Banana Fanna Foe

By ned * Other ned Posts

In middle school, I was often referred to by the name “Sned.” After it caught on, I embraced it but that was not initially the case. My friend Pat created the name using logic that a 12 year old would embrace and I, the worldlier young adult, feel embarrassed to admit.

“You see if you put an ‘S’ in front of the name, it is your gay name … isn’t that right, Sned?”

We chuckled about it and, of course, created a variety of alternative names: Swill, Stim, and Smeera were particular favorites. But then, as any friend would, he began to call me Sned in front of everybody. Our secret code became public and I was the butt of our inside joke. Because he was a persistent and gregarious person, much to my chagrin, it caught on. For the next three years, I was Sned.

Nicknames are easily associated with different social circles and periods in my life. Distinct groups of people call me certain things because that is when they knew me and what they called me. In middle school I was Sned, high school Nedinator, my college fraternity Flandizzle, New York Nedders … to name a few. I generally avoid bringing up nicknames from Elementary school. On that note, I caution all future parents to avoid naming your child something that rhymes with “ed” as it can lead to such wonderful poems such as “Ned, Ned, he wets the bed and then his face turns red and he has a big head …” But, I digress. Despite the wide variety of results coming from the base of nuh, eh, and duh, there are common trends in how my new names were established that I feel are pretty universal.

The “Sned” example highlights two potential catalysts for a nickname. First of all, there was a charismatic personality. Without Pat beating people over the head with the name to his own amusement and being a dynamic person, the herd probably would never have followed. Secondly, there was a sophomoric or mildly offensive joke involved that was at the expense of the one who bears the name. But what if the name does not make someone blush? How else can it catch on?

When I mention that one nickname I have been blessed with is “Flanders” to anyone of my generation, it usually met with nods of unspoken understanding. Ned Flanders is just that recognizable of pop culture character for anyone born after 1975. Therefore the step to call me "Flanders" is not a stretch beyond anyone’s imagination. Same thing might go for someone named Xena being introduced as "Warrior Princess." To some who love late night reruns of 90's TV classics, its so obvious and, my goodness, it divinely rolls from the tongue. For me, the simple call-someone-by-their-last-name nickname catches on for much the same reason. Some people have straightforward, hard hitting last names that are just too easy to then translate into their known name. For all of these reasons, easy derivation from the base name is one more reactant that can help make a nickname rocket take off.

Through these means my nicknames have developed despite a natural redundancy - Ned is actually a nickname in the first place. Moreover, the sum of the parts tells a story. To leverage a High Fidelity concept, the “autobiographical” sequence of my nicknames are representative of the times and stages of my life. "Nedinator" came into play at a point when Schwarzenegger's nostalgia cool was at its peak. Flanders only caught on because of the popularity of the Simpsons circa 1988 to the present. It was appropriately adjusted to “Flandizzle” at the height of Snoopisms as demonstrated by brief life of that hit MTV2 series Doggy Fizzle Televizzle. Similarly, the use of my formal nickname in potty mouth poetry in lower school was just friends using what tools second graders have available: rhyming, colors and tinkle.

As a last characteristic, nicknames are rarely your choice. Although that can sometimes cause laughter to be directed at you, what this means is that nicknames signify the number of deep connections that you have made. Nicknames are born out of moments and a level of comfort that can only come with large amounts of time spent with another individual and group. That is one reason why the Feets, Taters, Wallys, Balls, Martinis, and I of this world should all feel blessed.

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Do you have any good nickname stories? I encourage you to share them in the comments section below.

The Atomic Balm

By Doug Lieblich * Other Doug Lieblich Posts

Atomic Balm

ATTENTION AMERICAN CITIZENS

Top Secret Code Cable: US472-110-2XIZ- Date: 11/23/06

Subject: Atomic Balm Ready for Commercial Use!!!

An Urgent Message from The Pentagon:

Since the age of the atom, scientists have thirsted to harness the awesome power of nuclear energy for a cause that could truly help mankind: lip balm. First created in a secret conference in 1941 called the Epidermal Project, the Atomic Balm was used to prevent a long war over supple skin, a war which may have cost many lives due to the most nefarious scourge, dryness.

The Atomic Balm is an FDA-approved method of fighting Communism. In 1956, we lost the Balm monopoly; moisturizing tests in the Ural Mountains indicated that the Soviets did indeed get their hands (and lips) on the Balm—soon a race for international supremacy in kiss-ability and poutiness was in full swing.

