The Meaning Behind the Curtain

Dear Readers,

Yesterday, I published a small fable I wrote for you, entitled "Spider and Hawk," which I left a little morally ambiguous.

Part of that is because the lesson is one of moral ambiguity. The kicker for that communication asked you to think of meaning on your own, just as Spider and Hawk each derived their own meanings from life. Hawk thought that the wisdom and the light was to fly around to his prey, and be faster and less predictable. Spider preferred to lay a clever trap, and in this cunning way, came to the same success as Hawk. These truths, while contradictory, worked for both of them.

Even so, the truths would not work in reverse. Hawk would have made a poor trapper, and Spider a poor diver. So to each of them, the other's truth appeared false. Coyote capitalized on this, to trick them to their doom. Since Hawk did not think Spider's trap mattered, he did not consider it a threat. And since Spider thought Hawk's speed inefficient, she never developed the means to escape in haste from Coyote's fire.

I'm sure a few of you interpret this, or will interpret this, to mean that you should not listen to Coyotes. And in your time stream, certainly, I would not listen to a talking Coyote. At least not without significant spiritual advice. Since that moral might be true for you, in essence a "contingent truth," I cannot contest it and remain true to my real message.

My real message is, of course, that no truth is a necessary truth. At least, not to me. From my vantage point, I see time streams where coyotes do talk, or where systems of mathematics are radically different. The details are not important; what is more important is that in my line of work I must assume that the beliefs that kept each time-normal society functional are, in the context of that society, true.

Therefore, to use an example that will require minimal explanation, when I read Beowulf, I must read from the perspective that the original audience lived in a world where dragons were a real species. Not necessarily because I believe that there were dragons around, but merely because I know, from the presence of a dragon in that work, that belief in dragons was useful to the audience. They gained from a belief in dragons, and it helped their society to function. Spider believed in webs, and to believe anything else might have hurt her. Likewise Hawk would have caught few mice without his dives. So, too, might someone from Charlemagne's day have lost a lot of livelihood if he did not appease his deity in Heaven. And for you, who live in a great age of information, you would not find yourselves successful if you did not believe in the magic of the Internet and the connections it forms between people.

You might think that is a ridiculous comparison, but it is not. When a religious person prays to a deity, they cannot be completely sure that their god lies on the other end of the line, listening. But how much more sure are you, when a celebrity replies to you on Twitter, that you have heard from the real thing? How much faith can you really place? Still, it is as true to you as it is useful. And as useful to me as it is true to you.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople