h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is a small book of quotations on my office desk and when I am bored I flick through it and read. If there is an item I find and like I mark it so I can get back to it easily next time. One quote I have read so often I no longer need to look at the book became a personal motto of mine as it pretty much describes my outlook "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778), (OK looked up the year and full name).

I sit fuming when listening to people showing racial, sexual, and religious narrow mindedness if only to understand how they can live in such a small mind. Sometimes it is all I can do to save myself from blowing a fuse until I realise my anger is based on my opinion as the rant making me angry is based on someone else’s opinion. I am pretty sure I am right, but then again I suspect so does the other person. Often I feel obliged to state the case for the other side (if I can), but sometimes (and it has happened) my best recourse has been to scratch them from my address book, where there is no hope of meeting half way.

The right to express oneself openly without fear of reproach is a basic civil liberty that most of us hold quite dear. As someone who rarely falls into the 'normal' category on any subject I have found myself more than grateful for this right. To me everyone’s right to self-expression is a way of expanding my horizons, growing, learning, and becoming a better person. People can and are fighting for free speech and have done for longer than I care to estimate. I think DNA got it right when he wrote about more and bloodier wars being caused by misunderstanding.

Never read Voltaire,there´s so many great books in circulation on this planet, but i hopefully still have a couple of decades or so, to catch up, before ramblin´on.. But i´m familiar with the quote, and though i find it difficult to believe that to many people would ultimately have the integrity to face the full consequense of such rednosed high-mindedness, i do firmly believe that we must be willing to jeopardise our safety, to stay true to our own essense. When trying to protect one fool from the wrath of another,and finding no virtue in his opinions, i will do my utmost to make him shut up, placing his(and my own) safety and fair chance to grow older and wiser, over the freedom of idiosyncratic speech. However absurd or appalling i may find an opinion, i never(untill contrary proven..) grow angry or offended, untill it proves to be a closed-circuit conviction, unaproachable to reconsideration, or in denial of established demonstration. Even then, i am much more likely to pity such narrowmindedness with a sad smile,as it is bound to be rooted in some sort of spiritual famine.. And on most days i´ll simply disregard the conversation as a waste of precious time, take in a deep breath, and turn my attention to something less corrupted in its perception. Can a frog,content with living at the bottom of a dried out well, participate in the praising of a beautifull dawn?.. And though gifted with splendid imagination,can you truly say what it´s like down there, for a frog? It is said, that a great ancient master in the art of debating(Huei Tsì), drew his last breaths ,while engaged in a futile discussion, such as to the nature of "whiteness" and "hardness" .. I´d rather attempt to perform the tricky Taoist manouver of taking both sides at once.. And, as usual, im not quite certain what im actureally getting at here; maybe i said something, ..Maybe i did´nt. Who can tell?

Ay, but do you engage that frog in a lively debate, perhaps offer it some food, coax it out of the well and introduce it to the wonder of sunsets -

or

- do you just shoot it, in case its subversive talk might somehow stop the sun rising the next morning?

Personally...

I'm up for the former. Frog still has his right to say what he likes, and if he wants to stay in the well, good luck to him. Might be a good living to be made in a well, for all I know.

That is my opinion, anyway. Nice to have been able to express it. Make of it what you will, dear reader. The rest is up to you..

Unless you're that Voltaire, though. Came in the pub last night, spilled my pint... and he owes me a fiver, to be bluntly candide.

"knowledge among the ancients was very limited. How limited? There was a time ,when they had´nt even established a concept of things beeing in existence. That is how far their knowledge stretched, and you cannot know any less than that. That is the border of perfect,unspoiled lack of knowledge.. Then came people, who had a concept of things beeing in existence, but who did not care to make distinctions among these things. When they came to make distinctions, they still did´nt regard them as being either right or wrong. When right and wrong appeared, Tao began to decline. With Tao in decline, desire arose. Now, did this rise and decline really take place? For as far as rise and decline takes place, Chao Wen plays the lute. If there is no rise and decline, Chao Wen does not play the lute. Chao Wen played the lute, Shí k´uang kept track with a baton, and Huei tsí leaned on a stump and debated, and each of them exelled in their own art, and for that reason their names will be remembered forevermore. But each of them loved their own art,for that in which it was different from the others. and it was this difference that they each tried to teach, when educating apprentices. They focused on that which was unessential. For that reason Huei Tsí passed away in futile discussion, and Chao Wen left behind a son, who all his life(unsuccesfully)attempted to master his fathers lute. If these three men can be said to have acomplished anything, then even i can claim to have acomplished something. But if they have not, then neither i, or any other single-individual, can be said to have acomplished anything. Therefore the enlightened one takes aim at the light that shines, amidst darkness and despair, and does not take advantage of things in opposition, but leaves them ,where they usually find their application.." (Chuan Tsú, my fave pet chinaman) ..

Sorry about your pint,mate, can´t quite recall the incident, but truthfull apologies anyhoo, just in case up in space ..And please dont get me wrong, I believe that frogs have the right to express their feelings ,regardless of their kind and choice of habitat, toads to, for that matter. Thanx for sharing, n´stay alert.