For decades, it seemed that the public would be deprived of the awesome power of the world’s most potent lip balm…UNTIL NOW!

With the fall of the Kremlin and a tragic toxic spill off the Pacific coast resulting in a glut of Nuclear Jelly (delicious Nuclear Jelly), our loss is your gain!

That’s right! The commercial Atomic Balm designed for civilian use is dropping on unsuspecting shelves in a store near you! It’s the military-industrial-cosmetic complex at its best!

We’re liquidating all of our Atomic Balms, nuclear, thermonuclear, blue raspberry, and hydrogen: EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Aside from containing irritable, red, Commie lips, Atomic Balm is an effective moisturizer for even the flakiest face. Just apply a liberal dab of the cream and rub vigorously onto the face until the milky fluid congeals into a glittering gel. Now that’s radioactively clear.

Tired of getting cracked lips in winter, dry scalp from low humidity, or damaged skin from raccoon fights? Well with Atomic Balm’s patented radioactive technology you’ll now be shouting, “My blood hurts, but my skin is so eerily smooth!” Straight from the think tanks in the Pentagon, we guarantee that the Atomic Balm will leave you glowing!

Note: Atomic Balm may cause a popping sensation in your ears and leave a residue with a texture similar to that of old yogurt. Do not be alarmed. President Eisenhower requested this effect.

Testimonials

“At first, I was concerned with Atomic Balm’s handwritten label and a little put off that it came in a lead jar, but when I realized that the Pentagon did not test on animals I was S-O-L-D. After 9 years, 5 months, and 41 days of mashing my face into that delicious “God-cream,” I am A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D!” –John Grover, 45

“$19.95 a bottle? That’s only 8000 rubles! These prices are so outrageously low, I almost wish I were still able to deploy some of them in Cuba! Damn you, you capitalist dogs.”- Ghost of Nikita Kruschev

Possible side effects of the Atomic Balm include eczema, headache, stomach ache, back ache, achy break heart, belly ache, leg ache, Mutually Assured Destruction, red eyes, and dry mouth

Atomic Balm: “It’s The Balm!”

My First Time Getting Drunk

By Josh Cain * Other Josh Cain Posts

Like many Americans youths, I first got drunk in a college dorm. Unlike most, it happened at Harvard University, a school I did not attend. I was playing a rugby match against Harvard but, being a freshman and the littlest Rugger, I was excluded from the social events attended by the big, strong guys who didn’t have their playing time defined by the requirement that everyone get to play for a few minutes. After an unusually good game for me (my highlight reel included missing a catch and slipping on some mud), I ended up going out on the town with my roommate, Evan, and a rag-tag band that included Evan’s nerdy friend Iggy, Christian farmboy and fellow bench-warmer Gabe, and Terry, a hallmate and rugger who should have been out with the cool kids but for some reason wasn’t.

Our team thus assembled, we set out to enjoy our weekend in Cambridge at a Harvard room party. Up to this point I had never been drunk, as my high school social life of playing video games and being afraid of girls would not have been greatly improved by alcohol. On this special night, though, the combination of an exotic location, relative safety of a dorm, and encouragement of my friends had created a perfect storm that promised to soon see me washed up on the sandy shores of Drunktown.

My mental image of the festivities - hot chicks lounging on expensive furniture sipping brightly colored drinks with umbrellas and/or sparklers - was savagely dashed by a room full of average looking individuals clutching forties. When I announced that I was intending to get drunk, a tweed-clad Harvardian thrust a bottle of cheap vodka at me and attempted to engage me in the group’s discourse on the philosophy of Kant. I responded by loudly exclaiming, “You know what movie was awesome? Rush Hour 2!” There was an awkward silence and I was left to enjoy my beverage in peace.

My first sip was predictably heinous, but I managed to soldier on and consume enough booze such that my walking was impaired by the time my friends announced that the party was moving. Our host’s promises of “awesome ragers” resulted in a series of treks to increasingly uninteresting room parties. During our pilgrimage, Evan, a strapping young man, announced that he needed to pee and immediately undid his pants in the middle of the street. Terry and Iggy quickly followed suit, and thus the public urination commenced. I stood nervously at a distance, planning to dash at the first sign of trouble. So concerned with being brought up on the permanent record besmirching charges of public urination and underage drunkenness, I failed to notice our hosts receding in the distance. By the time it was concluded, we were alone. Our Harvard friends either didn’t realize we had stopped or had seized on the opportunity to finally be rid of us.

