Transcript from a TV show recently.
Josh is reading phrases spoken by an opponent who is running for president. The phrases are easy to understand catchphrases designed to sound smart and win votes.
JOSH: "It's good to be trapped in a corner. That's when you act."
DONNA: That happens to be true.
JOSH: It is. In my case, it's the only time that I do.
DONNA: So?
JOSH: It's Immanuel Kant! "Duty! Sublime and mighty name, that embraces nothing charming or insinuating but requires submission." Every year a million freshman philosophy students
read that sentence.
DONNA: And change their major?
JOSH: You've just got a mouth full of wiseass today, don't you?
DONNA: I located the lightswitch.
JOSH: Could you locate it again?
DONNA: So he cripped Kant. Isn't that what you're suppose to do?
JOSH: It comes from a 193-page book called "A Critique of Practical Reason." It's about metaphysica and epistemology. Tomba's impressively boiled it down to two-thirds of one page. Give me another one.
DONNA: "Look outside the cave."
JOSH: Right. That's from an old paperback called "The Republic" by Plato. Lucky Tomba's been able to fit on fortune cookie so it suits the attention span of the Republican nominee. Here he quotes Robert Frost. "Good fences make good neighbors." Did he talk about that?
DONNA: Yeah.
JOSH: What did Tomba say?
DONNA: Basically, that if you stay within your personal space, you'll end up getting along with everyone.
JOSH: You had to study modern poetry.
DONNA: Yes.
JOSH: Is that what Frost meant?
DONNA: No, he meant that boundries are what alienate us from each other.
JOSH: Why did he say "Good fences make good neighbors?"
DONNA: He was being ironic, but I still don't see...
JOSH: What does this remind you of? "I believe in hope, not fear." "I'm a leader, not a politician." "It's time for an American leader." "America's earned a change." "I before 'E' except after 'C'!" It's the fortune-cookie candidacy! These are important thinkers, and understanding them can be very useful and it's not ever going to happen at a four-hour seminar. When the President's got an embassy surrounded in Haiti, or a keyhole photograph of a heavy water reactor, or any of the fifty life-and-death matters that walk across his desk every day, I don't know if he's thinking about Immanuel Kant or not. I doubt it, but if he does, I am comforted at least in my certainty that he is doing his best to reach for all of it and not just the McNuggets. Is it possible we would be willing to require any less of the person sitting in that chair? The low road? I don't think it is