But this, I assume, doesn’t apply to your circumcisor, for he, I presume, had no intention of hurting you. You said, of your circumcision, that it was as traumatic as your beating, yet the two men had inherently different motives, so how do you reconcile your theory of intentionally inflicted pain with that? Or do you think your circumcisor was sadistic? — Todd Martin

There can be intense pain that wasn’t intentionally brought about and some of those unintentional pains can be more intense than most intentional pains. The only reason why I brought up intentionality is to suggest that the hardness of the door and the man isn’t the only singular variable to consider than trying to predict how intense a pain is going to be.

Since you have admitted the element of intention into our discussion about the trauma of pain, let me give you some examples of that sort of trauma that involved no physical pain whatsoever...yet long-lasting trauma... — Todd Martin

I never said that trauma can only come about from physical pain. Of course, people can and do get traumatized from things that don’t cause physical pain. I was just arguing that I was traumatized only by physical pain in the incidents in my life that we were discussing and not by something else. Also, I want to point out that I have actually been traumatized by things other than physical pain in other incidents that I haven’t mentioned but I was traumatized more by physical pain in my life.

@"TheHedoMinimalist O Hedomenos, it hurts me deeply to discover that you are not being truthful with me. How can we two discover the truth together when you are not willing to be truthful?

How can you believe in the objective truth about anything if you don’t assume it has a common nature?
— Todd Martin

What do you mean by common nature in this context? I thought we were understanding common nature in discussion as just a short way of saying common human nature regarding how we experience physical pain. — TheHedoMinimalist

Remember saying that? Now let me remind you of what you initially said, the statement I was responding to:

So, is it not possible that you just experience pain differently from the way that I experience pain? I don’t see why it’s so implausible to think that people have vastly different ways of experiencing pain. Rather, I find any sort of universalism about human nature and the way humans experience things to be highly implausible as I think people just experience the world in vastly different ways. — TheHedoMinimalist

Notice that, initially, you didn’t say “...universalism about PAIN...”, but rather, “ANY SORT of universalism about HUMAN NATURE, and the ways humans experience THINGS to be highly implausible, as I think people just experience the WORLD in vastly different ways”. Now, had I said that, bright man as you obviously are, wouldn’t you have jumped all over it, accusing me of having made a generalization that I then tried to make look like a statement about something very specific?

I think your initial statement, that you believe there is no universal human nature or experience in anything, is the one you truly believe, or at least want to believe; and I think you backtracked from it and pretended you were only talking about pain when confronted with the absurdity of your belief.

So which do you assert now? that you were talking about all human experience, or only the experience of physical pain?

Notice that, initially, you didn’t say “...universalism about PAIN...”, but rather, “ANY SORT of universalism about HUMAN NATURE, and the ways humans experience THINGS to be highly implausible, as I think people just experience the WORLD in vastly different ways”. Now, had I said that, bright man as you obviously are, wouldn’t you have jumped all over it, accusing me of having made a generalization that I then tried to make look like a statement about something very specific? — Todd Martin

The way that humans experience pain is one aspect of human nature. By the phrase “the way that humans experience things”, I was talking about private emotional experiences. I suppose you could say that human beings have some kinds of common perceptions but I was talking purely about psychological human nature. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Also, please don’t accuse me of things especially before even asking some clarification questions that might clear up the confusion. I’m sorry that you sometimes get the wrong message from my choice of words but that’s a normal part of any philosophical conversation. Words can have multiple meanings when used in different contexts and this is especially true with more complex concepts like “human nature” which normally refer to universal psychological human traits when used colloquially(hence, my use of the term) but you might have someone that thinks that human nature is like akin to how all humans have certain kinds of body parts or that all humans perceive the shape of an object very similarly. Either way, it’s really bad manners to accuse the person that you are speaking to of being dishonest in any way. If you really think that I’m dishonest then you should stop talking to me. Why would you talk to someone that you really thought was dishonest? Also, why would you bother telling me that I’m being dishonest? Doesn’t the very definition of dishonesty require someone to know that they are not being truthful? If that’s the case, then why would tell the person something that they would already know? It just seems to me like you just want to be insulting because I don’t see how your accusations add anything to the discussion at all even if they were hypothetically true.

Also, I really want to know your thoughts about the evidence that I have provided for there being radically different ways that people experience pain like the evidence regarding the phantom limb symptom and the blue balls symptom. You asked me to give you the evidence for my position but now you seem to be bringing up lots of things that do not even pertain to the discussion that we were having.

@TheHedoMinimalist. O Hedomenos, you are right: instead of accusing you of being dishonest, I should first have pointed out to you the discrepancy in your statements and asked you for a clarification. Please accept my apology.

Nevertheless, in your description of my accusation, you seem to me to have asked a quite philosophical question: does the dishonest person necessarily know he is being dishonest? You answered it in the affirmative, as definition; but it gave me pause, and I wonder to myself if there are any examples of dishonest ppl who don’t realize they are being dishonest...

I was once at my mama’s house when the phone rang. It was her friend Shelby. I answered it, and Shelby asked , “is your mom there?” to which I replied, “yes”, and handed the phone to Mama and said, “it’s Shelby”, but she refused it, and whispered, “tell her I’m in the shower”; so, feeling uncomfortable that I must tell a lie, but yielding to my mama’s command in her own house, I told Shelby that Mama was in the shower...

...a couple minutes later, having hung up with Shelby, I went looking for Mama: “Mama, where are you?” I called. “In here!” came her reply. Following her voice, I entered the master-bathroom to find Mama: she stood, fully clothed (thank God), inside the shower stall!

Now, obviously, Mama had been dishonest; but did she realize it? Had she realized it, would she have ever retreated to the shower stall? She thought by doing so she would be telling the truth, and she DID tell the literal truth. But, clearly, the LITERAL truth is not THE TRUTH, a thing my mama didn’t understand or appreciate.

Segue to your evidence of blue-balls and phantom limbs: yes, ppl obviously experience physical pain in very individual ways...but is this the whole truth about pain? Is the traumatic pain you suffered as a “child” being slammed to the ground over and over by a “grown adult” not similar to how my mother was “in the shower” when Shelby called?

Finally, I would like you to, if you are willing, tell me about the other things you have been traumatized by other than physical pain in other incidences that you haven’t mentioned.

Now, obviously, Mama had been dishonest; but did she realize it? Had she realized it, would she have ever retreated to the shower stall? She thought by doing so she would be telling the truth, and she DID tell the literal truth. But, clearly, the LITERAL truth is not THE TRUTH, a thing my mama didn’t understand or appreciate. — Todd Martin

I don’t think that your mom was dishonest. She really was in the shower and so what she said wasn’t false. Also, I think genuine dishonesty causes most people to have an emotional reaction or hesitation in the process of telling the dishonest thing. This is why lie detector test often work(though not always.). Liars fail lie detector tests because they know that they are being dishonest and that causes them to breathe heavy and their heart rate to increase.

