Infants in their grown-up civilisations, they both insisted on puerile simplicity. "Issues from the hand of God, the simple soul," only to be sophisticated into worldliness. On my way to Mymensingh, Bangladesh by train, I once met a devout, young American. We struck up a conversation, and our subject was simplicity. Though no hippy, he asked, impressively, "When is enough, enough?"
Now, Aristotle had queried thus, as well (I reintroduce my venerated witness of venerable age). Only, the Stagirite had brought a sharper scalpel to dissect the subject than the obtuse, peremptory conviction of my travelling companion - something which in his Americanism he would no doubt have called 'gut feeling'. Well, Aristotle (concurring with his mentor, Plato, for once, to verify or falsify the old saw about the agreement of great minds) anatomised the soul into a rational and an irrational half. We moderns would benefit from Aristotle's Anatomy as much as we do from Gray's - if not more.
The irrational part is that which responds to the advertisement for Coca Cola: 'It's the real thing!' Now, we all know it's not the real thing, and yet an acquaintance of mine has spoilt a set of pearly teeth by imbibing 'the real thing'. Every visit to her dentist, no doubt, cost her the real thing - and caused him to exhibit his perfect set wider. Now, Aristotle would have scolded her thus: "My dear girl, I have nothing against you drinking the brown stuff, but do it in moderation. When is enough, enough?"
I employ Coca Cola as a symbol of modernity - the useless made indispensable. Where is the Samson who is proof against the Delilah of her neon, filigree, come-hither curves? Agoraphilia, of course, is as antique as agoraphobia. "So many things I can do without," Socrates used to claim at the emporia. "So many things you cannot do without!" exhorts with evangelic fury every advertisement today.
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