Remembrance of Childhood

My father was a professor of philosophy, and my mother was a journalist. Since they have both retired, she interviews him all day long, and he pontificates more and more bizarrely as the years go by. My life would have been simpler if a parent had been a preacher, or even a criminal -- I could have risen above those circumstances. I could have defined my self in contrast with their warped view of life.

However, a philosopher is an intellectual con-man, one who has staked out a living and a lifestyle by proving the illogical nature of any argument or point of view. Empiricism, rationalism, extentialism all point to an internally consistent way of life. As a child and teenager, I tried out various lifestyles, only to have their underpinning eroded by the force of syllogism.

I tried religion in the form of Sunday school and all the morals and traditions of the Christian church. The philosopher at home scoffed at the obvious hypocrisy of everything I learned those Sunday mornings. Jesus was alright, even admirable, but his message was not to be found in any church building. Jesus would have overturned the tables at the recreation center potluck dinner. The exclusionism and arrogance of the congregation could only benefit from a thorough cleansing of the temples.

I tried rebellion, rejecting all external authority. Anything my parents (or teachers) said was prima facie stupid, pathetic, and mean. In the face of all scientific evidence, I smoked cigarettes. I skipped school as often as possible, and smoked pot like a Reefer Madness fiend. I rejected the societally-imposed values of materialism and social structure.

The parental reaction was more genial, but equally disdainful. All that motivated my generation's hippie mentality had already been tried, and much better, in the sixties. Even Bob Dylan, the messiah of social revolution, had given up and started advertising women's underwear.

The rebuke was more equally condescending as the response to organized religion, but somewhat more amiable. My lashing out at constrictive social rules was seen as charming and somewhat cute. The social structure, I was informed, is a product of immutable human nature. Aggression and dominance are genetically programmed in the human animal. Governments and other institutions can only hope to maintain a balance of hostilities, and the prospect for the future is bleak. Idealism and the power of love is a pleasant delusion that had been tested by the best only to a tragic failure and disappointment. That dream died with Jimi Hendrix and Altamont.

From a sheer lack of options, I adopted a personna of cynicism and bitter humor. In my school contacts I avoided and mocked the upward-striving "successful" kids, whom I saw as materialists and holy rollers. My friends displayed the same edgy sarcasm that I did.

Of course, the professor was not impressed with that lifeview either. I was told that I was making the logical fallacy of nihilism. Descartes had unimpeachably proved that simply observing and commenting on the passing social experience constituted an underlying belief system. "I think, therefore I am;" therefore the universe cannot be simply nothing. Cynicism was characterized as the product of a lazy and immature mind.