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I should try to remember to think of the following whenever I see anything deliberately hurtful or stupid. It took me a while to truly understand this.
From "Life, the Universe, and Everything," by Douglas Adams:
"Oh well," he said with resignation, "I was just hoping there
would be some sort of reason."
"Do you know," said Prak, "the story of the Reason?"
Arthur said that he didn't, and Prak said that he knew that he
didn't.
He told it.
One night, he said, a spaceship appeared in the sky of a planet
which had never seen one before. The planet was Dalforsas, the
ship was this one. It appeared as a brilliant new star moving
silently across the heavens.
Primitive tribesmen who were sitting huddled on the Cold
Hillsides looked up from their steaming night-drinks and pointed
with trembling fingers, swearing that they had seen a sign, a
sign from their gods which meant that they must now arise at last
and go and slay the evil Princes of the Plains.
In the high turrets of their palaces, the Princes of the Plains
looked up and saw the shining star, and received it unmistakably
as a sign from their gods that they must now go and set about the
accursed Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides.
And between them, the Dwellers in the Forest looked up into the
sky and saw the sigh of the new star, and saw it with fear and
apprehension, for though they had never seen anything like it
before, they too knew precisely what it foreshadowed, and they
bowed their heads in despair.
They knew that when the rains came, it was a sign.
When the rains departed, it was a sign.
When the winds rose, it was a sign.
When the winds fell, it was a sign.
When in the land there was born at midnight of a full moon a goat
with three heads, that was a sign.
When in the land there was born at some time in the afternoon a
perfectly normal cat or pig with no birth complications at all,
or even just a child with a retrousse nose, that too would often
be taken as a sign.
So there was no doubt at all that a new star in the sky was a
sign of a particularly spectacular order.
And each new sign signified the same thing - that the Princes of
the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to
beat the hell out of each other again.
This in itself wouldn't be so bad, except that the Princes of the
Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to
beat the hell out of each other in the Forest, and it was always
the Dwellers in the Forest who came off worst in these exchanges,
though as far as they could see it never had anything to do with
them.
And sometimes, after some of the worst of these outrages, the
Dwellers in the Forest would send a messenger to either the
leader of the Princes of the Plains or the leader of the
Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides and demand to know the reason for
this intolerable behaviour.
And the leader, whichever one it was, would take the messenger
aside and explain the Reason to him, slowly and carefully and
with great attention to the considerable detail involved.
And the terrible thing was, it was a very good one. It was very
clear, very rational, and tough. The messenger would hang his
head and feel sad and foolish that he had not realized what a
tough and complex place the real world was, and what difficulties
and paradoxes had to be embraced if one was to live in it.
"Now do you understand?" the leader would say.
The messenger would nod dumbly.
"And you see these battles have to take place?"
Another dumb nod.
"And why they have to take place in the forest, and why it is in
everybody's best interest, the Forest Dwellers included, that
they should?"
"Er ..."
"In the long run."
"Er, yes."
And the messenger did understand the Reason, and he returned to
his people in the Forest. But as he approached them, as he walked
through the Forest and amongst the trees, he found that all he
could remember of the Reason was how terribly clear the argument
had seemed. What it actually was he couldn't remember at all.
And this, of course, was a great comfort when next the Tribesmen
and the Princes came hacking and burning their way through the
Forest, killing every Forest Dweller in their way.
04-14-2005 07:52 AM 