I turned to Plato and asked him if Marcus was right, if that’s what he’d say. And he smiled and asked me, What do you think? Do you think that is what I would say? And I had to admit that yeah, that’s what he’d say because yeah, saying that everybody should be counted equally was the kind of thing that EASE would first have to tell us so that we could program EASE to use it in order for EASE to tell us anything.
So it’s a chicken-and-egg sort of thing, I said to Cheryl.
Right, she said. Chicken-and-egg is exactly what it is. And I guess since I’d already gone on record that I think a whole lot of people don’t know how to live their lives, I don’t know if I’d really want EASE to count everyone the same. I’d just said that because it seemed it might be a way of getting around Plato’s objection to Marcus’s way of programming the thing.
Then Marcus said, While you’re at it, Cheryl, you can ask Plato whether he’s going to say that any algorithm you use for extracting an ethical answer from crowd-sourcing is going to have ethical presuppositions built into it. So I turned to Plato and he raised his eyebrows, and he didn’t even have to ask me his question out loud about what did I think he’d say, and I just said, yeah, that’s what you’d say.
So nothing was settled, I said to her.
That’s an understatement, she said. Everything was unsettled, most of all me. On the way over to Plato’s event, instead of worrying about hustling my author I just kept thinking about how everything had been left open in a way that just really galls me. It’s like when I open the refrigerator door, and I see that all the tops on the jars haven’t been screwed on, the mayo and the mustard and the pickles and the milk with their lids just carelessly perched on their tops, ready to slide off, which is this really annoying habit that Michael has. The toothpaste, too. He’s just incapable of screwing the tops on things. I wanted to shout at Plato: Will you screw the frigging tops back on!
Cheryl said this loudly enough so that our waiter came over at a pace that counted in that establishment as an Olympic sprint. Cheryl waved him away.
I mean, I liked Marcus’s idea of crowd-sourcing, she said, since the alternative seems so ridiculous to the point of revolting.
You mean about there being moral experts, I said.
Right, she said, that there are moral experts who, knowing stuff that regular people don’t know, can straighten out people’s twisted lives the way Dr. Kolodny can straighten twisted teeth. That’s totally ridiculous.
I agree, I said.
And to add insult to injury, she said, there’s the ridiculous idea that somehow these moral experts magically transmitted their knowledge into my mind, without my knowing how it got there, so I can just reach for it, like in the aisle labeled “right and wrong.” Right, tell me another. Or maybe what I really mean is, I want another, she said with a laugh, her bangles doing their song-and-dance as she raised her arm to summon back our waiter, while I sat there pondering.
It wasn’t the nature of moral truth I was pondering, but whether my control freak of a friend was drunk. Yes, she was definitely drunk. Her next words confirmed it.
I’m sorry for being late, Rhonda, she said. See, what happened is that after I left Plato I felt like I just needed to sit in my car and, you know, think. I guess I kind of lost track of the time.
Cheryl stared at me, and I stared back at her. Cheryl never loses track of time and Cheryl never apologizes.
There’s another alternative, I finally said to her.
To what? she said.
To this dilemma that Plato forced you into. It’s not just a choice between whether the crowd knows or the experts know. It’s also possible that nobody knows, and maybe that’s because there’s nothing to know. Everybody just makes it up as they go along, mostly in the way that will make them feel better about themselves.
I was thinking about that, too, while I was sitting there in the car, Cheryl said. I was thinking about that a lot.
So maybe there’s your answer, I said.
Do you think so? she said. I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you where all of my thinking in the car led to. It led me to an author I had back in January. This author really got to me, maybe because she was one of my authors without a VOOM. She just had her life.
The waiter brought Cheryl her drink and she took a long sip before she went on.
She was about our age, Rhonda, maybe a little younger. It was hard to tell because of the life she’d had. She’d written a memoir, but part of that memoir was written on her face. I actually read her book after I’d spent the day with her. It was pretty harrowing. Her stepfather had abused her and her younger sister starting when they were little kids. The guy, who was very well off and well educated, had gone after the two of them starting when they were six and four. As bad as it was for her, she found it that much worse, even when she was a kid, that it was happening to her little sister.
Was there a mother around? I asked her.
There was. The way she described it, the mother sort of knew, but kept herself from really knowing, meaning she didn’t want to know. She’d lived kind of hardscrabble, and was just tired out and wanted the security this guy brought, and, long story short, it was in her self-interest not to know, though on some level she had to.
She was in a state of denial, I said.
Call it that, but I don’t know if it gets her off the hook for being his accomplice in crime or not. And the guy was some sort of sicko, which may mean he’s less responsible for his actions than otherwise, so maybe that makes her even more evil than he is. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know how we’re supposed to think about these sickos. Are they just sick, leave it at that, or are they evil, or are they sick and evil?
Ask Marcus’s EASE, I said.
What I really wanted to do was go back and ask Plato, Cheryl said.33
So what happened to the kids? I asked her.
