Truth and arguing

Do you know what is true? Do you know how to argue? To structure an argument? To make a good argument? Husband and I have been discussing Evan Davis's approach to recent "Post Truth" life. I have to tutor argumentation techniques and Davis's introduction to his paperback edition provides me with an example structure:

1. disreputable politicians tell lies
2. the naïve public swallow the lies
3. accordingly, the naïve public vote the wrong way

Such a structure provides a claim, a supporting claim and conclusion, but it doesn't make it a good argument because we can pick holes in for example, the public being 'naïve'. Is the public naïve? Evan Davis argues that the public can choose without having to believe literally everything. The ten commandments of the Christian bible do not include "Thou shalt not lie" but “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.” So then, husband and I discussed what a lie might be, and the motivation of someone apparently lying; is it for a greater good, or for self-benefit. Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible" turned on this distinction.

Years ago, when I kept a tank full of goldfish and had two small children, one day, when small son was out, I discovered his favourite fish floating dead at the top of the water. I rushed out and replaced the fish with one as much the same as I could, so that sensitive son wouldn't be upset. But in his teenage years, son told me that he'd once taken the fish "for a walk". "How did that go?" I enquired? "Not very well," he admitted! He'd replaced the moribund fish in the tank where I had subsequently found it. Between the two of us, we both lied, but for different reasons.

Husband suggests that truth is what you make it. Isn't that a Buddhist concept? Tae kwon do practitioners tell a story of a Korean philosopher, Yul Gok, who wanted to study Buddhism at a time when it was not much practised in Korea. He started a pilgrimage to China to find enlightenment. On the way, tired, he laid down in a cave at night to sleep, but woke thirsty in the dark. Reaching out for something to drink, his fingers touched what felt like a gourd, which he lifted to his lips, found water and drank. Delicious! In the morning, he saw, that the gourd of delicious water was not a gourd but a skull, a skull full of putrid water and maggots. Disgusting! So was it disgusting or delicious? Delicious or disgusting? Truth is  not what you see, or what you feel, or what you taste. You make truth in your own mind.
Just to prove it, watch the 1944 short video of shapes and lines at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNmLt7QX8E. Isn't it your mind that tells a story from what you watch? 

Unbeknown to us both, husband must have Buddhist tendencies. No wonder he is so tolerant and my attempts at Western style argument with him don't work!

How to make friends: unusual ways

Here's a short timed and rapid tour of England, not Britain, just England: https://expatexplore.com/tours/taste-of-england/
and it's an American who's told me of it because she and her husband are about to do it. They arrived in London last week, and husband and I went to meet them. We had never met them before but got on well, chatting from our meeting point outside Buckingham Palace, then as we walked to Brown's and while we had lunch.
This is my new random friend (RF). RF emailed me some years ago, "Dear B..." which isn't quite my name. First I thought it was spam mail, then I realised as she sent me more emails that she had the wrong address. I ignored them. Partly I ignored them because she was emailing me at an email box that I rarely used, so I didn't notice them for months. Over time I got to know something of her life as she told it to her friend, B, Then one month I looked at the email and saw that she was telling B about some issues, issues that touch your heart. At this point, I had to tell her that she was emailing the wrong person, but that since she'd told me so much about herself for the last two years, here was some information about me. She thanked me. The next New Year we exchanged emails just to say hello.
A month ago I realised that RF was due a big birthday this year so emailed to ask her about it, and she emailed back to say that they were coming to England this month, to visit on a whirl wind tour, including a couple of days getting over jet lag in London, and then this expat tour. It was too goo an opportunity to miss, so I suggested we met. We didn't even know what we each looked like and she sent me a photo of her at that big birthday.
I can't tell you here how much we've got in common with this lovely couple from Detroit., but we are both glad she made that serendipitous typo in that email to Betsy and we'll be keeping in touch on purpose in future.
Telling this story to a tae kwon do friend today she replied telling me of a occasion to do with random theft, when she made a new friend, one that she's kept for twenty years. We meet nice people when we respond well to random opportunity

Memories of music: While the music plays on

"They say my voice is so appealing,

that no one sings the blues the way I do."

I'd like to sing more blues; I'd like to sing more; I'd like to sing like I used to do. But age and hormone drugs....

"little do they know..."

'While the music plays on' tells of a memory of a lover, while the singer sings "each night in some café" where she's on display. She sings about her "lover dancing by in someone else's arms". (Doris Day sang it or listen to Tony Bennett who sings it with slow feeling.

Can't you feel the choke in the voice as she sings, "... in someone else's arms"?

Were you dear reader ever in such a situation? Knowing someone you had cared about no longer cared about you? And when you see them in the same space, a shared room, they ignore you? Are you bitter, or, like this singer, are you blue?

"...no one sings the blues they way I do

but little do they know, 

their praise just goes to show

Every word I sing rings true."