Politits

                The evening's coming soon, it's true, and what's a youngish guy to do when parties run from eight till two and outside it's too cool for school?  Fraternities, sororities, magic cards and LAN-parties—the geeks and drinkers bide their time in entertainment of the mind. 

                I'll walk a spell and smoke a smoke, at lunch at five I'll tell a joke, then surf a while—the internet—till finally the boredom lets me think about that party near; at Delta house, where kegs of beer are just five dollars at the door; from there drink till you hit the floor.              

                I smile at this, remove a card—it's gold and ridged with "VISA" scars—and at the machine made of plastic I press buttons; it's fantastic!  Little greenish paper bills spit forth until my wallet fills.  I grab a fiver from the top and leave the commons at a trot.  I walk through alleys made of snow and cobblestones and trees that grow sideways, straight, and at an angle, where slick see-through sickles dangle, falling when the sun comes out, weighing trees until they bow, then breaking with a glassy crash and kissing pavement with a smash.

                Soon I'm at the Delta house, the boys and girls already soused, while music plays in timbres high and ping-pong balls give beer a try.  I've come alone, but I know folks—there's Johnny Smart and Wendy Nokes; the couple from the theatre whose roles are all quite linear— they play the looks and poses thus: so costuming—mild or robust—makes greater claims to acting games than either actor's being trained!  But lo, they speak so eloquent!  Despite the booze that has been spent, their vowels, gestures, jokes and sounds are precise, tailored—showboat crowned.  Opinions thick with arrogance masquerade as common sense and opine of a world sans truth where all that's "bad" comes through "rebuke".  By this they mean there's no set truth, or absolutes, for men or youth—that folks will believe what they do based on the upbringing they knew.

                Now I'm a Christian—yes its true!

                "What," you ask, "you like booze too?"

                "Look, Jesus drank," I'll say right back, "And no, I'm not on the attack.  The sin isn't the imbibation, the sin's living sans moderation.  But it's true, I shouldn't guzzle; not good witness, too much trouble...to explain,” I end the sentence.  (See, that stanza had to end.) 

                “At any rate: I'm not perfect!  I'll be the first here to admit that I have sinned and keep it up, a hypocrite I am, it's rough.  I know the truth, I try to do it—but I do slip, and there's my defect.  It's the same as everyone's—no one's perfect, Man's a dunce.  And that includes the women too—we miss the mark; that's all we do.  Harmatia—this the Greeks have wrote is simply how we miss the boat.  It's not a person, place or thing that makes us clumsy, strife-filled beings; only our own kitschy nature, when our morals go to pasture. 

                “Anyway: that long digression regarding moral confession is here writ to underline the standpoint that I hold sublime: all men stumble—not just some.  We are not perfect, there's the rub.  There can be no society where everyone lives happily.  At least at some time, somewhere dark, a thief or hustler makes his mark and earns a buck from something nasty.  From porno to rhinoplasty, evil finds a way to live.  To breed.  To grow—to screw the pig.

                "Oh, fine," says Wendy Nokes with glee, taking a puff that smells so sweet then blowing weed-wrought smoke at me and grinning like the world is free:  "That's just what I'm speaking of, you surely know that just because when you were young and oh-so-simple, parents your open mind crippled.  This they did by telling you that local things were always true—traditions, holidays and more they treated reverently, for: those things divine are 'heaven-sent', they make the simple cognizant; then scare them from the world of science—that's the maker of their torments—"

                "What torments?"  I break in quick.

                "Progressive ones," Johnny Smart quips, "they fear the changes," he moves on, "that things of old are old and gone; that science understands the planets, and the stars—and that the sky lets anyone with eyes to see record and compose new theory.  We know just how the world was formed, and how this thing called 'man' was born.  We understand the cosmic seasons—the speed of light is our bright Jesus!  For it's that constant speed of light by which our physics give insight and which cannot ever be changed; elsewise all physics rearrange!"

                "But you're just making parrot sounds," I answered when my speech I found, "what others told you that was true you took and believed quick in lieu of precepts, dogmas, and traditions that you thought were inconsistent and didn't pertain to you because what's old can't hold the new.

                “Tell me how a star is born, or how a cell begins to form, or how amino acids started without being so directed by forces outside the norm, from a guide beyond the storm of pre-biotic chemicals that produced life in single-cells.  Do you know what's inside a cell?  How ribosomes and nodules dwell with mitochondria and books written in languages complex—I'm talking DNA, it's true; deoxyribonucleic acid soup.  It's replicated—don't you know?  Into new cells—and fast they grow.  The complexity of the cell outshines the brightest minds that sell computers to the populace, and countries to nationalists, and create beliefs from thin air, then push them on those unaware; who never learned to live the truth—subjectivity came so smooth."

                "Now hold up, son," John Smart cuts in, "you've been simply blathering.  Let another take a chance at explaining circumstance.

                “I take from that argument's heading that you were ever-slowly getting to this idea I've often seen: Irreducible Complexity.  How can a one-celled organism evolve such well-designed systems?  How can a creature more complex than all man's computing prowess spontaneously exist without internal catalysts?  All the parts of this small thing depend upon their brothers being.  Was that where you sought to go?"

                "It's near enough—how did you know?"