Segue to your evidence of blue-balls and phantom limbs: yes, ppl obviously experience physical pain in very individual ways...but is this the whole truth about pain? — Todd Martin

No I don’t think that it’s the whole truth about pain, but I think it’s the most relevant evidence to consider. This evidence seems to suggest that we shouldn’t really be too surprised when someone reports experiencing pain in ways that are very counterintuitive to other people.

Is the traumatic pain you suffered as a “child” being slammed to the ground over and over by a “grown adult” not similar to how my mother was “in the shower” when Shelby called? — Todd Martin

I don’t think it’s similar at all. Though, it’s hard for me to give you a convincing reason for why I think that way because it just comes down to speculation either way. I spend more time thinking about the physical pain of my physical abuse so I tend to see that as the most likely explanation for my trauma. Though, in a way, it’s really hard to know for sure what causes any given instance of trauma or even if trauma has a cause at all. It’s not like we can observe trauma with some kind of a scientific instrument like a microscope or a telescope. Psychological explanations always lack that rigor that might be present in a hard science like Physics and Chemistry. It seems that the best evidence comes from within the person who experiences the trauma but even that evidence falls short of the rigor that real scientific evidence has. Unfortunately, hard science and it’s rigorous methods is useless for anything relating to the mind and private experience.

@TheHedoMinimalist. Well, you certainly surprised me there, O Hedomenos; I never suspected you would think that my mom was being honest in that scenario, but since you say you do, I feel compelled to analyze the situation...

You claim that my mom was not dishonest, because she really was in the shower, and therefore what she said, “I’m in the shower”, was not false, and so you consider this one bald fact sufficient to prove her honesty. But there are other facts implicit to this scenario that have greater weight when considering her honesty or dishonesty. One of these is that she obviously, for some reason (it happened too long ago for me to remember now) did not wish to speak to her friend. How do we know this? Because she refused the phone when I handed it to her.

Another is that she didn’t want to hurt Shelby’s feelings. How do we know this? Because, had she accepted the call, and been honest, she would have told her she didn’t want to speak with her, which, obviously, would have hurt her feelings, Shelby being her friend. Of course, she could have accepted the call, and said to her something like, “I can’t talk right now Shelby, I’ve got to run to the store before it closes”, or, “...my cake is getting over-done if I don’t pull it out of the oven”, or, “...I’m already way late to meet Aunt Julie. Can I call you back later?”

But it takes quick thinking to realize that it’s almost time for the store to close, and Shelby could have gone there to see if Mama really went; or might have said, “Go ahead and get your cake out, I’ll wait”; or called Julie later and asked her where she and my mama went that day, etc...but ppl generally do not know how plausible or implausible it is that someone is taking a shower, and once you begin talking to someone, they can ask some uncomfortable questions...especially if you initiated the conversation with a lie.

Notice I said “taking” a shower, not “in the” shower: the genius of Mama’s plot was in the difference b/w taking a shower and being in one. If she had said, “tell her I’m taking a shower”, then I would have discovered Mama naked under a shower of water, soaping it up and all. As it was, since she said “in” the shower, and “shower” stand in for “shower-stall”, all she had to do was walk in fully clothed and BE there, no water flowing, in order to orchestrate her air-tight alibi.

My mama did not realize that sometimes it is best to be dishonest. Clearly, it was best that she tell a lie and deceive her friend in order to not hurt her feelings. But Mama wanted more than she deserved: she wanted to both not hurt her friend’s feelings and also not be dishonest...and she didn’t fool me, but she fooled her friend, herself, and ultra-literalists like you, who believe that the letter of the truth is it’s spirit.

So, O Hedomenos, where in my analysis have I gone astray? Is there anything I said about it that was not implicit in my story? Have I misrepresented anything? Do you still believe that the literal truth is the whole truth? Would you like me to give further examples as evidence that it isn’t?

I think you believe I can do so...but I don’t believe you will be persuaded: for I think you have decided that the way you see the world is the way it really is...or, at least, the way you think it ought to be. I don’t think you believe that anyone could convince you that the way you see the world is wrong, and you are smart enough to propose objection to anyone who might offer objection to it, by dissimulation.

...I see you as a sad young man who doesn’t realize he is sad; who has lacked the human connections in his life that would tie him to other ppl, that would make him realize that he might live for someone other than himself; that might give his life some significance other than coziness, comfortableness, and living on Raman Noodles and bland turkey sandwiches that he claims are more hedonistic than the cuisine of ancient emperors.

That’s my honest opinion, O Hedomenos. If I haven’t offended you, please answer the question whose answer I most looked forward to: what were the traumatic experiences of your life that didn’t involve physical pain?

One of these is that she obviously, for some reason (it happened too long ago for me to remember now) did not wish to speak to her friend. — Todd Martin

Well, I think that you can avoid being dishonest while still withholding information from others. A person doesn’t have to tell you everything that you need to know in order to remain honest.

Notice I said “taking” a shower, not “in the” shower: the genius of Mama’s plot was in the difference b/w taking a shower and being in one. If she had said, “tell her I’m taking a shower”, then I would have discovered Mama naked under a shower of water, soaping it up and all. As it was, since she said “in” the shower, and “shower” stand in for “shower-stall”, all she had to do was walk in fully clothed and BE there, no water flowing, in order to orchestrate her air-tight alibi. — Todd Martin

Well, being careful with words could make a subtle difference between something being x and something not being x. At least that’s just my current intuition on this topic.

So, O Hedomenos, where in my analysis have I gone astray? — Todd Martin

Well, I think we just have different intuitions about the nature of dishonesty. It’s kinda hard to resolve those differences in very basic intuitions. Though, I kinda feel like you are confusing dishonesty with a lack of perfect honesty. It seems to me that one can avoid being dishonest without mentioning every piece of information to someone else. For example, I used to date a 40 year old woman when I was 20. My mom wouldn’t approve of that sort of thing. I used to mess around with this woman in the back of my car at the local library(we kept all our clothes on so it wasn’t as risky as it sounds.). Whenever my mom asked me where I was at, I told her I was at the library. Do you think I was lying to my mom just because I failed to mention my 40 year old girlfriend? I just find it unusual to think that I must tell someone every one of my secrets that may pertain to their question in some manner just to maintain honesty. At the same time, I think it’s also kinda silly that we would think that telling lies as a means of withholding information that the person to whom we lie doesn’t really deserve to know in the first place is bad in any way.

you still believe that the literal truth is the whole truth? — Todd Martin

I never said that the literal truth was the whole truth. I thought we were having a disagreement about the literal truth of dishonesty. Of course, there are multiple metaphorical ways of understanding of dishonesty. For example, I can say something silly like “Sarah is being dishonest about not wanting to cheat on her boyfriend with her handsome physical trainer Tom because her vagina is soaking wet when he helps her stretch.” If her boyfriend asks her if she wants to have sex with Tom, it wouldn’t necessarily be dishonest for her to say no because she isn’t planning to have sex with Tom and her choosing to leave out details about the wetness of her vagina when Tom helped her stretch doesn’t really constitute dishonesty. It’s just not wanting to mention certain private information.

