But in any case, what is lost cannot be recovered, especially when the “thing” is time. But this is no time to focus on lost time. Rather, I want to talk a little on what has been going on these 2 days, or rather, weeks.
Of course, there was Miranda’s birthday chalet. Although the 2nd day wasn’t quite as expected (we were planning to play war games – or at least dirty/gruesome ones), but the party on the first day really was quite impressive with the number of people and food and cake and…erh…kids! Yeap! Kids from her piano classes and a few from her sister’s, Denise’s, ones too. And I don’t think any of us could have forgotten this cute little by boy called…oops…I don’t know how to spell his name…but it’s pronounced “Joe-Vers”…
One more thing I want to mention…for those who are turned off by my occasional philosophical thoughts you can stop here…but I believe this is a pretty interesting issue to think about for most people.
The problem is probably age-old. Or more properly speaking, as old as the ages. The epic conflict between truth and wit, between honesty and craftiness. Which would enable us to succeed in life? Instinctively it seems the answer is the latter. Only by cheating and misleading one’s competitors/enemies can one succeed. Let him know your weakness and you’re done for. And much of our worldly wisdom points to using strategies and battle tactics to achieve success in whichever field we are in. Just for instance, since this series is what I am currently in hearing about, we have the Chinese classic “Sunzi’s Art of War” and “The 36 strategies”.
In modern military organisations we also have units which specialize in collecting intelligence – information about the enemy. This highlights the need for information and how much of that is concealed in perceived situations of rivalry and warfare. Even in economics we talk of asymmetric information – that any two parties engaged in an economic transaction will necessarily, or at least probably, have unequal access to information about the other person.
It seems to me that many of today’s economic problems arise because information is asymmetric. I still think that if we all had perfect information (despite the impossibility of such a situation), we would not have issues such as overpriced goods and exploited labour. Maybe I’m wrong, and I indeed should take time to think through the validity of my position.
But let’s get back to the real issue. Is truth really that valuable? In If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Tom Morris, business-philosopher, argued that anything less than absolute truth would cripple an organization’s ability to perform in a competitive market place. His reasoning is simple. Assuming there is some inconsistency in a firm’s management and they lie to their customers about the performance of their products, the workers within the firm would then feel that the management could also be inconsistent in the truth of what is told to the workers about, for example, their future in the company. The insecurity generated by the inconsistent/untruthful information released by any department of the company would cause other departments within the firm to second-guess the management motives in anything they do.
But is absolute truth really the answer to all our problems? Or is the opposite the reality? In a recent tuition session, I came to the conclusion that some theories might seem to point us to an ideal state of affairs, for example the communist ideal of equality for all, they might simply be useless to a human race incapable of communally achieving such situations. Insofar as the ideals are unattainable, the theories or hopes are, to that extent, not useful.
Maybe some theories, such as being brutally honest about everything aren’t quite that useful for us as social and political beings. Maybe we shouldn’t believe in free trade and its benefits.
P.S. Kelvin, if you happen to read this, please contact Firman or me. We’re pretty worried that we’ve not heard from you for so long.