                "It's the anthropic principle,"  John smiles and makes it sound so simple.  "The idea that everything observed will favor you and me—that is: mankind; humanity; anyone with eyes to see. The sun and our own solar system are balanced with deep precision—for one degree to left or right and hellfire replaces the light and gentle rays our sun does make—our Earth rides on the perfect wake.  It cannot be changed or disturbed or life would not have lived to merge—"

                "You hold up, son, Just let me speak; I've got a question, now—Wendy?  Were you saying there's no truth?  No right or wrong, or something cruel like that that sounds so reason-filled but is more like to get you killed by those who live with stronger wills and from violence earn a thrill?"

                "Er, em," she sputters, "Kind of, but, not quite like you said it, stud—it's just that what is true to me may not be true to Bob or Steve.  Right and wrong, they are subjective.  There, that's the proper invective—what I meant to say, I mean—about shifting morality?"

                "Okay," says I, "I understand.  Truth depends upon the man—what's right and wrong ain't absolutes because there's no absolute truth.  And if there's no absolute truth all right and wrong ideas are moot.  What matters is that someone finds some way to keep their peace of mind."

                "There, you've got it!"  Johnny laughed, then tipped a golden beer carafe and offered me a sip or two, which I obliged since pains came through a throat involved in endless talking with inebriation stalking sober thought, and quick advancing; murd'ring inhibitions fastly.

                "Okay," says I, "let's all back up.  This 'anthropic principle' smut—how can you say such a thing and not consider what it means?  The universe seems so-designed to keep man living; ain't that right?  And SETI has no evidence that anything else out there rents; because the price of life is high—yet entropy we blame for life.  Entropy—that's 'random chance'—is what we say has made us dance.  The 'god of science' is named 'Time', and 'Entropy' is on Time's side; acting like a great magician that says life changed from dust to pigeons.  But the thing is—why those genes?  Why the cells, and with what means?  Everything's so complicated, from quantum foam to addlepated and dense statistical data collected by and soon delivered to the interns from the pier that come and go from year to year.

                “Why do two and two make four?  Wendy, ain't that all just lore?  Moonshine dealing with tradition wrought from mindless stale religion?  If there are no absolutes then math and physics screwed the pootch.  You can't have Ee and Em Cee squared if all three letters are impaired! Light can't be the perfect constant if no truth is used or flaunted.  From microscopic genes and things too small for any eye to see, to planets, satellites and Mars; galaxies and forming stars; all accede to science constants—or so experts make argument.  From these ideas and these theories we believe that we can see just what makes the world go round and why we've come up from the ground.  But if there are no absolutes then what's the point of any school?  Isn't it all just opinion?  Isn't that prologue and end?

                “Without truth, man can know nothing.  Absolutes control our thinking; make it so that we can know those things that work, and those that don't; and from here we've learn to fly, or anger atoms fit to die in explosions beyond heat that burn the very dust from streets.

                “If, then, there is such a truth, defining man and all that's you and me and her and him and them and to the smallest plankton's fin, then there is right and there is wrong: entropy and information—things that always will be true, and those of evil, through and through.  Take, for instance, rape or vice.  Both of which are justified within a world beyond the truth—such a world makes sane men fools."

                "That's enough, you rowdy Bennett," Wendy Nokes pronounced a sentence, "time for you to hit the bricks—your arrogance is just too thick."

                "She's right, you know," John Smart cut in, "it's only you that's suffering.  It's only you who's mind is closed, it's only you who'll never know those pleasures meant to be discovered in the days when grief is covered 'neath the wings of college chutzpah, where we're wise and know it all."

                "Balderdash and fiddle-faddle," (This I said like old man Crandal—he's a yokel dude from home with pipe and cane and chrome-ish dome.) "I can call a spade a spade, and know the truth will never fade.  Hitler was a sour puss, and I won't quit making a fuss against those folks like you and her who validate such a monster.  If there's truth that can be known, then there's a reason—I've been shown.  I've seen the light, and you have too—even if you don't want to.  Random chance and sophistry did not mankind bring into being."

                "That's too bad," Johnny Smart said, "we thought you were a thespian, a man who sees and shows the world how to live and how to curl one's notions such that they all fit and peace soon comes because of it.  Instead you're just a cliched drone; mind trapped within a small-town home."

                And so I smiled and said: "Watch this," then drunkenly grabbed Wendy's tits. 

                She screamed and yelped and punched me hard—not in the face, but in the nards.  A couple feminazis laughed while Johny Smart—he kicked my ass!

                Real soon I yelled: "What, what's so bad?  There is no truth and I'm a man!"

                "That is my girl, that body's hers—it damn sure ain't yours to besmirch—"

                "Ah!  So what I did was wrong?"

                "Well yes and no—it takes too long—"

                "Oh, it does not, it's really simple: every situation cripples.  What I mean is: things do change, each time and place has different names.  But depending on the actions taken in such situations you'll have acted right or wrong--whether you are weak or strong.  And there's levels to these actions: some are worse, some mere fractions of the goodness that could be—like if I gave you all money.  That could be both good and bad—depending which context I had before I gave the cash to drunks who need the green in times of crunch."

                "Ah, shut up, you yuppie bastard, take your ass and get out faster than a fox with tail on fire—or we'll burn you on a pyre."

                Okay, they didn't say all that—but I got kicked from Delta's lap because I think there's right and wrong...(And Wendy's got it goin' on). 

                Anyway, the point I made was: even those who always say “right and wrong is just a play” believe in morals anyway.