SOPHISTRY

I am beside myself so, having no other options, I joined the North Carolina branch of the NAACP.  This minimal act of desperation put me in mind of a lovely passage from the Preface to Kierkegaard’s exquisite short work, Philosophical Fragments:

“When Philip threatened to lay siege to the city of Corinth, and all its inhabitants hastily bestirred themselves in defense, some polishing weapons, some gathering stones, some repairing the walls, Diogenes seeing all this hurriedly folded his mantle about him and began to roll his tub zealously back and forth through the streets.  When he was asked why he did this he replied that he wished to be busy like the rest, and rolled his tub lest be the only idler among so many industrious citizens.”

Kierkegaard comments, “Such conduct is at any rate not sophistical, if Aristotle be right in describing sophistry as the art of making money.”

Each of us must do what he or she can do in these terrible times.