Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [35]
As he reaches into a Snide bush to pick a peck of Snide, he touches the pale green pair of pants. Face to face, they both react with extreme fear. It is only by seeing how afraid the pants are that the narrator understands his mistake: he was “just as strange to them / As they were strange to” him (Scared). The pants weren’t racing by on a bike to knock him down. The pants came down the wooded path and later came out on the river not even knowing he was there. The narrator interpreted the actions and motives of the pants according to his own construction of the pants as a spooky, ill-willed stalker. What he needed to do to align himself to the truth of things was to imagine the range of possibilities that might explain what he saw, to explore the potential motives and perspectives of another person by stepping into his shoes (or pants) for a while.
In this case, there was evidence supporting the belief that the pants were out to get him, but the evidence was interpreted through a lens of prejudice, created and perpetuated by fear. Emotions like fear pressure us to accept a view since we run the apparent risk of making the object of our fear a reality by ignoring fear. If I don’t listen to my fears about that approaching lion, I might just become its dinner, as I was afraid might happen. Although the fear is sometimes warranted, fear always places a high burden on our external reality to prove to us that there is no risk, even when there was none to begin with. This can close us off to the possibility that the view being promoted by our fear is in fact incorrect. Consider our narrator: He was so disturbed by the sight of the unfamiliar that he could not recognize the humanity of those pale green pants. The pants were only doing things that the narrator himself was doing: taking a walk in the woods, strolling through town, rowing out on the lake, and picking Snide.
The narrator allowed fear to dominate his perspective of the pale green pants, even though he originally boasted to be a brave sort of fellow. Fear is a strong poison to truth-orientation. That’s why we see so much fear-mongering in politics. Fear reinforces our ideologies and assumptions. It also can explain why someone might accept Euthyphro’s definition of piety, as mentioned previously. I might simply accept out of fear of punishment that some action is pious when I am told that some deity desires it. Trying to understand why such a thing should be desired, so that I can actually test the claim that the action belongs to the category . . . well, that is beside the point. When I am afraid of a bad fate at the hands of the gods, why should I bother challenging the legitimacy of the claim? My fear has distracted me from a concern for the truth.
Remember the aspects of intellectual integrity I offered at the beginning of this chapter. Since I am now not open to alternate views, as in aspect (1), I am unable to genuinely take up the tasks that require such openness for success. I cannot carefully consider the strength of the support for those differing ideas (2), since my fear has defined only one alternative as possible and significant. I cannot genuinely draw out the implications of those ideas, including their coherence with other plausible ideas (3), again because of my narrowed perspective. Finally, I cannot reflect on the limits of my ability and methods to carry out the previous two tasks (4), at least until I begin to master my fear. Insofar as I am merely reacting to my fear rather than recognizing it so as to gain perspective on it, my fear is going to govern me and destroy my intellectual integrity and my chances at living a successful, examined life.
In Seuss We Truth
Seuss has provided us with some tips for maintaining our own intellectual integrity.
Many of our emotions and desires certainly can skew our perspective. We see this easily in others and can note how effortlessly one can fall into the trap. Knowing this, we should be on guard with respect to our own intellectual commitments. First,