Guinness and George Orwell

cmp.2009.06.14
ed.2009.06.15.04 (v1.00)

Organization
1. The Mysteries of Sploosh-Splooshy
2. Where Exactly is Britain?
3. Free George Orwell!
4. Scary Intuition
5. Conspiracy Theory

The Mysteries of Sploosh-Splooshy
As I was walking down the assorted alcoholic beverage, chips, dips, and not-so-decaffeinated drink aisle today, my eyes happened to alight upon the selection of Guinness beer. As I was pondering the probable differences between "Extra Stout" and the regular bottled "Draught", a man with neatly cut, black and grey hair approached me, looked to what had caught my attention, then to me, and then asked, "What is the thing inside of the Guinness bottle?"

Now, for various reasons which I hope never to fully explore and contemplate, (possibly due to some sort of obsessive compulsiveness), I had in fact researched this particular anomaly many years ago, (possibly two).

And, as it happens with all things researched in previous lifetimes, some of the finer details that enable eloquent elaboration sometimes fade upon recall.

"Well, its a plastic floaty thing that helps the beer pour better like it does from a tap. And, its stops the sploosh-splooshy gurgle thing from happening when you drink it."

(If it just happens that my highly technical jargon overwhelms you, then feel free to research "Guinness Smoothifier". You may notice that the real purpose is to store nitrogen that is released when said beverage is opened in order to produce a really smooth foamy thingy at the top.)

Where Exactly is Britain?
And, as the ironic ironies in my life go, he proceeded to ask his next query.

"Did you know that Britain has the most surveillance of any country in the world?"

Now, you must understand that I am from the United States, and certain geographical oddities have never really inspired my curiosity enough to motivate me to deeper research. For example: I have never been motivated to find out the exact size of Canada City, and how early they teach their children to milk their family polar bears so they can have something warm to drink in their igloos every morning. Another such example is researching the exact state of general madness in the United Kingdom, what exactly the U.K. is, how it is different from "Great Britain", or if England is actually Britain. Any such geographical detail will probably always be beyond my grasp.

But one particular implication did not escape me. All of a sudden the horror of being caught gazing at a British beer so fiercely grappled at my super-ego that I had to take a quick glance back at the bottle until I was reassured by the quite elegant reaffirmation: "Dublin". Ah, the Irish. (If you do not understand this kind of fear, then know that certain insinuations are quite hazardous to your employability in Washington State, especially in Seattle and Redmond.)

Free George Orwell!
Feeling at peace, I once again looked to the man who furthered our dialogue.

"Did you know they have 32 cameras pointed at the house where George Orwell used to live?"

Now, the mention of surveillance before, warned me of perhaps mild paranoia, but there was something definitely odd in this particular question that I wanted to examine, but alas, he continued.

"That plastic thing has these little fins on it so that it can only go in, but cannot come out."

To which I responded, "I was actually curious about how it looked."

And then he quickly affirmed my suspicion. "I think you have to break it open to get it out; yeah, that's what I did. I think it might be a surveillance device."

Scary Intuition
Now if anyone can be said to know me, they certainly know that I am skeptical and very analytical. But, I hope this is because deep down, I truly am passionate about truth. How is it that people come to believe things? Why do we put so much confidence in tradition, hear-say, and our own speculation absent any real evidence? Just because we believe something doesn't make it true. And certainly, this kind of intuition is not a "spiritual gift" from God as some claim, (especially in light of the fact that God rebuked such hard-headed confidence in our own strengths and intellectualism many, many times over).

"Maybe they have those 32 cameras pointed where George Orwell used to live because it is a tourist attraction, and they are afraid of vandalism?"

This seemingly very innocuous reply, and the encouragement that there might actually be other reasonable explanations for the plastic anti-sploosh-splooshy device, seemed to put him at ease.

Conspiracy Theory
But, I have to ask myself: if such a basic, and simply taught concept of critical thinking could be taught in a moment, (that it is necessary to rule out a rival hypothesis), then what is the justification that critical thinking and logic aren't taught to children in elementary school and consistently thereafter? It certainly cannot be because they are too difficult to learn. Because, critical thinking and logic are the very foundation of learning in the first place. The only thing that enables us to learn, is our ability to reason and assign significance.

And because there is no rational justification to not teach children to think critically, or to reason using formal logic, I have decided to adopt this man's conspiratorial mindset that "They" are manipulating generations of people, and their children, to blindly accept anything that "Them" want us to believe. Or maybe, the truth is that we have already decided that it really is too inconvenient to think for ourselves, and maybe we think it is much easier if someone else thinks for us? Or maybe "They" just want us to think that it is too inconvenient to think ...

ACK!

Rule #1 of Conspiracy Theories: Never critically examine your own theories; it just gets too confusing.