So,
My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to describe in plain English what Aristotle meant when he was trying to teach the world what a "mean" is.
Is this blog going to self destruct?
If we're lucky.
After reading Aristotle's treatise on virtue a few times and surfing around the net and designating 17 or 18 terabytes of my mental RAM to finding a solution, I found the answer in a fairy tale from 1837.
Aristotle was trying to tell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears without the B & E, only he did it in a much more confusing and roundabout way. Robert Southey was much more straight forward in teaching the mean. Too hot, too cold, just right. Done.
Did you know that in some versions of Goldilocks, she gets chucked out the window by the bears and dies impaled on a church steeple? Anyway, the moral of the story is . . .
Don't piss off talking bears?
Religion kills?
No.
Don't sleep around?
Don't sleep at a crime scene?
No.
Bears are racist?
They should make a law prohibiting talking bears from throwing little girls out windows?
Sounds like a hate crime.
Right you are Ken.
<sigh>
Once that was finished, Trey and I were out to play some catch. The weather is incredibly nice today. Amazingly. Too nice to be working on homework.
We had the pre-spring break parent-teacher conference today to see how Trey is progressing along toward second grade. Here's a shocker. He needs to be able to read 40 words per minute to shift into second grade without any problems on reading. His last reading test had him reading 144 words in a minute.
Why am I not surprised?
Natch.
He keeps a folder in his desk that is full of worksheets for second grade math. When he gets done with what the class is working on, he works on second grade math so that he doesn't get bored.
In case you were wondering, and I know you were, there is no mean for murder. There is no way to do it in the right amount, in the right way, with the right mindset, so that it becomes a virtue. You can't aim for that spot between killing too many people and not killing enough people. Don't blame me! Take it up with Aristotle!
It's weird to read this stuff 2,000 years later. Dude condemns murder but is always talking about war like it's perfectly fine. He talks about how we humans need to strive to be extremely rational . . . like the gods.
"Dude, do you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth?" I asked the book.
It was 2,000 years ago.
That old excuse?
Anyway, I turned in my Goldilocks assignment and now I'll be delving in to find out what the Preconditions of Virtue are.
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