like to be rid of.  But what of inequality, war, murder, death, rape, genocide, pedophilia?  Anything you would call evil or wrong isn’t, because there is no right and therefore no wrong.  You can’t call it wrong!  Can you imagine living in a world like that?  Where the worst thing you can possibly think of is as permissible as the best?  And there is nothing you can call on should the former come to you when you sought the latter.

It’s the old tale.  They asked for relief from what they thought an annoyance only to lose what they really thought valuable.  They call the piper to take what they didn’t want only to realize too late that he’s also taken everything they wanted to keep.

That’s the end of relativism.  It can take you nowhere else.  So, no wonder no one would actually want to let it take full control of their life.

But what of the other option?

Other option?

They could just be rid of it all together.  Why keep up the hypocrisy?

That’s quite simple.  Because that option is even worse.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Puck on... Relativism, pt. 3


As I said, no one who really believes in Moral Relativism really believes in it.  They can’t.  And yet they believe in it.

How is that possible?

Oh, you know how.  It’s quite common.  Humans do it all the time.  You think you don’t because you don’t call it that.  Ah, you humans and names.  You even think not calling it what it is means it isn’t.  It’s almost a talent, your ability to act as if something is true when you know it isn’t.  Act as if you believe in it when you don’t.  The truth is you are capable, (indeed it nearly seems impossible for you not to), of holding conflicting, even contradictory thoughts in your head.  Content and confident that both are true, proven and reliable.

How, you may wonder, is this possible?  Well, that’s simple.  You just don’t realize it.  Ignorance, or what you call ignorance, is your tool.  The little dividers you put up in your mind so that all those incompatible philosophies don’t touch each other, for if they did, the incongruence would be obvious.  Indeed they would obliterate each other.  But if they remain apart, if the acidic and basic never meet, then you can go on working with both, each alongside the next.

It’s actually quite fun to watch you walk that cerebral tightrope.  It’s made even more amusing by the fact that you have convinced yourselves you don’t walk a tightrope at all.  The magician’s act where even the performer is fooled.  I applaud your ingenuity.

The only place one would expect to find that level of self-delusional is… well, Hell.

So, demons are self-deluded?

No, no, my boy.  You are too quick to change the subject.  This is a very bad sign.  It shows an unwillingness to face certain truths.  Have I shot too close the mark?  Is that why you reel?

I’m not unwilling.

So you say.  Very well then, let’s continue.  Silly me, I’ve gone on talking about how you can accomplish moral relativism.  But the central question was not how, but why.