But what IS it?

Is there anything we can adequately define? To answer that question of course we first have to define "adequate." I would define it, in this instance (parenthesis of paramount importance), as "true or accurate in itself." As what is "propre" in French. But is anything truly, transcendentally itself? Or is everything, practically speaking, a "self" only in relation to us, human observers? I doubt it. In any case we cannot define anything as though we did not exist and not only because it is our language we are defining with. Which is to say that from the point of view of a different order of creatures, I'm pretty certain, everything would be arranged differently and defined through a language that could not translate into any of ours.

But isn't it okay to define adequacy in relation to our own perception? Would that be adequate? This is where it gets even trickier. We can dispense altogether with angels or aliens. I would say, in answer to the question, "adequate FOR WHAT?" All adequacies are temporized. And that means "adequate" in the sense we started with is LITERALLY in-adequate. All definitions turn out to be stipulative. That's not to say that "reality" (as we perceive it) does not play a part. It just means it doesn't play the definitive part without (as Derrida said) residue.

I'm reminds of my son's friends' debate about whether a hot dog is a sandwich, which they conducted as though "sandwich" were a transcendental category and not something we can, at will, define any hot dog into our out of. I want to ask them to define not sandwich but "hot dog." What is a hot dog? An animal casing in which processed meat is packed? A specific subset of "sausage"? Perhaps. But there's more than just processed meat in a hot dog. Forgetting all the "chemical" additives, there can also be cheese. If you add cheese to the processed meat is it still a hot dog? Why not? How much cheese? What is the absolute ratio: 49-51% But that's an arbitrary ratio. What about 1-99% What about 100% cheese in that casing? Is it still a hot dog? But there are "skinless franks." So I should be able to take away the casing too. Now I have a roll of cheese that is, arguably, a hot dog.

Of course a hot dog is a human creation. Too easy. Certainly we get to define human creations. Work this out with diamonds.

I Want Green

I want green?

It’s a sample sentence on a grammar test. The fifth-grade student is asked to parse it. It looks easy: pronoun, verb, ah—green?

“Teacher, I’m having trouble with this sentence.”

“Imagine I held out two shirts, one red, one green and you said, ‘I want green.’”

That’s all the help she can give.

He goes through his list of definitions. A noun is a person place thing or idea. It’s not a person or a place. Is green a thing or an idea? He’s never understood this idea of idea very well. Isn’t everything sort of an idea?

An adjective is a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.

Green is an attribute of the shirt. The shirt is the thing. Green tells you something about the shirt. So it’s really an adjective, green.

But the word “shirt” isn’t in the sentence. But it’s implied. Like the word “you” isn’t in the sentence “Go to hell!” And “that” isn’t in the sentence, “It’s the shirt I want.” So green is an adjective.

Or is it a noun?

And is the more intelligent student the one who gets the answer wrong or the one who gets the answer right? The one we reward or the one we punish?

Trump and Testing

Testing will save lives.

Testing will give us the information we need to make informed decisions about when and how to reopen the economy.

No one disputes this.

But Trump resists testing.

It makes him look bad.

It makes it less likely he will win re-election.

There is no other way to look at this.

The only good thing about Trump is that he’s so stupid, he doesn’t even understand that he should try to hide this.

He literally doesn’t care who dies. He doesn’t care how many people get sick—as long as he gets re-elected.

That’s the first horror.

The second horror is that over 40% of the country either don’t see this or deny it—though it stands out to them as starkly as blizzard in May. Or they don’t care.

You can’t make Trump supporters care, even if you can make them see. Trump’s mendacity was as clear as an open window the day he came down that escalator and lied about immigration, as the day he bragged on tape about sexual assault, as the day he mocked the disabled. It’s as clear as he denial of science, as his labelling of everything that doesn’t serve his interest as false. His lies are transparent. His failures and in competencies are as plain as day. Even his rare attempts to hide them are comic and feeble (“I meant to misspell ‘Nobel.’”) But they don’t care. You can’t make them care.

We may never know how many will get sick or how many will die because of this. We won’t collect enough information to know. We won’t do the necessary testing.