Would you like me to give further examples as evidence that it isn’t? — Todd Martin

Yes, that would be nice.

If I haven’t offended you, please answer the question whose answer I most looked forward to: what were the traumatic experiences of your life that didn’t involve physical pain? — Todd Martin

No, because I’m tired of you trying to psychoanalyze me. I find it very rude and disrespectful. Please treat me like I’m your equal philosophical conversation partner and not like I’m your patient and you’re my therapist. I find psychoanalysis to be very arrogant, rude, and condescending. To demonstrate why I think this way about psychoanalysis, I want to give you a taste of your own medicine. I’m going to be rude for once and psychoanalyze you so that you know how it feels to be treated in the manner in which you are treating me. So, here it goes......

The hypocritical thing about you is that you accuse me of denying that the cause of my trauma is not related to physical pain but in reality you just want to believe that yourself because you can’t emotionally accept that there may be people like me who can’t be explained by your rigid universalist worldview about human nature. You want to believe that everyone is like you deep inside and you want to believe that everyone who says that they aren’t like you is just a “sad person” or has some kind of mental illness.

You have a choice to make: you can either realize that your understanding of human psychology is wrong or you can conveniently claim that any testimonial evidence against your views on human psychology is predicated on self-deception or misunderstanding about the cause of one’s own trauma. Of course, you are going to make the convenient claim of arguing that anyone who contradicts your false understanding of human nature is wrong about their trauma. This is because it’s difficult for you to admit that you are wrong and so you feel like you have to explain away the trauma of others that does not affirm to your worldview. By doing this, you are unfortunately doing exactly what you accuse me of doing; you are confabulating a narrative about me confabulating a narrative about my trauma to protect your precious theory about human psychology.

As you can see, I can be a psychoanalyzing asshole too if you want me to be one but I hold myself to higher standards and I prefer to talk about ideas and not the motivations of my interlocutor in holding those ideas. So, our discussion can either be a complete shit show where we just accuse each other of lying to ourselves or we can just have a nice calm discussion about the relevant ideas and not be rude or condescending to each other. I think the latter option is much better.

@TheHedoMinimalist. I don’t think, O Hedomenos, you read my last post closely (or dispassionately?) enough:

My mama did not realize that sometimes it is best to be dishonest. Clearly, it was best that she tell a lie and deceive her friend in order to not hurt her feelings. — Todd Martin

So, when you say,

I think it’s also kinda silly that we would think that telling lies as a means of withholding information that the person to whom we lie doesn’t really deserve to know in the first place is bad in any way”,

it is obvious that I agree with you. I don’t think it was bad that Mama had me tell Shelby she was in the shower, and I don’t think it was bad that you told your mama you were at the library. Your alibi was better than my mama’s, because you didn’t have to move, or do anything else, for it to be literally true.

Our difference is, I think, in our conception of what dishonesty is. You think my mama, and you, were not being dishonest in telling your tales, and I think the reason you believe that is because of the pejorative connotation of the word “dishonesty”: dishonesty must be bad. I, on the other hand, believe that dishonesty is sometimes good. The difference between our “intuitions” on the subject might be illustrated by this statement:

“I kinda feel like you are confusing dishonesty with a lack of perfect honesty. — TheHedoMinimalist

What if we were to substitute, in the above quote, “not telling the whole truth” for “dishonesty”, and “telling the whole truth” for “perfect honesty”? What we would have is, “I kinda feel like you are confusing not telling the whole truth with a lack of telling the whole truth”, which is a tautology, isn’t it? This means that, in your estimation, honesty is not equivalent to “telling the whole truth”, whereas, in mine, it is. For example, when you told your mama you were at the library, you believed you were not being perfectly honest, but justifiably so ( and I agree with you), but I think you were being justifiably dishonest.

Our difference of opinion is, therefore, not due to different intuitions, but rather definitions: I identify honesty with the telling of the “whole” truth, while you identify it with what I would call telling the “convenient” truth. Therefore, my gripe with Mama is not that she told Shelby she was in the shower, for I think she ought to have lied to her in order not to offend her. But you defend her as having not been dishonest, because she told the literal truth, and you defend your statement to your own mama, that you were at the library, on the grounds, not that it was the literal truth, but because,

I just find it unusual to think that I must tell someone every one of my secrets that may pertain to their question in some manner just to maintain honesty. — TheHedoMinimalist

Which is it, O Hedomenos: were you honest in your response to your mom because you were literally “at the library”? or were you honest because,

A person doesn’t have to tell you everything that you need to know in order to remain honest. — TheHedoMinimalist

?

And, btw, I think you meant to say “...that you WANT to know...”, for, if you withhold information from someone they NEED to know, that becomes morally problematic, doesn’t it?



I hope I have straightened out our dialogue in a more philosophical path, more in the direction you wish it to head. I didn’t want to respond to the other things you said for fear of distracting you from our intellectual discussion, but I will add this one tidbit: you and I share an apparent affinity with older women. I have had several relationships with different women throughout my life, and most of them have been older than me, a few much older: my current girlfriend is almost 30 yrs older than I am, and I have been with her more than eight years.

Our difference of opinion is, therefore, not due to different intuitions, but rather definitions: I identify honesty with the telling of the “whole” truth, while you identify it with what I would call telling the “convenient” truth. — Todd Martin

I want to elaborate a little more about my views on honesty and dishonesty. My use of the phrase “perfect honesty” was a poor choice of words that I wish I could take back. I meant to describe what I was talking about as “excessive honesty” instead. For example, we sometimes talk about someone being too honest when they constantly share information that they don’t really need to share with others. For example, suppose that someone was asked a simple question about what she likes to do for fun. Suppose, that this person responds by talking about how she spends roughly 20% of her free time watching pornography and maybe 30% of her free time watching Alex Jones conspiracy videos and she also likes to kill stray cats on a rare occasion. She also mentions some uncontroversial hobbies like playing chess, hiking, and watching tv. My point was that she seems to not be required to talk about every one of her controversial hobbies just to avoid answering the question dishonestly. Rather, she seems to be excessively honest in her response.

Every time someone asks you a question, you can pretty much always provide more private information than the information that you decide to provide. The question is how much information must you give in order to avoid being dishonest. You might say that you think your mom was being dishonest because she would have told the literal lie if she couldn’t figure out a way to make her statement true. I don’t think that criteria suffices for dishonesty either though. Suppose that a person gets asked the question about what they like to do for fun and they refuse to mention a particular hobby that they might find embarrassing or maybe a hobby that might be controversial and reveal too much information about them. They may be willing to be dishonest in order to avoid revealing their engagement with that hobby to others but it strikes me as highly unusual to claim that they are being dishonest for simply failing to mention that hobby. My question to you is would you call failing to mention a hobby after being asked about hobbies dishonesty. If your not willing to call that dishonesty then what makes that case different from my case involving telling my mom I was at the library and the case involving your mom and Sally?

Which is it, O Hedomenos: were you honest in your response to your mom because you were literally “at the library”? or were you honest because, — Todd Martin

Well, the “literal” definition of dishonesty is usually understood as telling false information when you know that the information is false. It’s doesn’t extent to a refusal to tell true information. So, that’s my understanding of dishonesty.

And, btw, I think you meant to say “...that you WANT to know...”, for, if you withhold information from someone they NEED to know, that becomes morally problematic, doesn’t it? — Todd Martin

Yes, I meant to use the word want. I knew I shouldn’t have tried writing a philosophical response after having like 3 beers worth of alcohol lol. I didn’t realize how sloppy the use of language in my last response was.

hope I have straightened out our dialogue in a more philosophical path, more in the direction you wish it to head. I didn’t want to respond to the other things you said for fear of distracting you from our intellectual discussion — Todd Martin

Thank you, I really appreciate that. The conversation we are having about the nature of honesty is very interesting and productive I think.

you and I share an apparent affinity with older women. I have had several relationships with different women throughout my life, and most of them have been older than me, a few much older: my current girlfriend is almost 30 yrs older than I am, and I have been with her more than eight years. — Todd Martin

Well, I’m glad we have something in common. We seem to be polar opposites in almost every other regard. Dang, I’m really surprised that your girlfriend is 30 years older than you. I figured you were in your 50s so I guess she’s either in her late 70s or early 80s. That’s older than my grandma.

@"TheHedoMinimalist. I must confess, O Hedomenos, that our discussion about honesty and dishonesty has caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about them. That is why my response has been tardy. First of all, let me get obvious things out of the way:

Well, the “literal” definition of dishonesty is usually understood as telling false information when you know that the information is false. It’s doesn’t extent to a refusal to tell true information. So, that’s my understanding of dishonesty. — TheHedoMinimalist

I cannot agree with this. Obvious examples appear before my mind: if a stranger asks you whether your dog is friendly and you tell him, “Well, he licks my face first thing when I come home from work, and he loves my wife and kids”, and he reaches down to pet the loving beast and gets his hand bitten, were you not dishonest by failing to reveal to him that your dog hates strangers?

But what if you didn’t know he hates strangers? What if this is the first person he’s ever bitten? You wouldn’t know that until he bit someone. In that case, you were not being dishonest. So, in this scenario, your honesty or dishonesty depends upon your knowledge.

Now let’s consider the telling of “true information”, as opposed to withholding it. A good example is you telling your mom you were “at the library”... but this was not “the whole truth”. The truth was you were having an affair with a woman old enough to be your mother, a thing scandalous in her eyes, but not in yours, nor in the law’s. She was trying to meddle in your business unjustly, for, at 20 years of age, you were of majority, were no longer under your parents’ control, and had the right to do whatever you pleased, so you told a literal truth that would mislead her into thinking you were reading a novel rather than living one...

...and you claimed you were not being dishonest, not because you were actually at the library, but because you weren’t required to tell everything you knew in order to remain honest.

Now let’s consider this scenario: your mom calls you and asks where you are and, instead of answering, “I’m at the library”, you instead answer, “Why are you asking me that question, Mama? Do you think I would frequent a disreputable establishment, as well as you raised me to discern wholesome from unwholesome places? Do you fear I am heading down the road to perfidy despite the excellent upbringing you gave me to avoid it?” Do you think this answer would have been more or less honest than the one you actually gave?

It depends on whether you believe your mama actually raised you that way. But if you don’t think she did, but you think she believes she did...

...it gets really messy and complicated real quick, O Hedomenos: honesty seems to depend not only on the integrity of the one displaying it, but also on the one to whom it is displayed. In an ideal world, where all are honorable and just, it would be simple: just tell the whole truth. But because we are all imperfect we must hide things from one another, tell lies that look like truths, dissimulate and prevaricate, sometimes tell the honest truth when that is hurtful...

...about ten years ago or so I became alienated from my family over a squabble that developed over my care for our parents. My sister and I have since then become reconciled, but not me and my older brother, with whom she has maintained a relationship. She told me recently that he told her he wouldn’t have ever been attracted to me as a friend; that his only affinity with me was due to the fact that we were brothers...

...now, I don’t doubt that what she said is true, but I wonder: should she have told me that? aren’t siblings tied by the bond of family only, not by friendship? After all, my older brother would not call his wife of 50 years his “friend”, for they don’t get along that well. But because he lives with her he must remain amicable...

...and because he doesn’t share a household with me, he can, though we are brothers, reject me because we can’t be friends.

@TheHedoMinimalist. Since you have taken the day off, O Hedomenos, from our discussion, I have decided to post further ruminations of mine concerning honesty and dishonesty.

Consider this scenario: a certain man forbids his son to go to the carnival, which has set up in town for the weekend, because he fears he will be seduced by certain unsavory side-shows, so the boy goes downtown instead that Friday evening. While walking along Main St. he witnesses a man snatch an old lady’s purse and take off running, so he chases him...

They run for a considerable distance, and the boy is gaining on the thief until he suddenly realizes they have entered the carnival grounds, and hesitates, remembering his dad’s injunction, and in that moment of uncertainty the purse-snatcher disappears among the myriad of booths and hawksters and becomes concealed by the thick press of ppl. Stricken by a sense of guilt, his efforts in vain, the boy retreats home.

When he enters the house he finds his dad sitting in his recliner, watching tv, and says, “Daddy, you won’t believe what happened tonight!” His dad turns off the tv, takes a hard look at the boy, and asks, “Have you been to the carnival, where I told you not to go?”...