What do you think happened? she said. They grew up to have miserable lives. Talk about lives not worth living. The woman who wrote the memoir spent most of her life battling with various addictions, including alcohol, cocaine, crystal meth, you name it. She was unable to hold down a job, even though she’s really, really bright. She even lived on the streets for a while, which she writes about. Then she got it together, which is a story in itself. You should really read the book, Rhonda. I thought Oprah would choose it for sure, but that hasn’t happened, at least not yet. Anyway, compared to her sister she’s a raving success story. The sister’s the one who really got screwed up. She’s a poet and a musician, who writes her own music, but she’s just so entirely messed up that she has multiple personalities and tried to kill herself a few times. If she ever gets it together enough to write a book, it would be a real best seller. No way Oprah would stay away from that one.
Tragic, I said.
I think Oprah is great for books, Cheryl said.
No, I meant about those two little abused sisters.
Tragic is an understatement, Cheryl said. And that’s the point. That sicko of a father completely ruined the lives of two innocent little girls just for his own selfish pleasure. I mean, even granted his brain is wired wrong, he could have resisted.34 And if he couldn’t, then he should have just cut off his own dick. That would be moral.
Maybe, I said. Hard to say.
Not for me, she said. I don’t find it the least bit hard to say. And then there’s the mother, who’s maybe even more immoral, since her brain isn’t wired wrong. How could a mother with a normal-working brain not have done everything to protect those little kids? Well, obviously she was capable of not protecting her kids, since that’s what she did, namely not protect them. But she shouldn’t have been capable of not protecting them. It almost seems like you could prove it with numbers that she shouldn’t have been able to, if you add up the total misery of the situation. That’s how she should have been thinking. She should have thought, okay, my life is easier if I pretend that what’s happening isn’t happening, but there are two oth
er people, who just happen to be my kids, whose lives are going to be forever wrecked. That’s how I figure it.
But that’s not how people think about what to do, I said. Their own misfortunes loom way larger, since that’s the misery they’re going to have to experience in reality instead of just by imagining it in their heads.
Well, maybe they should think that way, Cheryl said. Maybe when they don’t, then their brains aren’t working right either, and maybe a guy like Plato could prove that to them.
I don’t know, I said. Even if you’re right and Plato could prove something or other, I don’t know what difference it would make.
What are you talking about? Cheryl said. Of course, it would make a difference! That would mean we’re not just making it up as we go along. That would prove that it’s my author’s stepfather and her mother who are making it up as they go along. Making it up as they go along is what the scum of the earth do.
Making it up as we go along is what all of us do, to some extent or other, I said.
Yeah, well, I’ve got news for you. Not everything is made up. Nobody’s making up the fact that those two kids suffered, and they’re still suffering and probably always will. I mean, they’re not even going to get the opportunity to figure out what’s the best life for them to live, they’re just so wrecked and through no fault of their own. So whose fault is that? You can’t tell me those parents are blameless.
But look, I said, just using words like “fault” and “blame” and “blameless” you’re already coming at the situation fully loaded with all sorts of assumptions. Where’d you get them? Not from Marcus’s EASE.
What’s wrong with my coming at them all loaded up with assumptions? she asked me. Wasn’t that Plato’s point, that Marcus wasn’t going to be able to get everything he needed out of EASE? But just because we can’t get them out of EASE doesn’t mean we don’t have them. Plato’s point was that we can’t just develop some technology that would … I don’t know quite how to put it, she said.
Relieve us of our capacity for individual judgment? I said.
Right, exactly, she said. Like you just said. There’s no app coming out of the Googleplex that’s going to relieve us of our capacity for individual judgment.
Too bad, I said, considering how hard individual judgment is.
Not for me, she said. I don’t have any trouble at all judging.
There’s a difference between judging other people and judging yourself, I said. So far, you’ve only demonstrated how easy it is for us to judge other people.
Just what are you trying to insinuate? she asked. Are you saying I don’t apply the same standards to myself that I apply to everybody else?
Nobody does, I said. Everybody makes excuses for themselves they wouldn’t be prepared to make for other people. The extenuating circumstances are just so obvious in our own cases.
I think that what you’re doing, Rhonda, is accusing the whole world of being hypocritical. Which frankly, Rhonda, I’m just a little bit surprised to hear you say and which might be revealing more about yourself than you intend to.
Cheryl folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes in an appraising stare. Was she trying to determine whether that tête of mine was unworthy of any more tête-à-tête outings?
All I’m saying, Cheryl, is that it’s a whole lot easier to be objective when it comes to other people’s behavior. It’s easy to sit here and wonder how that mother of your author isn’t able to see her kids and herself as clearly as we do. But it’s entirely different when it’s your own life. I’m just not as confident as you are that I see myself with the same objectivity that I can focus on others.
