27
REASONABLENESS
AND UNREASONABLENESS: Now you men of reason, whose moderation becomes you in
such an extreme age, I have read something to the effect that man is not a
reasonable creature but only capable of reason
- a remark which didn't greatly impress me
when I first came across it but, nonetheless, one which has since caused
me to speculate more thoroughly on the nature and extent of human reason and,
if you'll forgive my saying so, to draw conclusions remarkably similar to those
elicited by Jonathan Swift.
Indeed, it was a great blow to my ego to
suddenly find myself confronted by such an apparently stark interpretation of
human life, all the more so since I had previously been assured by an author
who happens to be humanist that man is a rational creature.
Yes, a great blow indeed, but one from
which I have since recovered, if you reasonable men will again forgive my
saying so, to return to life with renewed zest!
Ah, what a liberation to know that man is not a
reasonable creature but, as the aforementioned satirist rightly contended, only
capable of reason!
And do you know why he is not a reasonable
creature, you reasonable men? Yes, of
course you do! For you are reasonable
men, not ignorant, uncouth, bigoted, narrow-minded, bad-tempered, obsessed, or extreme men, and consequently you know as well as I do
that reasonableness has to be paid for with the coin of intermittent
unreasonableness!
Yes, you know that well enough, and that is
why you are reasonable and not fantastic, like the 'preachers of
reason'. They would condemn your
periodic unreasonableness as a failing, a crime, sin, weakness, etc., over
which you have total control but against which you refuse to struggle. Like all other lopsided creatures, the
'preachers of reason' have little respect for your integrity as men,
since they do not see man in the whole but only in the part, and that, you
reasonable men, is their chief unreasonableness. Instead of leading to an acceptance and
understanding of man, it inevitably leads to a condemnation and belittling of
him.
So beware, you reasonable men, the
insidious calumny of the 'preachers of reason'!
See to it that you do not become like them; for they are not even
idealists, these lopsided creatures, but misguided realists of a pernicious
disposition!
And beware, too, you reasonable men, the
unreasonable cynics of whose tribe Jonathan Swift was certainly not a
member. For they are
as great a danger to your metaphysical integrity as the 'preachers of reason',
and will do whatever they can to undermine your complacency and drag you down
to the murky depths of their despair.
These men will not help you to understand yourselves, you reasonable
men, and neither will they do much to help you improve your self-image. Those who preach that man should always be
reasonable are usually deluded types.
But these 'preachers of unreason' are mostly a low breed, and therefore
should be avoided.
One doesn't become a higher man, you
reasonable men, by mixing with the low, so see to it that your reason doesn't
desert you when it is most needed!
See to it, too, that, for the sake of your
reasonableness, you don't forget how to be periodically - unreasonable!
