Philosophy is smashing a spider thoughtfully*
April 2, 2008I had to meet with the philosophy undergraduate advisor to ensure some double major forms I will submit are correct. While sitting at the table, a small gnat, so I supposed, dangled in front of my eyelash. I was able to bat it away after a couple of unsuccessful attempts. A few moments passed, and I realized it was a spider, now making a dash from persecution from my side of the table over to hers. I looked up at the advisors’ face to see instinctive repulsion and disdain. The spider had the audacity to scamper over the very paperwork she was reviewing! “The impudence, the presumption!”, I imagined her huffing out aloud if I were not there to witness the horror.
She slammed the red-brown menace and I asked her with a statement: you don’t subscribe to reincarnation then. Immediately she realized the impropriety of a philosophy advisor neglecting the deliberative forbearance that should govern such a person’s thoughts. She laughed, carelessly.
You are so quick a wit! I smiled as I read this blog and continue to be fascinated and entertained by the
descriptions of daily “happenings”!
[...] might be the first instance of ironic arachnocide during an advising meeting. [Philosophiae [...]
I can see “The impudence, the presumption!” on a t-shirt or the like as well. This sounds like every time we communication scholars mumble or ramble nonsensically.
haha. I like that slogan. Its perfect for you. Well maybe not. You wouldn’t smash a spider or any other bug period.
Perhaps her expression was just dismay at realizing that a belief in reincarnation was the best justification that a philosophy undergrad could come up with for treating animals ethically…
To Primus,
Maybe it was easier than saying, “So I see that you don’t apply the Categorical Imperative to insects, do mammals also receive your ethical indifference?” Or maybe just funnier.