Isolated and inebriated, we stood in a befuddled daze until Gabe came to the rescue. “I heard them say they were going to a party on the 3rd floor of that building over there! Or maybe it was the 4th… Whatever, Let’s go!”

Shambling our way up the stairs, we arrived on the 3rd floor and began knocking on doors. The first few yielded no response and, as our hopes of continued mediocre parties faded, we reached the last door on the floor. I politely knocked and the door creaked open. Looking back at us were a trio of attractive girls with confused expressions on their faces. “Um…is the party in here?” one of us asked. “It is now!” they replied, throwing the door open wide.

We entered and were greeted with a fairly typical college suite. There was a decently sized common room with a couple couches, lightly strewn with empty beer bottles and pizza boxes, a door that led to what I assumed was a bedroom, and a bathroom. Despite my inebriation, I was able to notice and comment on the fact that most of the girls seemed to be wearing some form of Penn State apparel. “Oh we’re just visiting,” one of them said, “we don’t go to Harvard.” Within minutes we were playing a make-out game.

My adolescent fear of the opposite gender had managed to conquer the effects of the alcohol, so rather than participate I instead began talking to the anemic guy sitting in the corner, so thin and pale I had not noticed him upon my first survey of the room. At just barely over 110 lbs, he told me in a high-pitched, wraith-like voice that he was a security guard. I stifled laughter and asked him why he was there. “Oh, one of those girls is my sister,” he said, indicating one the people engaged in a round of “Suck and Blow”. The temptation to guffaw was again resisted.

During this brief distraction there was a whirlwind of activity that settled into the following scene: Terry and Iggy vanished into the bedroom along with two of the girls; Gabe standing around looking troubled and clearly thinking of his hometown girlfriend; Evan on the other couch, flagrantly making out with the remaining girl. As Gabe and I stood agape at his activities in the only common room in the place, Evan turned to us with a look of disgust, and said, “A little privacy, guys?”

Always an obliging individual, I walked through the open door of the bedroom that my friends had disappeared through moments before to see what Terry and Iggy were up to. It took me a second to identify the pink, writhing mass on the bed: my friends and the two ladies I had just met, all four of them topless. Terry and Iggy were each making out with a different girl, side-by-side. Before I could fully appreciate this feat, Terry disentangled himself, slapped Iggy on the back, and said “Yo, switch it up,” at which point they elegantly exchanged partners. I began to laugh, but realized I had a much more pressing concern as I dashed to the bathroom to vomit.

Unprepared for the explosive nature of my expulsion, I managed to soak a large portion of the room in the remains of my Chinese dinner. Luckily I had enough presence of mind to find the paper towels and begin cleaning. During my cleansing of the bathroom, Evan began banging on the door telling me how he “really had to go.” I finally got rid of the evidence and allowed him to burst through the door and commence befouling the bathroom in much the way I had done moments before. Unlike me, however, he remained clutching the toilet bowl, whimpering incoherently. Terry seemed the most at home in the chaos, so I politely interrupted his orgy and requested his assistance. Terry came to the bathroom and began giving Evan water and generally nursing him back to health. I contributed by saying things like, “Hahah…look at Evan! He sure can’t hold his liquor!” as I discreetly hid the paper towels I’d used earlier. My running commentary was cut short when I was told I was “not helping” and was sent away.

As I re-entered the common room, the sounds echoing from the bedroom reminded me that, with the subtraction of Terry, the gawky, bespectacled Iggy had been left in the bedroom with two very excited females. Not knowing what to do, I sat next to the security guard and engaged him in conversation. “So…your sister’s pretty loud, huh?” Another awkward silence ensued.

Eventually Evan regained the ability to walk and, with our hosts concerned about his health and threatening to call an ambulance, we retrieved Iggy from his male fantasy and lumbered out into the hall, still somewhat delirious from all that had happened. As we walked out, I timidly spoke up. “So...uhm…is it always like that when people drink?”

Let Me Be Honest

By Standard * Other Standard Posts

I went to a memorial service yesterday. My uncle died in December after suffering from Alzheimer’s for years, but the six month gap between the event and the service allowed us to spend more time remembering his brilliant, charismatic, and wonderful life rather than lamenting the disease that took him from us far too soon.

During the service, the minister said something that stuck with me. “Let us be honest with death,” she said: “it is sorrow, but it is not annihilation.”