What should his reply be? It depends: if he knows his dad to be a reasonable man, and a just enforcer of his own edicts, he might reply, “Yes daddy, I went to the carnival, but not intentionally”, knowing the man would be willing to hear his son out, and approve of his behavior after hearing the whole story...

If instead he knows him to be a harsh punisher, one not known to hear you out, someone who tends only to see the literal truth and nothing else, then he might lie; might say, trembling, “No, I didn’t go to the carnival”, hoping no one who knew him and saw him there might report back to his dad. If his dad then asked, “Well, what happened then?” he might reply that he saw a man snatch a lady’s purse on Main Street and took chase, only to loose track of him...in the woods...

But we’re not through with a thorough analysis of this situation: we must inquire into the boy’s integrity. Suppose he have a reputation for deceit? Then it’s like the boy who cried “Wolf!” It’s hard to believe him even though it’s true. Suppose he had sneaked off to the carnival the year before and been involved in some scandalous side-show incident that compromised his family’s integrity in the eyes of the community? In that case his dad might justly doubt the veracity of his son’s story. Everything depends, in this scenario, on the reputations and characters of the ppl involved, not just on what actually happened.

Finally, in your story about being at the library, the same sort of things apply: does a mom have the right to ask her son where he is? It might be an “innocent” question, meaning, as they say, she has no “dog in the fight”, that is, she’s just curious, unsuspecting. Sometimes we misinterpret such innocent questions to be the beginning of an interrogation, and we always so misinterpret because we feel some guilt about our behavior...

...on the other hand, your mom might have been concerned about the wholesomeness of what you were up to, in which case the question, which I have already raised, occurs of whether she has right, because at 20 years of age you had reached majority, to inquire into that...

...and much depends upon whether you were still living at her house at the time. Even though you were at the library when the affair took place, nevertheless one may reasonably assume that what happens at the local library—unlike what happens in Vegas—might come back home to haunt Mom one day. If you weren’t living at home then, nevertheless: if you were close by, maybe next door even, maybe just in the community where you were raised, and your behavior might cast aspersions on her family and reputation, does she have the right to inquire, because of those facts, into your whereabouts and activities?

Just some thoughts and scenarios for you to consider, O Hedomenos. Btw, I drink more than twice the number of beers you do, and my girlfriend turns 88 later this year; and she’s a wonderful girlfriend...in every way imaginable.

Now let’s consider this scenario: your mom calls you and asks where you are and, instead of answering, “I’m at the library”, you instead answer, “Why are you asking me that question, Mama? Do you think I would frequent a disreputable establishment, as well as you raised me to discern wholesome from unwholesome places? Do you fear I am heading down the road to perfidy despite the excellent upbringing you gave me to avoid it?” Do you think this answer would have been more or less honest than the one you actually gave? — Todd Martin

I agree with you that the answer that you gave here is more honest than the answer that I gave but I don’t think that this necessarily implies that my answer was dishonest. In fact, it seems that it could reasonably be argued that the answer that you have provided doesn’t tell the whole truth either because it isn’t the most truthful answer that you could possibly give. It would be even more honest of me to say that I’m going to the library to mess around with my 40 year girlfriend. Though, I don’t think even this would be the most honest answer. It would be even more honest of me to say that I’m going to mess around with my 40 year old girlfriend who still lives with her mom. After all, my mom might also be interested to learn about that. It seems to me like we can pretty much always give a more honest answer than the answer that we give to any question.

I think that honesty is not necessarily an antonym of dishonesty. Honesty is mostly about telling the truth as you understand it. I also think this provides a good explanation of why most people wouldn’t think it makes sense to describe a person that can’t communicate such as a comatose person as an honest person. You have to share true information with others in order to have honesty. Though, a lack of honesty doesn’t necessarily imply dishonesty in my humble opinion.

@TheHedoMinimalist.

Honesty is mostly about telling the truth as you understand it. — TheHedoMinimalist

I would argue that honesty is not just telling the truth, but acting, in any way, consonant with it. You can do certain things (or fail to do them), take certain actions that are honest or dishonest, without ever uttering a word.

For example, if your mom asks you, as she’s leaving the house, to sweep the floors, and while she’s gone you sweep all the dirt under the rugs, you have already been dishonest without ever saying, “I swept the floors”. Indeed, she would have no reason to ask you whether you swept them: she can see whether they are clean or not...unless she fears you may have acted dishonestly. In which case she might suspect you might have swept the dirt under the rugs, and therefore surreptitiously check underneath them.

On the other hand, if you collect the dirt you have swept from the floors and throw it in the trash, then you have acted honestly... without saying a word.

Sometimes someone tries to correct an earlier dishonest action by performing an honest one. Consider the man who steals his neighbor’s possession one day, then, after a bout of bad conscience later that night, surreptitiously places it at his doorstep, and steals away unseen, the next morning. What are we to think of him? Did he correct his dishonesty by performing that apparently honest act? or was confession to his neighbor of the transgression necessary, in addition, for complete absolution from the theft? In other words, was it enough for him to have returned the pilfered property, or did he need to let his neighbor know that it was HE who stole it?

It all depends, O Hedomenos. If he believes his neighbor to be a forgiving sort, then he might confess to him; if, on the other hand, he knows him to be unforgiving, then he would be inclined to hide the fact that it was he who stole and then returned his property. In this case, the thief becomes the honest man, and the one stolen from becomes the dishonest one: dishonest, because he was unforgiving...

But then one might argue that a thief is subject to his victim’s judgement: he might expect forgiveness from God or his conscience, but, having confessed to his crime, he ought to expect whatever punishment might be meted out by his victim.

But I cannot agree with that statement of your’s, O Hedomenos: surely dishonesty is the antonym, that is, the opposite, of honesty. Why, it is so by definition, My Child, is it not?

For example, if your mom asks you, as she’s leaving the house, to sweep the floors, and while she’s gone you sweep all the dirt under the rugs, you have already been dishonest without ever saying, “I swept the floors”. Indeed, she would have no reason to ask you whether you swept them: she can see whether they are clean or not...unless she fears you may have acted dishonestly. In which case she might suspect you might have swept the dirt under the rugs, and therefore surreptitiously check underneath them.

On the other hand, if you collect the dirt you have swept from the floors and throw it in the trash, then you have acted honestly... without saying a word. — Todd Martin

I agree that this actually would be a case of dishonesty but I don’t think this case is quite analogous to the Sally case or my library case. I think this case does give us reason to modify the definition of dishonesty that I initially given but that was just meant to be a quick definition to begin with. The reason why it would be dishonest for me to tell my mom I swept the floor in this case is because I understood what my mom meant by the phrase “swept the floor”. By “swept the floor”, she meant completed the chore to a reasonable standard. If I “swept the floor” by some other sense then this doesn’t mean I swept the floor by her definition of the phrase. But, the case involving Sally isn’t like that it seems. Sally didn’t ask your mom if she was in the shower. Rather, she just stated that she was in the shower. Though, your mom might have been dishonest if she said that she couldn’t talk because she was in the shower. Similarly, when my mom asked if I was at the library, she was just asking about my location and so I don’t think it would be dishonest not to mention other things that she didn’t ask about.

surely dishonesty is the antonym, that is, the opposite, of honesty. Why, it is so by definition, My Child, is it not? — Todd Martin

The dictionary might call it an antonym but it’s worth noting that the writers of the dictionary often just assume that the prefix “dis” in front of the word automatically implies that the word is the antonym of the root word. Most philosophers don’t understand the meaning of words just purely on grammar though. Also, these grammatical rules don’t apply in most other languages as I know these sorts of prefixes do not exist in the Russian language. Given this, we can’t necessarily make assumptions about the “antonymity relationship” between 2 words from grammar alone.

@TheHedoMinimalist.

when my mom asked if I was at the library, she was just asking about my location — TheHedoMinimalist

That is THE question, O Hedomenos! The “just” you inserted in the above statement signifies that your mom was simply curious where you were, had no ulterior motive. Doesn’t motive mean everything when it comes to human actions either verbal or physical?

But when we ask someone where they are, isn’t it true that there is always SOME or other motive or reason, however innocent it may be? Otherwise, why would we ask it? Sometimes we ask someone where they are when we already know the answer. Let me offer you some examples to illustrate some of the many possibilities...

I call “where are you?” to a man whom I seek, but who is trying to hide from me; but I know where he is, because I see his shadow cast upon the ground. My motive in this case is to make him believe I don’t know where he is...

I’m talking to someone on the phone and I ask them where they are, because I hear certain noises in the background that are either strange or familiar, and, in the former case, my curiosity is aroused because either I am alarmed—maybe worried about their safety, or just mystified— and in the latter, because I want them to confirm or deny my assumption about their location.

In the above examples, the motive for the question was based on sensory data; but, more often, it is based on a suspicion, or a prejudice, or a fear in the soul of the one asking it about things that can only be discerned by a vigilant soul...

When the father of the boy who inadvertently “went” to the carnival asked him whether he had gone there, he did so out of suspicion based on either fear or knowledge of the boy’s character—unless, perhaps, he smelled popcorn or cotton-candy on the child...

When your mom asked where you were when you were fooling around with the woman at the library, what was her motive? Yes: on the face of it, she was just asking about your location; but, as I’ve pointed out before, there is a question about the right she had to inquire about your location, and you admitted that she didn’t have that right, for you said it would have been more honest of you to question it.

So much depends on the details, O Hedomenos, of which you have supplied the barest information. When you got that call from your mom, were you in the midst of your sexual adventure, and had to interrupt it in order to take the call? After you had taken the call, did you put your finger to your lips to let your lover know to be quiet, while you talked to your mother?

You know your mom a lot better than we do: When she asked where you were, did you immediately think, “Mom suspects I’m up to no good”, or did you think rather, “Mom’s just concerned about my well-being, as any mom would be”?

Which is it, O Hedomenos? Doesn’t the honesty of the answer you gave, that you were at the library, depend upon this question?

You know your mom a lot better than we do: When she asked where you were, did you immediately think, “Mom suspects I’m up to no good”, or did you think rather, “Mom’s just concerned about my well-being, as any mom would be”?

Which is it, O Hedomenos? Doesn’t the honesty of the answer you gave, that you were at the library, depend upon this question? — Todd Martin

I think that my mom’s motive was either that of curiosity or that of concern for my welfare. She didn’t ask me this question over the phone. Rather, she would ask me this question any time I’m about to leave to go somewhere or after I returned from the library if she wasn’t home when I left. Of course, it’s always possible that she might have been concerned about me being up to no good but I had no good reason to think that was definitely her motivation. It’s not as obvious as determining that if someone asks you to sweep the floor that they want you to perform that chore properly as that’s usually just seen as a given.

Nonetheless, I still think it would be more honest for me to tell her about my girlfriend because I think sharing secrets increases one’s level of honesty. My refusal to share secrets isn’t dishonest though. It’s kinda how it’s usually considered really honest of someone to share their personal desires and insecurities with others but one is not being dishonest by refusing to share those things with others.

@TheHedoMinimalist.

Nonetheless, I still think it would be more honest for me to tell her about my girlfriend because I think sharing secrets increases one’s level of honesty. — TheHedoMinimalist

I assume you mean that, when you tell someone secrets, that they get the impression you can be generally trusted to tell the truth, since our secrets are the last things we tell; after all, how else did they become secret?

But whether you should tell your mom about your girlfriend depends on several things, doesn’t it? What if it would upset her? Surely you wouldn’t want that to happen just because of some abstract ideal of an “increased level of honesty” b/w you two? But maybe, though it would upset her, by telling her, you would be sending the subtle message that this is YOUR life, and you’re gonna live it the way you want to, regardless of what she wants.

I think that my mom’s motive was either that of curiosity or that of concern for my welfare. — TheHedoMinimalist

And “concern for your welfare” might extend to concern for the sort of women you might be getting involved with? As far as curiosity goes, I attempted to argue in my previous post that no one is just curious: there is always a motive, however subtle or hidden, for one asking or exploring.

Would a mother who had complete trust in her child ever even think to ask him either where he has been or where he’s going?

it’s usually considered really honest of someone to share their personal desires and insecurities with others but one is not being dishonest by refusing to share those things with others. — TheHedoMinimalist

I have a question for you, O Hedomenos: who is the one with whom we are willing to share our personal (secret?) desires and insecurities? What is his name, or what do we call him? For it is surely not with just anyone that we are willing to share such things.

But, as you pointed out in a previous post, there are some who confess all to anyone, who tell everything “in quaslibet aures” (to whomever will listen). Ironically, we cannot trust such a person to be our friend, despite his perfect honesty, because we find that he dishonors our friendship by telling everyone the things he should only confess to us.

But whether you should tell your mom about your girlfriend depends on several things, doesn’t it? What if it would upset her? Surely you wouldn’t want that to happen just because of some abstract ideal of an “increased level of honesty” b/w you two? But maybe, though it would upset her, by telling her, you would be sending the subtle message that this is YOUR life, and you’re gonna live it the way you want to, regardless of what she wants. — Todd Martin

I agree that telling secrets is often quite bad and I believe that people shouldn’t be excessively honest. As you have mentioned earlier, just because a particular word has a positive connotation doesn’t necessarily mean that it is always positive. My notion of honesty is actually an Aristotelian one where Aristotle argued that people should be fairly honest and not tell lies but they should not be excessively honest and they should at least keep secrets about their friends.

