1 post tagged “psychic psquirrel”
"The Ascent of Rum Doodle" is a sort of comic "Zen of Mountaineering". As one of my favourite passages makes clear, the true sceptic has to doubt even his own scepticism. Wish, the scientist on the expedition, tries to explain this to the climb leader:
"He was sent down from university for steadfastly refusing to believe anything which was taught him. ... But having come down he found, as many a young man had found before him, that the world of men and affairs was a vastly different place from the world of his imaginings. His first rude awakening occurred one Saturday afternoon in the saloon bar of The Psychic Psquirrel. Wish had been holding forth in his usual way and had, he thought, expounded his Theory of Scepticism with particular clarity and brilliance. When he had finished, an elderly, rather disreputable-looking gentleman of the eccentric type spoke a few quiet sentences which quite removed Wish's self-satisfaction. He said he would not deny that Wish showed certain faint glimmerings of promise as a sceptic. But he had far to go. He must learn the elementary truth that the real sceptic is sceptical by character rather than conviction; the intellectual drapery in which he clothes his scepticism has as little importance as the demonstrations of the believer — it is, indeed, more likely to veil than to reveal the naked Truth. Moreover, knowing that his mind will enable him to doubt everything, the sceptic scorns the crudity of stating his disbelief; he merely lives it. But even this, the gentleman said, was going too far. The true sceptic would refuse even to believe in himself and his own scepticism. He would maintain an openness of mind indistinguishable from complete mindlessness and an openness of character indistinguishable from utter lack of character. His scepticism would find its ultimate expression in the acceptance of random prejudice as being as sound a basis for living as the most carefully reasoned philosophy. This, he said, was the ultimate faith, for it scorned intellectual pretext. He said that the true sceptic was far stronger in faith than any believer."
