Stop Making Sense

There’s no question about it. Science, logic, common sense – they are all overrated. Don’t take my word for it. Consult the experts. The late eminent paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould clearly demonstrated the truth of this assertion when he debunked the old argument that only the fittest survive. Now, don’t get me wrong. Gould had all the respect in the world for Darwin and evolution. It’s just that we obviously superior life forms, human beings, did not emerge solely because we were elite survivors of some competition. No, says Gould. In fact, sheer, random luck was probably at least as responsible for the outcome. And there were other factors that we just don’t know about.

And that’s where the problem lies. Nobody like to say that they do not know, even when that is the only proper response to a question. We like to think that finding the absolutely correct answer is only a matter of approach. Once you find the proper route, victory is as good as achieved. But this is simply not true. What you might think of as the correct approach, the only possible answer to a problem, is only one of a limitless universe of possibilities. Consider this exchange between two of our legendary figures:

Groucho: "Have you ever had any experience as a kidnapper?"
Chico: "You bet. You know what I do when I kidnap somebody? First I call 'em up on the telephone, then I send 'em my chauffeur."
"Oh, have you got a chauffeur? What kind of a car have you got?
"Oh, I no got a car, I just got a chauffeur."
"Well maybe I'm crazy, but when you have a chauffeur, aren't you supposed to have a car?"
"Well I had one, but you see it cost too much money to keep a car and a chauffeur so I sold the car."
"Well that shows you how little I know. I would've kept the car and sold the chauffeur."
"That's a-no good. I gotta have a chauffeur to take me to work in the morning."
"Well if you've got no car, how can he take you to work?"
"He don't have to take me to work, I no got a job."

Of course, you might dismiss this as mere erratic hyperbole. These guys don’t want to make sense. They’re just kidding. If you asked them to be serious, they would tell you a completely different story. They would readily admit to you that, given a choice, they would select the car over the chauffeur. Let us not jump, however, to such an unsupported conclusion. To refute such a contention, all we need do is observe the behavior of Leonard Joseph Marx (Chico) in a formal business setting. After a long, arduous search, Chico finally obtained employment at a hotel. His immediate thought was to secure a similar position for his unfortunate grandfather:

"Do you have a job for my grandpa?"
Manager: "What does he do?"
Chico: "He puts cheese in mousetraps."
Manager: "Mousetraps? We don't have any mice here!
Chico: "It's OK, he brings his own."

He brings his own! Certainly, he does. And why shouldn’t he? No other response could serve as a better refutation to those who rely upon logic to settle such questions. We cannot make blithe assumptions, because in these situations contingency reigns. There are a countless number of possible responses. And it is not only responses that must answer to such unpredictability. Questions themselves are equally affected. How else could Professor Irwin Corey, “The World’s Foremost Authority,” begin his cogent disquisitions with the word “However”? Yes, “However” informs all listeners that, even though they were not aware of it, a world of information has already preceded his initial remarks. And so it has, if you think about it. How could it not when uncountable conversations had already occurred between uncountable individuals in all of the world’s languages? And that places everything in a completely different context. Science, logic, common sense all bow before such truisms. How could they not?