And “concern for your welfare” might extend to concern for the sort of women you might be getting involved with? — Todd Martin

Well, the key word here is “might”. Can I reasonably be expected to immediately interpret my mom’s possibly complex motive when she’s asking me a quick question about my location. The truth is that I hadn’t thought about her motive and I just answer the question immediately. If she was interested to know what I was doing then she would have been more clear in asking that question instead. I don’t think that mind reading abilities are a reasonable requirement for avoiding dishonesty.

As far as curiosity goes, I attempted to argue in my previous post that no one is just curious: there is always a motive, however subtle or hidden, for one asking or exploring. — Todd Martin

I would disagree. I sometimes just ask my mom where she’s going out of curiosity too it seems. It seems that people just like to know things about others sometimes.

@TheHedoMinimalist. You didn't answer my question, O Hedomenos:

who is the one with whom we are willing to share our personal (secret?) desires and insecurities? What is his name, or what do we call him? — Todd Martin

Are you willing to answer it or not?

Are you willing to answer it or not? — Todd Martin

I don’t understand the question or how it pertains to our discussion.

@TheHedoMinimalist. Well, let me ask it this way: with whom are we most willing to share the secrets about our bodies? Isn’t it our physician? And with whom are we most willing to share the secrets about our crumbling house? Isn’t it the carpenter or mason?

With whom are we willing to share the secrets about our delinquent accounts? Isn’t it with our financial planner? And aren’t we most willing to divulge the secrets of our pet’s misbehavior with its trainer?

And what about the secrets of our soul? Don’t we go to our priest and confess, if we’re Catholic, or go to a therapist, if we’re secular?

But let me ask you, O Hedomenos: with whom would you be willing to share your innermost secrets? Is there someone in your life that you trust that much? Wouldn’t anyone long to have such a one? If anyone would want to have such a person in their lives, wouldn’t there be a general term we use to describe him, to characterize him (or her)?

with whom would you be willing to share your innermost secrets? — Todd Martin

Well, there’s some secrets that I have that I wouldn’t want to share with anyone. Simply because it wouldn’t have conversational value and there’s no other reason to share it.

Is there someone in your life that you trust that much? — Todd Martin

I wouldn’t share my secrets with anyone who has any power to produce negative outcomes in my life if they knew a particular secret of mine. So, I have a tendency to share the least about myself with people that I’m closest to.

Wouldn’t anyone long to have such a one? If anyone would want to have such a person in their lives, wouldn’t there be a general term we use to describe him, to characterize him (or her)? — Todd Martin

I don’t think everyone wants to have a person like that. I personally don’t see the value in sharing secrets for their own sake. I also don’t know of any term to refer to a person that you would share secrets with.

@TheHedoMinimalist.

I personally don’t see the value in sharing secrets for their own sake. — TheHedoMinimalist

By “for their own sake” I suppose you mean “just because they are secrets”. The problem with that though is that they are secrets because you are hiding them for some reason.

Of the things that we hide there are, I think, two different sorts: the general things all ppl routinely hide from each other because they are low and what we share with mere beasts, and the more particular things that a person hides because he is ashamed of them. An example of the former is defecation and it’s clean-up: who would want to hear someone give his particular details of this universal phenomenon? These are the sorts of things I assume you meant when you said,

there’s some secrets that I have that I wouldn’t want to share with anyone. Simply because it wouldn’t have conversational value and there’s no other reason to share it. — TheHedoMinimalist

An example of the latter I draw from an hypothetical scenario you gave in an earlier post of the loose-lipped girl whose hobby was killing stray cats. Most anyone else (ie, a normal person) would be ashamed of such behavior and not confess it, certainly not to just anyone, because of this:

I wouldn’t share my secrets with anyone who has any power to produce negative outcomes in my life if they knew a particular secret of mine. — TheHedoMinimalist

For, if someone knows you kill animals for fun, they might report you to the SPCA.

But what if you have someone close to you that you feel you can confide in about such shameful things without fear of condemnation? Yet you lack such a person in your life, O Hedomenos, for, as you confess,

I have a tendency to share the least about myself with people that I’m closest to. — TheHedoMinimalist

Unlike most everyone else (maybe it’s different now in this day and age: maybe we have become so isolated that our closest connections are with anonymous ppl on the internet), you would rather confess your secrets to those you are furthest from.

But what does being close to someone mean if you hold something far away from them? If you say,”I am very close with my” mom, or sister or brother or best friend, but withhold secrets that would enable them to understand the character of your soul in its fullness, how close can you be? How can you be close to someone who knows the least about you?

But what does being close to someone mean if you hold something far away from them? If you say,”I am very close with my” mom, or sister or brother or best friend, but withhold secrets that would enable them to understand the character of your soul in its fullness, how close can you be? How can you be close to someone who knows the least about you? — Todd Martin

I would say that you are close to people that you care about the most and would be willing to prioritize their interests over the interests of other people. This kind of closeness doesn’t seem to require to share secrets. In fact, you may wish to not share some of your secrets because you care about them and you don’t want to upset them. You also don’t want to share secrets with them because preserving a relationship with them matters to you.

I would say that you are close to people that you care about the most and would be willing to prioritize their interests over the interests of other people. — TheHedoMinimalist

I assume you are speaking of family and friends, of co-workers , of ppl who you personally know and meet with/talk to on a regular basis, like the guy who sells you the morning paper from his stand, your barber, old high school buddies...maybe the inhabitants of the nursing home you work at or visit, maybe the inmates of a prison, etc.

This kind of closeness doesn’t seem to require to share secrets. — TheHedoMinimalist

I totally agree. We may care very much about the welfare of these sorts of ppl, and by telling them our innermost secrets we may only succeed in upsetting them or driving them away. But what about YOU, O Hedomenos: you know your own deepest secrets, yet you cannot escape your own self; so you must do one of a few things: you must suppress the memory of your shameful thoughts or actions deep enough that they barely ever touch your consciousness (and conscience); or you must explain them to yourself (and, perhaps, to others) in a light that makes them look less reprehensible...

...My father-in-law was a distinguished professor at a major university; he was also rather good-looking, and cheated on his wife enough that they divorced. But he had no real qualms about his behavior, because he used a discovery of animal-behavioralism to explain his infidelity: to sum it up in crude terms, if baboons do it, then so do men;

or, you do neither of these, and your shameful memories regularly haunt you throughout your life, arising again and again to torment you on an almost daily basis.