My father died on a cold Monday night in December of 1996, and I have never once considered being honest with death. I’ve thought plenty of other things: I’ve been resentful of death; I’ve cursed death; I’ve said impolite things about death’s mother. In my more generous moods I have been indifferent towards death, but mostly—despite the obvious impossibility of such an idea, considering the enormous impact my father’s death has had on my life—I have just tried to ignore death. That’s always difficult to do on Father’s Day, but it’s especially difficult this year.

It strikes me that honesty is a more mature, more grown-up, more politic way to go, so today I would like to try to be honest with death.

First, death is an asshole. My father missed out on so many things in his kids' lives—attending our high school and college graduations, tailgating with me before Bills’ games, walking my sister down the aisle when she gets married this fall—and he missed out on so many things in his own life—sailing, endlessly remodeling our house, retirement.

I’m also terrified of death. Nothing about death seems pleasant. I’m not scared of being dead; non-being doesn’t strike me as any more awful than pre-being. It’s the transition to non-being that’s intimidating. But it’s more than that: I’m so terrified of death that I’m not sure if I’ll have a family. What happens if I too die young? Could I take the risk of putting my family through that?

To say that death is sorrow is like saying that a hurricane is a rainstorm. It’s kind of an understatement.

And I’m never completely sure that death isn’t annihilation. I remember less and less of my father every year. I depend more and more on pictures and home movies. As Paul Auster says, remembered things have a tendency to subvert the things remembered.

But if I’m being honest, I have to say that death has made me appreciate the people in my life in a completely different way than I could have before.

Death also makes me appreciate the type of person my father was when he was still alive. He was funny, generous, loyal, handy, and supportive. He loved his family as much as any man ever has, and he asked for nothing in return. He had a dry sense of humor and an infectious belly laugh. He had an admirable amount of common sense. He was relatively unathletic and had little musical ability of his own, but he was an accomplished chauffeur to music lessons and sporting events, a master of videotaping band concerts, and a pithy motivational speaker. (Here’s an example of the last: when he learned that my sister sang songs in her head while she was swimming, he told her to sing a faster song.)

If I’m being completely honest with death, I have to say I’m glad death waited as long as he did. I learned a lot from my father in the thirteen years I knew him. I learned what it means to be a responsible human being, I learned to think before I speak, and I learned that shit happens.

There’s something, finally, that death can’t touch: my father still makes me want to be a better person. And I'll always love him for that.

The GRE: Reflections on Academic Irrelevance

By RTTF * Others by RTTF

I recently began preparing to take the GRE, the great standard-bearer of graduate admissions. I was buzzing haplessly along when I stumbled upon the following analogy:

QUARRY: HUNT:

a) terminus: voyage

b) guerdon: repetition

c) accolade: campaign

d) epitome: culture

e) anomaly: puzzle

Now, I imagine many of you – like me – thought that 'quarry' was a stone pit, and so may be having difficulties solving this particular analogy. If not, bear with me as I enlighten my fellow philistines as to the more sophisticated definition of this fine word.

Quarry (kwor-ee)

Etymology: Middle English quirre, querre entrails of game given to the hounds, from Anglo-French cureie, quereie, from quir, cuir skin, hide (on which the entrails were placed), from Latin corium

Date:14th century

1: obsolete: a heap of the game killed in a hunt

2: game; specifically : game hunted with hawks

3: one that is sought or pursued : prey

Now, maybe I’m just bitter, but when did academic excellence require me to know about hawk- hunting? Is this the Graduate Record Exam -- or the Germanic Regent’s Exam? Am I applying to be an 18th-century Duke?

Granted, a person may know this word from reading Jane Austen novels or adventure books. And granted, I am now indebted to the GRE for enlightening me to an interesting double-meaning in the title of Morissey’s album You Are the Quarry which had hitherto gone unnoticed. But, while gleaning vocabulary from novels about landed gentry may be a contingent indicator of education, it seems absurd to presume any direct relationship between your general level of intelligence and knowing obscure -- and specialized --vocabulary. If we’re going Jane Austen, why not science fiction? Can we just have a whole section on words Kurt Vonnegut made up? Chrono-synclastic infundibulum, anyone?