Well, thank goodness I am, Cheryl said. And if that mother were to say to me that it’s better for her to look the other way because otherwise she’s going to have to divorce that perv and go out on her own and work to support herself and her two little kids instead of having him to cushion her existence, then I’d say to her, What the hell are you talking about? Do you have any idea what the effects of child abuse are? You’re telling me that the financially pinched life of one person outweighs the suicidal misery of another? Will you just stop and think about that for a moment, lady? Get out of your fog and think!
Okay, I said, let’s say you could even prove that, yes, she really ought to protect her kids no matter that it makes her life harder, and you go to the mother with your proof. Do you actually think that would get her to act differently? Do you actually think that you could whip her into shape with some flimsy proof?
I don’t know, she said. Maybe. There used to be things that everybody thought were okay, and then just about everybody changed their minds about them, and could see that they were flat-out wrong. Maybe it’s because there was some kind of proof that someone discovered.
Like slavery? I asked her.
Right, she said. Slavery. That’s a perfect example. Even the Bible thinks slavery is okay, no qualms at all, so long as it’s the right people that you enslave, but now we know it’s not. I mean, we know. I know, who never really gave it any thought. Plato might have said “brava” to me as if I’d discovered the cure for cancer, but I didn’t do anything special to deserve any praise for knowing slavery is wrong. It’s not open to discussion anymore. So how did that happen? How did a person like me get so smart?
Cheryl paused as if she was maybe waiting for me to answer her.
I think we, uh, fought a war about it, I said. And the guys who thought slavery was wrong won the war?
No, that’s not right at all, Rhonda. The guys who thought slavery was wrong were right, and the guys who thought it was okay were wrong. It wasn’t winning the Civil War that made the difference of who was right and who was wrong. You know it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, just about everybody knows it’s wrong. Probably the same people who don’t know slavery is wrong are the same people who don’t know the earth is round, or people whose brains are just all wrong, like that stepfather’s brain. So how did we all get this knowledge? I’m thinking it was some kind of proof. I mean, who wouldn’t want to own a slave? I sure would. Even just one would make all the difference in the world. Wouldn’t you want a slave?
So you think that Plato knows that slavery is wrong? I asked her.
Of course he knows! she said, as if I’d questioned whether the pope was Catholic or Donald Trump was rich. I mean, if you and I know it’s wrong, then someone like Plato certainly knows it.35
I guess, I said, though don’t forget how surprised he was to see men and women treated so equally. You said yourself that he’s really old-school.
Look, Rhonda, she said, there’s old-school, and then there’s old-school. A guy would have to have been living in a cave not to know that slavery is wrong.
Still, they used to not know, I said, as you keep stressing. So it’s not obvious.
Yeah, right, she said, but that was exactly Plato’s point. If it’s not obvious, and if there are so many self-serving reasons for not seeing it, then it’s going to take a really good argument to break through all the resistance. You need these super-arguers, which believe me Plato is. You need people who are thinking of these arguments all the time because that’s what they do for a living.
Yeah, well, super-arguers can argue for really immoral things, too.
True, she said, but if you’ve got all these super-arguers going after each other’s arguments in this professional way, then they’re going to be able to eventually find the mistakes. That’s what these people are trained to do. You just have to let them loose at each other.
So then why did it take so long for them to discover slavery is wrong? If it was even they who discovered it. Because, frankly, I think the slaves themselves may have had some good arguments to make about why slavery is wrong. It’s wrong to cut the slaves out of the picture here. It wasn’t just the arguers arguing among themselves.
Yeah, but the slaves couldn’t have done it on their own. You needed the arguers to argue that what the slaves had to sa
y was even worthy of being heard. That was all part of the argument.
But you didn’t answer my question. Why did it take so long, if those arguments were so good?
Maybe the arguments get better over time. Maybe at first it’s all very tentative, and people attack the arguments and other people attack the attackers, and in the process the arguments improve until they just break through finally and nobody can deny them. Maybe the arguers have to argue themselves into believing their own arguments.
Arguments don’t change a thing, I said. Nothing changes until feelings change.
But feelings don’t change until something strong happens to make them change. It’s like that mother of my author. It was working for her not to see what was happening to her kids, and her feelings were all working toward her not seeing.
So how do you know we aren’t still like that mother? I asked her.
What are you talking about? Cheryl said.
Well, if we can look back and say that about other people in the past, that they were like that self-deceiving mother, how do we know we aren’t any different about all sorts of things we feel perfectly okay about right now because it’s in our interest to feel perfectly okay about them? Why should we be any different from people in the past?
Wait a minute, Cheryl said. You know what, Rhonda? You just asked a good question. I don’t know what to say.
She sat there drumming those fingertips so they were clicking loudly in that silent interior. I noticed our harried waiter looking over at us, wondering what was up now.
Well, Rhonda, Cheryl finally said, you just got me straight to the point where I didn’t want to go.
Where’s that? I asked her.
What you just said, that other people are going to look back at us and ask how we could do the things they wouldn’t think of doing. That’s simply awful.
Why awful? I asked.
Plato at the Googleplex Page 14