With elections coming up, it is fun to step back from the hackneyed slogans of day-to-day vote-buying and think about the big picture. Ancient Greece was supposed to be a laboratory of political science, with democracies, oligarchies, and tyrannies just a few miles away from each other. Like a modern Aristotle cataloging the various constitutions, we can observe and compare many little societies, such as churches, lodges, civic organizations, etc. In my case it was bicycle clubs.
Bicycle clubs do indeed span the political spectrum. One such club was helpful and considerate almost to a fault: they would always wait at the top of a hill for the slowpokes to catch up. If anybody had a flat tire, the whole group would stop and assist. They shared meals together. Great folks, it seemed.
Bicycle clubs do indeed span the political spectrum. One such club was helpful and considerate almost to a fault: they would always wait at the top of a hill for the slowpokes to catch up. If anybody had a flat tire, the whole group would stop and assist. They shared meals together. Great folks, it seemed.
But over a summer the starting time would slip because they simply lacked the guts to leave anyone. Many of the flat tires were caused by people running on old rubber. Their obsession with safety became nanny-ish and nagging. They charged cyclists a small fee at every ride, and sent it to their central office in Washington, DC. They stopped too long at meals and ate too much. Nobody ever progressed in their riding performance.
On the other extreme I have ridden with low-end racers. They never asked for, or gave, quarter. It was Social Darwinism of the wheel. A wolf pack of testosterone-crazed animals. Only serious injury would cause them to interrupt their rampage.
I saw pro's and con's with these two opposites and spent a long time deciding which one I preferred, or rather, disliked least. There was something debilitating and sickening about the helplessness that the first group's policies engendered.
One autumn when evening daylight was evaporating, the bike group had to decide whether to start earlier. One of the riders (a woman, naturally) said, "No, that won't be fair to those who can't make it that early."
I went home and slept on it. Indeed it was unfortunate that some people would have to give up the ride immediately and start doing whatever they did in the winter. But was it also unfair? How did it help them to let the early sunset ruin the ride for everybody? The next morning I woke up free of the cant with which I had been brainwashed in college: I was no longer willing to ruin something equally for everybody in order to be "fair."
It is easy to believe just about anything on an abstract level, as long as it's a pretty slogan. That's what keeps philosophers, preachers, and politicians in business, after all. But when wrestling with more tangible things--things that we personally know something about--we are more hardheaded.
I went home and slept on it. Indeed it was unfortunate that some people would have to give up the ride immediately and start doing whatever they did in the winter. But was it also unfair? How did it help them to let the early sunset ruin the ride for everybody? The next morning I woke up free of the cant with which I had been brainwashed in college: I was no longer willing to ruin something equally for everybody in order to be "fair."
It is easy to believe just about anything on an abstract level, as long as it's a pretty slogan. That's what keeps philosophers, preachers, and politicians in business, after all. But when wrestling with more tangible things--things that we personally know something about--we are more hardheaded.
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