More to the point, if we’re going to test for specialized knowledge, couldn’t it at least be knowledge that is relevant to today’s society? Why not test a person’s knowledge of slang, or street culture? May I suggest:

DUB SACK: POT

a) quart: milk

b) salary: money

c) forty: olde english

d) box: barrel

Now this is a good analogy. In order to get this right, you have to make the connection that not only is a ‘dub sack’ something that contains an amount of pot, but that the certain amount is not fixed by volume or quantity. Rather, it depends on the quality of weed, and current market conditions. Similarly, while a quart always contains the same amount of milk, the amount of money that is contained in a person’s salary is not fixed, but depends on the quality of the worker and the conditions of the market.

As a prospective candidate for a Sociology degree, I’m pretty sure the knowledge tested in this analogy will help me a little more than the word for the prey sought by hawk-hunters. And yes, Educational Testing Service, I am currently accepting job offers.

The sad part of this is that the specialization and disconnectedness from everyday life that is reflected in the GREs is an all-too-accurate indicator of the state of academia. Anyone who’s spent much time on the websites of our premier academic institutions knows that the bios of faculty and the curricula of courses can read like a catalogue of sub-fields and jargon. Which strikes me as self-defeating. The principle of specialization, just like comparative advantage, works on the assumption that people are working on what they're best at – and then sharing it. A company divides its work among specialists – and then puts it all together. But when the very language in which our 'knowledge specialists' are learning to express themselves is meaningless to anyone who doesn't share their specialty, interdisciplinary work becomes impossible. And here's a stoner thought if you ever need one: isn't, like, life interdisciplinary, man?

A few months ago the New York Times ran an op-ed in which a professor at Columbia suggested that academic departments be reorganized not around disciplines but around fundamental problems such as Time, Work, Media, Water, Mind, and Money. Then economists, philosophers, biologists, literary critics, psychologists and all the rest could teach – and gain – multiple perspectives on central problems in our lives. This professor points out that from a practical, problem-solving perspective, this is necessary. He notes for example that those who study religion and those who study international relations haven't really worked together before, and now might be the time to start.

The use of varying methodologies and sensibilities could make the humanities a little more rigorous, and the 'practical' subjects a little more, well, human. The first step in this is that academics learn to express themselves in ways that communicate their ideas, not just show off how terribly well-read they are. So if we want a society that makes decisions with its brain and not with its guts, we might want to start by getting its institutional head out of the hawk-hunting clouds.

You Kant Do That on a Blog, Part II of III

By Observation Deck * Other Observation Desk Posts

For You Kant Do That on a Blog, Part I, please go here.

When we last left our hero – Kant – he was stuck…

A murderer had asked him for the whereabouts of his next innocent victim. Kant knew that if he told the murderer where the victim was hiding, the victim would certainly be killed and he – Kant – would in effect be sending this victim to her death. But at the same time, if he did not tell the murder the victim’s hiding place, he would be lying.

Kant, as we know, draws his superpowers from the categorical imperative and the categorical imperative states BOTH that we should not murder AND that we should not lie.

Faced with this cosmic conundrum, what is our intrepid hero to do? Find out in this episode of You Kant Do That on a Blog, Part II…

Just when Kant finds himself trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place – murder and lying – Kant’s super friend Captain Obvious arrives.

Captain Obvious argues: Not telling the murderer where the victim is hiding is not technically lying – it is merely withholding information (namely the whereabouts of the victim). There is a distinction between the two and therefore, Kant is saved from the challenge to his categorical imperative.

But Kant isn’t out of the woods – like in so many times in the past, Captain Obvious is half baked. The difference between lying and withholding information is only semantics (no matter how much Bill Clinton would like you to believe otherwise) and Kant would make no distinction between their moral content. In addition, the categorical imperative against lying would, when rigorously applied, also extend to a prohibition against the withholding of information.

Just then, Plausible Man shows up. He argues that telling the murderer where the victim is hiding does not amount to murder (in legal parlance this would be considered “accessory to murder” rather than murder itself) and therefore, the categorical imperative actually allows Kant to tell the murderer where the victim is hiding.

Close Plausible Man, but this is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades. This still doesn’t get Kant out of his jam because it is once again a technicality and not a substantive argument. We can easily tweak our hypothetical so that the result of Kant telling the truth would be the active killing of another.

For example, we could imagine a scenario in which a person with a terrible heart condition asks Kant to tell her the truth about his family who was just killed in a car crash. The truth would cause her such emotional stress that she would certainly die from the news. This scenario would make Kant the “proximate cause” of another’s death and remove Plausible Man’s technicality argument.

No, the only person who can save Kant is himself; but does the categorical imperative give him enough power to get out of this jam? Interestingly, the scenario presented above – a murderer asking for the whereabouts of his next victim (aka “the inquiring murderer hypothetical”) – was actually posed to Kant by Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant while Kant was still alive (albeit a 73-year-old curmudgeon). As you can imagine, it was a major philosophical challenge – as close as you’re ever going to get to a modern-day throw down between two 18th Century European philosophers.

To defend his moral philosophy against Constant’s attack, Kant actually wrote an essay called On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives in which he actually argues that the categorical imperative requires us to tell the hypothetical murderer the whereabouts of his next victim.

But this seems to run counter to everything our intuitions tell us – most people would probably rationally argue that, in the hypothetical of the inquiring murderer, the moral obligation is for us to NOT tell the truth. I guess a Kant defender would say that our intuitions are wrong and that the categorical imperative sometimes forces us to make moral decisions that run counter to our intuitions. But this seems like a cop out.

So how do we reconcile Kant’s moral framework with our intuitive belief that we ought to not tell the murderer the truth?

I believe the way to do this is to go back to Kant’s own writings in the Groundwork and look at what he says about the difference between perfect duties and imperfect duties.

According to the Groundwork, Kant defines perfect duties as those actions that, when evaluated according to the First Maxim, produce inherent contradictions. In other words, these are actions that cause inherent contradictions when they are rationally applied as universal laws.

For example, the murder is a perfect duty. If we ever tried to apply murder as a universal law, it would lead to an inherent contradiction. Murder presupposes life – namely that there are humans alive to murder and to be murdered. Yet if murder were applied as a universal law, then everyone would be dead and there would be nobody left to murder or to be murdered. It would be inherently contradictory to apply murder as a universal law because we cannot rationally conceive of a world where murder is universally allowed. Because we cannot rationally apply murder as a universal law, it is not permissible under the First Maxim.

Imperfect duties, on the other hand, are actions that, when evaluated according to the First Maxim, DO NOT produce inherent contradictions. Put it another way, these are actions that DO NOT cause inherent contradictions when they are rationally applied as universal laws.

Lying is an imperfect duty. If we tried to apply lying as a universal law, it would NOT lead to an inherent contradiction. Lying DOES NOT presuppose truth-telling – if everybody lied, one could still lie and not produce an untenable position. In fact, we can rationally conceive of a world where lying is universally allowed – it would be a world where everyone lied to everyone else.

But we might ask – if lying is an imperfect duty, then why should we not lie? The answer is – although we can rationally conceive of a world where lying is universally allowed, no one would rationally want to live in such a world. Despite the fact that universalizing lying is not inherently contradictory, lying still cannot be rationally applied as a universal law and therefore is still not permissible under the First Maxim.

The difference between perfect and imperfect duties is very, very subtle. Both of these duties are not permissible under the First Maxim because they cannot be rationally applied as universal laws. The difference is how we arrive at the conclusion that they cannot be rationally applied as universal laws.

In the case of a perfect duty (such as murder), we cannot even rationally conceive of a world where such an action were universally allowed because it would produce an inherent contradiction. And because we cannot even rationally conceive of a world where such an action were universally allowed, we cannot rationally apply it as a universal law. In the case of imperfect duties (such as lying), we CAN rationally conceive of a world where such an action were universally allowed. But because we would not rationally want to live in a world where such actions were universally allowed, we still cannot rationally apply it as a universal law.

The distance between perfect and imperfect duties may be very small, but there might just be enough space there for Kant to squeeze through to get of his predicament. Let us suppose that perfect duties take precedence over imperfect duties. Since the prohibition against murder is a perfect duty and the prohibition against lying is an imperfect duty, Kant would be allowed to lie in order to avoid committing murder.

Unfortunately, Kant is silent about all of this. His discussion of perfect and imperfect duties in the Groundwork does not cover whether one type of duty can supersede the other so there is no way of knowing if the exhaustive (and probably also exhausting) explanation above would actually sit well with Kant.

I would think that Kant would probably hesitate to endorse such an explanation, even if it succeeds in getting him out of the inquiring murderer hypothetical. Kant’s whole purpose in conceiving of the categorical imperative is to construct an absolute rather than framework for morality (such as the utilitarians). To then bring in the possibility – even the possibility – of certain duties trumping others would create a slippery slope which threatens to destroy the absolutist moral framework that Kant has so carefully constructed.

