Wednesday, February 02, 2005

If you can break it, you can build something better

I had this random rant in english. I am very tired and hungry.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. This is a well known metaphor, usually to denote the precarious position of the person to whom the metaphor is directed. This person, who, for the purpose of this rant, we shall name Jerry, is currently protected by the fragile logic represented by a "glass house." Unfortunately, Jerry has begun to throw metaphorical stones, or ideas that are not compatible with his current logical foundation. These stones shatter the glass of Jerry's weak logicand he finds himself completely unprotected in a metaphorical world that represents his intellectual position. Of course, one rarely takes into consideration that Jerry, while out of a logical resting place, now possesses several logical rocks, with which Jerry can take a number of different actions. Possibility one: Jerry, frustrated with his lack of shelter, takes his rocks and begins throwing them at other glass houses. Unfortunately, this action will lead to resentment by the home owners who were happy with their transparent logical structures. These victims of frustrated logic will retaliate, pelting poor Jerry with their shards of ignorance. The broken pieces of their glass houses, while not as heavy or as solid as Jerry's rocks, are sharp and very dangerous. Hopefully, Jerry will learn from from this mistake. Then, he can take his rocks and build a new house of logic. It may not be perfect, but it would be better than his old glass house. If he should discover a substance that could break his new walls, he will only have something sturdier with which to build a new structure.

2 comments:

Jonah Comstock said...

THat's quite a metaphor. As soon as I figure it out I'll let you know what I think of it.

Marten said...

I don't think you need a metaphor to tell you not to play with dynamite. The rocks symbolize logic because you CAN build something out of them. dynamite would symbolize something even more skewed than the logic behind a glass house, as well as the destructive power of ignorance.