Of these three sorts of ppl, 1) the suppressor, 2) the prevaricator or 3) the sufferer, which do you think you and me are? I have an idea about you, having gotten a taste of your soul through this dialogue, but I won’t divulge my opinion until you have answered the question.

Oh! I forgot a fourth alternative: the soul without a conscience, who never has a qualm about anything he does or imagines. He is someone who actually exists. Then there is a fifth possibility: the soul that never thinks nor does anything reprehensible...

...but he is a fiction, nicht wahr?

so you must do one of a few things: you must suppress the memory of your shameful thoughts or actions deep enough that they barely ever touch your consciousness (and conscience); or you must explain them to yourself (and, perhaps, to others) in a light that makes them look less reprehensible... — Todd Martin

Well, my deepest and darkest secrets aren’t actually things that I’m ashamed of. They are just things that would be most damaging to my reputation and my welfare if discovered. I tend to experience the greatest amount of shame from really mundane things like remembering times when I said something stupid or acted awkwardly. It would make more sense for me to be ashamed of the most reprehensible things about me from a social perspective but that’s just not how my emotions work for some reason. For some strange reason, I’m very obsessive compulsively embarrassed about mostly inconsequential matters that would do little to cause anyone to change their opinions about me and yet I just don’t feel bothered by facts about me that other people would find reprehensible. At the same time, I tend to think that the actual most reprehensible facts about me are things that I share with the vast majority of people like the fact that I eat meat products that are produced in factory farms and the fact that many products that I use have been produced by slave labor in 3rd world countries. At the same time, I don’t feel guilty or ashamed about that stuff either and sharing that I do those things does not hurt my reputation or welfare.

So, I’m kinda not sure what category you want to put me in but I’m kinda skeptical of your categories here because you really would need to analyze this on a secret to secret basis as not all dark secrets are the same and I kinda feel that you are bringing up things that seem to appeal to the existence of some kind of weird unconscious phenomena like repression and self-deceit. I’m skeptical of these phenomena because I think these so-called phenomena are at best examples of well understood cognitive biases like the confirmation bias and the tendency to believe things that we want to believe(which isn’t necessarily self-deceit or repression in my humble opinion as defining it as such would imply that people experience repression and self-deceit about things like their political opinions as well. Rather, I think it’s just ignorance caused by a cognitive bias.)

Though, I think the sinister part about psychoanalytic concepts like that of repression and self-deceit is that it’s often invented and confabulated by the psychoanalyst himself as he wants to portray all humans through the lenses of his ideological worldview. For example, with someone like Sigmund Freud, human behavior was mostly explained by weird sexual/animalistic stuff like penis envy, anal retention, and the Oedipus Complex. For someone like Carl Jung, it was religious and spiritual stuff. I think both of these fathers of psychoanalysis and of concepts like repression and self-deceit, made the same sort of mistake and they had the same kind of bias. They wanted to take their interests and their way of looking at the world and they wanted to explain away people that didn’t think like them as being repressed and as people who truly are interested in their interests who just can’t acknowledge that they are interested in those interests because of their self-deception. For example, imagine if I believed in psychoanalysis and I was a psychoanalyst. I would probably be trying to argue that the physical pain that you have experienced in your life was the worst kind of suffering in your life and you are just repressing your memories about all the terrible pain that you have experienced from your physical injuries in the past. You would likely call me out on my bullshit if I tried to say something like this about you. Yet, how is my hypothetical psychoanalytic narratives about you any less credible than the psychoanalytic narratives that you seem to have about me or the psychoanalytic narratives of the so-called psychoanalytic masters like Freud and Jung. I personally don’t see how someone could reasonably distinguish good psychoanalysis from bad psychoanalysis in a way that doesn’t just seem blatantly biased on some philosophical worldview or a set of interests.

I tend to experience the greatest amount of shame from really mundane things like remembering times when I said something stupid or acted awkwardly — TheHedoMinimalist

Well, here’s something else we can add to the list of things we have in common! Fear and shame of doing stupid laughable things is characteristic of young men in the bloom of their manhood, and typically plagues teenagers. That’s probably why young boys tend to adopt a “cool” or “tough” persona and a rigid mindset that conforms to whatever clique they join or find themselves a member of, in order to protect themselves against ridicule.

When I was that young man, I secretly longed to belong to some such group, to gain the identity that belonging to it promised, but I just never fit in; for I also had a fiercely independent nature, and an unwillingness to “go along” with beliefs or behaviors simply because they were sanctioned by a group.

But I digress. The most mortifying experience of my life happened at this age. I went to the prom with “the pageant queen”, a tall fair-skinned beauty with curly blonde hair. How I won that honor I cannot say. I was a good-looking boy, just come into the first bloom of manhood, but with no social connections to recommend him...

...the evening of the prom, she and I drove into the city to have supper with another couple she knew, and we ate at Ruby Tuesday. After we were seated the waiter came to our table...

...now, city, and small-town or country ppl, are just different: if you’re a town boy and unacquainted with city life, you encounter a lot of ppl there that look very different from what you’re familiar with. Our waiter was rather openly effeminate, obviously gay, had on earrings (unusual for a man in 1980), and spoke with a lisp. Between the times he came to our table, my male companion, older than me and a wise-cracker, would make jokes about him, and because I was nervous, being the beautiful pageant-queen’s date, I vented my nervousness in giggly laughter at his jokes...

...finally the waiter came to take our order. By now I had had a drink or two, and was in a state of pure hilarity, but had composed myself (or so I thought) enough to behave like a man in possession of his faculties. The waiter asked someone’s order and stood there in silence. Suddenly, no longer able to control myself, I burst out laughing...

...well, I didn’t exactly burst out laughing (that’s what I WANTED to do): I checked it, but in doing so, I caused it to come out at the other end, as a loud fart. I immediately grabbed my nose, hoping by doing so I would make everyone think the noise emanated from there, then ran to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, I found myself alone, and began pacing back and forth, repeating to myself, “I can’t believe I just did that!” Once I had composed myself enough to return to my companions, I saw that everyone was smiling...except for my date. Of course, the wise-cracker had to make things worse: “Hey Todd, did that noise really come out of your nose?”

You can imagine what the rest of the night was like, O Hedomenos. I have little memory of it. I just remember taking my pageant queen back to her house, inviting myself in to sit up late watching tv, hoping for a kiss, which I had to ask for before acquiring, then departing. We never went out on another date after that.

Take tomorrow off, O Hedomenos, and I will respond to the more substantive issues you raised. I just wanted to share a humiliating experience with you for your entertainment. I have lived a long life and have experienced many things that I can view from a perspective you can’t. As you grow older, farting in public is not such a mortifying thing; but then again, you are unlikely to do it in the presence of a beautiful woman you think is the meaning of your life.