Constant’s inquiring murderer hypothetical is a real poison pill that presents a potentially lethal problem for Kant’s moral philosophy. The explanation that Kant gives in On a Supposed Right – that the categorical imperative requires us to tell the murderer the whereabouts of his victim – doesn’t seem to agree with our intuitive understanding of morality. I have tried to present a way of reconciling Kant’s moral framework with our intuitive morality – by separating murder and lying into perfect and imperfect duties, respectively. But even this leads to potential problems in that it fundamentally relies on a prioritization of perfect vis-à-vis imperfect duties that could plant a relativist seed that could threaten to take down Kant’s entire absolutist moral framework.

A sticky wicket to be sure, but we all knew that nothing about Kant was ever going to be easy or clear.

Alright, I am exhausted by all this heavy philosophical lifting. In the next installment, I will redirect attention to a simpler matter – applying Kant’s moral philosophy in the real world. This will probably be a feat somewhat akin to trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.

Stay tuned.

The Lost Script Notes to Everybody Loves Raymond

By Doug Lieblich * Other Doug Lieblich Posts

As a hip professional working in the entertainment industry, or as we insiders call it, “the biz,,” I have had the privilege of obtaining all sorts of juicy industry gossip. One of my favorite tidbits of Hollywood lore arrived in my collection a few years ago. It was a set of script notes that CBS emailed to the showrunners of Everybody Loves Raymond. Now, for you non-industry people (read: morons), script notes are the comments and revisions a script endures before it “goes into production.” Usually these notes stifle the creativity of the writer. Let us now observe the secret battle of censorship over the late great CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

Episode #137: Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow

Lns 1-5: We would really prefer to open up with Ray walking on set and announcing that he’s home rather than a fade in on him waking up in a puddle of his own vomit.

Ln 9: Error: It’s more in Debra’s character to pour Ray a glass of lemonade rather than a glass of DRAINO.

Lns 17-20 : The sex scene between Ray’s parents is a bit gratuitous. You can omit it.

Ln 18: Having Ray’s brother, Robert, watch the sex while eating pudding and making farm animal noises is not a believable B-story.

Ln 35: We only have enough in the budget to rent one cow. Maybe instead of a milking competition the family can put some oversized sunglasses on it. Now that’s funny, the CBS way.

Ln 39: We also don’t have the budget to pull Jonathon Taylor Thomas out of rehab for a guest appearance.

Ln 41: As mentioned before, we’re renting the cow, not buying it. Therefore, the slaughtering scene must be removed.

Lns 60-80: The dialogue does not really explain Ray’s motivation for burning down that gay bar.

Ln 94: Ray should address his father as “Dad” not “thundercunt.”

Ln 160: We absolutely love the idea of a ghost haunting the Barone household, but can we make it a black ghost?

Ln 175: Once again, sex scene between the parents = unnecessary.

Ln 190: Please change “horse cock” to “thank you.”

Lns 203-218: The flashback to Vietnam does not set as an adequate pretext to Robert’s irrational fear for blind dates in the B-Story.

Ln 220: typo: “your’e” should be “you’re”

Ln 230: typo: “goddamn-it-i-hate-my-life-as-a-writer-for-this-show-please-kill-me-to-end-this-hell” should be “fruit”

Ln 249: We cannot replace the live studio audience with a burlap sack full of geese and large dogs.

Ln 252: The third sex scene between the parents and the writer of the episode should also be removed.

Ln 264: It might be a little early in the season for Ray to lose a finger.

Ln 288: Standards and Practices has a problem with Ray blaming the fact that he lost his job because of “conniving Jews.”

Lns 300-307: Please add a rap song scene with the black ghost.

Ln 315: It is fine if you want Ray to adopt two kids from an orphanage, but you can’t have him return them at the end of the episode.

Ln 333: No one can survive a monster truck impact at that speed.

Ln 345: Please change the ghost’s line from “oooooooh” to “I’mma gonna haunt yo ass.”

Ln 356: It is not in Ray’s character to beat his wife.

Ln 387: Remove wife beating scene

Ln 390: Remove wife beating scene

Ln 410: Remove wife beating scene.

Ln 411: Probably better to use a steel pipe rather than a chunk of dry wall.

Lns 412-449: Remove wife beating scene.

Ln 450: Please add closing joke: “I guess we better get some sunny weather tomorrow.”