Feng and the Forum Leader Discussions Part 1

While everybody else was getting off it to there own expense, Feng's racket was to stay on it in the back where it was cool by the airconditioner. Watching the unmasking of others was a vicarious pleasure that rivalled the Coliseum, or better a live Socratic Dialogue in which the loser must die. But Feng's number came up and before he knew it he was on stage with the Forum Leader. The arrogance and grittiness of Werner Erhard still audible in the abruptness of his questions.

In the light on stage, Feng could feel the crowd as they were neatly ordered in those padded cafeteria chairs. He could feel their heat as he looked into the Forum leaders eyes. Those bewitching and beguiling eyes that said "stay with me and I will help you".

Now the Forum leader fired the question {no kidding}, "I offer you two ice cream cones Feng, one vanilla and one chocolate. Which do you choose?"

Feng, reeling under the lamps and the Faustian spell of the Forum Leader's intensity, barely audibly muttered "neither...I don't want an icecream cone."

"Come on Feng, that's not part of the game, here you must choose one or the other....now, choose chocolate or vanilla."

"Chocolate" said Feng.

"Good, why'd you choose that one?" asked FL.

"I like it"

"Now hold on there Feng...do you choose for reasons other than you 'like it' sometimes?"

"Well yes, like when I take morning sport"

"Morning sport? Come on Feng, get real with me here. I don't want to hear your racket about 'morning sport'....this isn't Olde England now is it? No, Feng, just answer me if you chose it for some other reason than that you liked it?"

"I chose it because I liked it, that's all."

"Hold on there Feng, now a minute ago you claimed that you "like" chocolate and now you claim that you "liked" chocolate. Well, do you still like chocolate now or only before?"

"Well, I should like to say that I should have liked to have chocolate, would I to have had that chance to have it just then."

"Come now Feng, this isn't masterpiece theater, just up and tell us whether you'll have chocolate or vanilla? Now, CHOOSE!"

"Vanilla."

"Why vanilla?"

"Because I find your line of questioning particularly misleading?"

"I had asked for a simple reason for your choosing vanilla. How can that possibly be misleading?"

"Right then. Vanilla because I like to choose it this go round"

"Feng, do you not see that every time I ask you for the reason why you change your mind? First it was because you like it, next it was because you liked it then, now it's because you 'like to choose it this go round'. What is the real reason you choose it?"

"Because I choose it."

"Exactly, simply that. Because you choose it. You see, choice is not that complicated: just choose it."

"Hold on there a minute..what is it?"

"What's what?"

"Your name."

"Dana"

"...Dana is it? Well then, Mr. Dana, I must say that your sleight of hand has mislead us into a truncated view of choice. Your account has neglected various of the elements of a philosophical grammar of deliberation. You haven't taken into consideration that in ordinary language these locutions, e.g., 'because I like it' or 'because it seems meet just now', etc., function as a kind of shorthand for practical deliberation. Would you have me throw away practical deliberation?" intoned Feng crossly.

"First of all Feng, its Dana Parker, and second I'm not asking for your philosophy of life. Now that's your Racket Feng. Whenever the world doesn't go Your Way, you get on it about being right. We know that you are here to become a better human being, and Feng has revealed where he is stuck on being right," said the forum leader looking outward now to the crowd.

" Listen Parker, when a man asks me, "will you have a vanilla or chocolate cone: CHOOSE!" I am at a loss as to what he might mean. Does he mean to give me a cone? Does he mean to be performing a kind of gag? No, Parker, I am not interested in your patent tautology, not at all."

"You are making your own point. The point of the exercise Feng is to get clear on what is meant by choice. For us here you choose simply because you choose. That's it. Now see how offensive you become to others when you are on it and being right."

"Well that's bloody styoopid now isn't it."