They are cousins. They argue about Tim a lot. Not even the law seems to know what to do with him they say. The case lingers on as experts dither. Many say he should have his day in court. Others think he should rot where he is. Everyone pontificates. All agree the matter shows the way forward or backward, that its upshot is potentially catholic.
It is not strange many contend that things seem at a head. The matter has dragged on for ages, its roots in the good of most pique some as being worn narrative. Others blame it on the mystification of the custodians of the psyche, on what some deride as their hubris formulating theories the rigor invoked to back which their progenitors and relics alike seemingly deny. They absolve the platform from whence pronounced the endgame of this confusion that albeit lays bare goodwill even as the narratives confound all.
Interest in it heightens by the day even as research implies a downturn in vile, as many term it unabashedly, even as something lurks in all, as vendors of the fiat insist, basal to what most refuse to revere. The cousins split on that score. Tim for one is a victim, regardless of the pain he causes. He lacks the intellectual wherewithal to resist his basal urges or channel them into more acceptable and less harmful acts, he contends. He concludes that such a person actually needs help. His cousin is less deterministic in outlook, it seems, as he asserts Tim should pay for his hedonism.
That Tim considers his needs override those of others to be safe is not the only issue in contention. The cousins also differ on the issues that perpetuate the polarization this matter engendered over the years, with nerds in fact now among the long list of culprits. It appears the matter would remain unresolved as long as it blinds the benign soul to its pervasive angst of an often-irritating powerlessness to what nonetheless it deems essentially basal, one avers.
Nonetheless, he does not see this as enough reason for someone to languish incognito. He claims to situate his position on firmer grounds. In effect he concedes he says what might have worked in the past does not necessarily work now. He maintains though that he sees no reason in particular why it even did then. He claims his allowance for relative lack of sophistication validates that position, the reverse, that of his contempt for the persistence of the untenable.
His cousin on the other hand roots his position on all things, which he argues, are fundamental to humanity, its very nature to be free, to avoid pain, to seek pleasure. He even suggests that to establish the opposing view is to negate the person, even erase the being. His claim that society would in turn vanish eventuates his argument for individuals to be responsible in the ways they pursue this freedom, or face the sanctions it prescribes. He does not seem to care whether the perpetrators operate in cyberspace or in caves.
His cousin says to abhor rehabilitation is to condemn all. He contends the continuum of the manacles of the hedonic mandates caution, lest people such as Tim would never see the sun again. He argues that we cannot visit that fate on our children who celebrate their torso in electronic mails to friends, or twitter its alternate manifest. He says we would need to send the message of freedom otherwise to the infirm whose freedom we now vilify. Yet, again, he calls for consensus to mete sanctions when due.
He denies advocating panacea. He says he abhors violence, but argues he wants to view it with lenses befitting the current and not borrowed from the past. He argues for the characterization of what some would deem an element of consensual social intercourse even with violence involved, as he argues, many contend both parties would sanction, the enterprise muted. He says may be that is indeed, the case with Tim and he should be let out because the party involved also says matters started in harmony.
“Would you excuse his admission of drinking all night then?”
“Certainly not, but they were both drinking.”
“Yes, they were. They were out together. But he forced his way in uninvited.”
“Uninvited all the way you meant to say.”
“Does that not make it wrong?”
“It does, but the antecedent matters too, his psychic state, for example.”
The argument goes back and forth on the extent to which this psychic state could factor in absolving someone of blame for violating another. It then reverts back to the distinction earlier made between free will and determinism. The protagonist of the latter emphasizes what of an individual, that of the former, who the individual is, but both agree the individual is first an individual. They agree to qualify the individual but do that in opposite ways. Yet, they also agree that to a large extent what an individual is derives from who that individual is.
The determinist cousin claims victory, but the other says it is pyrrhic. Freedom he claims derives from an intrinsic duel that the individual could in the end claim to incrementally win, although he concedes that the process would be long and tedious. His cousin says this is why Tim and such persons should be in hospital and in custody. He contends that only better knowledge of our nature holds promise for freedom, even as we inevitably are moribund.
“Perhaps we are not, after all.”
“Ok. We live longer now.”
“Yes, isn’t that something?”
“You think we might be able to stop mother earth dying?”
“No, but we might just be bright enough to move. They say there may be millions like our planet in our galaxy alone.”
“Hmmm. We’ll see.
It is early evening. They do not seem to be in a rush. They order another round of hot green tea, and some digestives, and start another argument. They usually do not leave until much later.
