Reclaiming Metaphysics from the Mushy-Headed

One of the "problems" with a UD education is that the UD graduate likes to use certain "fancy" words that not many other people necessarily understand. (I write this as a UD graduate, but I'm sure anybody with a decent liberal arts education has encountered this problem too.) When he leaves "the bubble," he sometimes forgets that these words are not in everybody else's vocabulary. The careless UD graduate in his conversations occasionally lets drop a word which for him is rich in associations and encapsulates his point nicely but which only confuses his interlocutors; pretty soon he finds himself re-formulating his entire argument in order to make himself understood. One such fancy word is "metaphysics," and I recently ran up against the problem of trying to use the word in a conversation with someone from "outside the bubble."

After a lecture event sponsored by a certain libertarian-conservative student group, I went out for a drink with some other members of the group. In the ensuing discussion, I told a libertarian that one of my disagreements with libertarians is that they draw too rigid a distinction between the individual's private life and the public realm, and that this stark dichotomy has its roots in libertarians' arbitrary distinction between ethics and politics, on the one hand, and metaphysics on the other. I thought I had made my point relatively clear, but when my libertarian interlocutor heard the word "metaphysics" come out of my mouth, he looked at me as if I had just grown a nose in the middle of my forehead. He was under the impression that I was referring to old ladies with crystal balls charging me a few dollars to read my fortune, or maybe to some New Age fad. He thought I had a head full of mush!

When I saw his face, I hastened to explain that I was talking about a branch of philosophy. He replied, "I have zero background in philosophy. Why don't you just say 'reason' or 'logic'?" For half a second I entertained the idea of explaining that logic and metaphysics are distinct branches of philosophy, and for another half-second I considered mentioning something about "the study of being," but then I remembered that I had a train to catch. So, I just answered, "Yes, reason!" Of course, his conception of reason was probably a purely modern, instrumental conception of reason...but that was a discussion for another night.

Do so few people understand what "metaphysics" really means? What will happen to public discourse when members of a "learned profession" (yes, I actually am referring to lawyers) who believe they have a special calling to study and resolve the most pressing questions concerning men's relations with one another have no clue what "metaphysics" means?

It probably was always the case that the majority of lawyers were not familiar with philosophy. But, to hear such an open avowal of ignorance from someone who appeared to be interested in larger questions of philosophy was frightening. It wasn't so much his ignorance that frightened me, though, as his lack of shame at his own ignorance.

This ignorance and this lack of shame do not bode well for public discourse. We are left, then, with only one choice: We must reclaim the word "metaphysics" from the mushy-headed!

Your Smart Phone Is Making You Look Stupid

Many people - dare I say most? - today have "smart phones", mobile telephones which not only engage in telephony but also have cameras and lots of nifty applications, including email. Smart phone owners may feel very proud of themselves for being high tech, "with it" and, well, smart. Alas, I have bad news: your smart phone is making you look stupid.

The data which have led me to this conclusion have come from several sources over the last few months. The first are emails from my students. An unseemly number of emails - usually asking me to excuse their absences, raise their grades or otherwise do something nice for them - lack a proper salutation. Moreover, they usually lack capitalization. And some days the students really seem to be gunning for my ire, with messages such as, "when r u going to give back the essays?"

The second source of data is an international discussion forum - by invitation only - of highly educated people discussing matters of great importance. One might expect higher standards in such a place, even if it is only an online forum. However, while the incidents are rarer, it is not by a wide margin. Typos abound. Capitalization is frequently optional. And comments are frequently terse, with antecedents unclear and thoughts undeveloped.

A third source of data comes from students who spend their class time twittering, playing games or otherwise distracting themselves from the studies for which they/their parents/the taxpayers are spending good money.

There are, of course, logical explanations for all these occurrences. Classes are boring and, besides, the professor won't notice me texting the girl sitting next to me. The buttons on phones, no matter how generous, are not as large as those on a keyboard (which, oddly enough, are usually just a tad larger than one's fingertips), making typos a fact of life. And in an effort to curtail the frustrating and time-consuming process of typing on such a thing, shorthand is common. Finally, many smart phones simply are not capable of differentiating capital letters.

However, there are good reasons to dismiss all these explanations. The professor can see you and does think less of you for allowing the little gizmo in your hand to distract you from your studies. Many smart phones can do capital letters (though you usually have to press an extra button or two - what a time-waster!), making a lack of capitalization unacceptable. But more to the point: if you cannot craft an adequate business message on your phone, what business have you using it for business at all? If you think that the ability to send über-prompt messages will outweigh their sloppy contents, I assure you it does not. The only message that your terse communiques, sans capitalization, sends is that their contents were not of sufficient concern to you to bother sitting down at a computer and sending a proper email.

It would seem that I must amend my title statement. Your smart phone is not making you look stupid: it is revealing you for the idiot you are.