PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 28th February: Ignorance is bliss

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Ignorance is bliss - are ignorant people
happier?

The topic was proposed by Sara and Ines and the original question was:
are ignorant people happier? There is some minor difference between the
two versions, but I tried to deal with this issue in the essay.

Ignorance is bliss - are ignorant people happier?
https://www.philomadrid.com/2021/02/ignorance-is-bliss-are-ignorant-people.html

In the meantime you can link to the current news and notices here:
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/10/news-and-notices.html

-Alfonso has a new website and he gave us link to his latest book of
poems: Después

-Oscar's book on his reflections on COVID-19 is still available

-David J. Butler has published a new book "Absent Friends" regarding the
Cementerio Británico in Madrid

Finally if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link.


Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 28th February: Ignorance is bliss

Ignorance is bliss - are ignorant people happier?

Ignorance is bliss

 

Topic by Sara and Ines (originally presented as: are ignorant people happier?)

 

Essay by Lawrence

 

Even though there is a slight difference between the original title “are ignorant people happier?” and “ignorance is bliss” the implications are not that serious. “Ignorance is bliss” implies we are happy when we don’t know about something. Whereas “are ignorant people happier” implies when someone has issues about their intellectual capacities.

 

Irrespective of which version we concern ourselves with we can interpret ignorance in two ways: 1) we assume that there is an X that can be known but we don’t; 2) we don’t know that we can know X that is knowable. Basically we can describe these as “not knowing” and “not knowing that we can know”. For example, we know that there is a synonym we can use instead of “ignorance” but we don’t know what it is or maybe even remember the word: oblivious. The other option is that we don’t even know that “ignorance” as a word can have a synonym nor that “oblivious” is a synonym of ignorance.

 

A standard definition of ignorance is lack of knowledge or information (Google: dictionary). In a previous essay (Wisdom*) I distinguished two types of knowledge: nice-to-know type of knowledge and necessary-to-know type of knowledge. This distinction is relative to what our needs might be at the time. For example, it is nice to know that my local supermarket closes at 9pm every day. However, it is necessary to know that the local supermarket closes at 9pm if I urgently need to buy some supplies late in the evening.

 

Hence, with passive knowledge or what I call nice-to-know knowledge we can easily be neutral, neither happy nor anything else, even if sometime in the future we might need such information. It is when we need to know something to achieve an objective that ignorance matters. How many times have we had to book an on-line form for a plane ticket and didn’t realise that the form is two pages long and not just one page we can see on the screen.

 

Imagine our emotional desperation and disappointment when we discover that we had missed a whole page of information on our form. So before discovering our error we were all happy that we finished a hateful task of form filling, but this was a short lived happiness once we knew the truth. There is no doubt that this is a real case of ignorance is bliss.

 

It might be argued that there is a difference between not knowing and should have known. Indeed the context should have given us a clue that there is something missing when we were not asked to fill in the details of the return date. An argument might be that since it is necessary to know the standard procedure for booking a flight on line we ought to have been more attentive filling in the form. Alternatively, we should not call this a case of ignorance is bliss but maybe something like, stress is a cheater: or maybe not.

 

But let’s take an extreme case. Let’s consider two people Person A is by all standards an ignorant person, and Person B is by all standards a very intelligent person. Person A knows nothing about back pain nor does Person B, but both suffer from back pain. It would be absurd to imagine that these two people are ignorant and they ought to be happy: even after taking into account that they are the ones feeling the pain. If the objective is to stop the pain, there is not much they can do about it for the simple reason that it takes a certain type of necessary knowledge to treat back pain successfully. Hence, absence of knowledge does not necessarily justify presence of ignorance.

 

It seems we might have to distinguish between ignorance and stupidity to establish when it is correct to apply the proverb. Hence should ignorance-is-bliss be understood as stupidity-is-bliss? Lack of knowledge is different from lack of intelligence or common sense to learn (Google: dictionary for stupid). And even the latter definition is subject to having the opportunity to learn and maybe also the cognitive background to learn what we generally consider intelligence.

 

In Western culture, for example, intelligence is usually measured by the skills developed in some profession. Somehow we don’t hold a person who trains as a car mechanic at the same regard of intelligence as someone qualifying as a medical doctor. There seems to be an inherent social prejudice against one activity and not another. For example we believe that the doctor is more intelligent than the car mechanic, yet both people have the same responsibility to keep us safe and not cause us any harm.

 

Sometimes it seems that ignorance might be one of those things that happens to people; and sometimes even if we know that a situation requires some kind of information or knowledge we still cannot get to that knowledge when we most need it. But when we embark on an endeavour we do seem to have the responsibility to find out what is required for the endeavour to succeed.

 

Stupidity differs from ignorance in that stupidity betrays an element of lack of thinking. Ignorance has a high element of what information we have and what we can know. Basically it is not always our fault that we don’t know. But since stupidity involves an absence of thinking or disregard toward thinking then that is a different situation. And the difference we may argue is at the moral and rational level.

 

In pain of being boring, the debate on whether to wear a mask or not during the pandemic is a good example. We are all familiar with the debate about wearing masks so I won’t repeat it here, suffice it to say that wearing a mask proffers more benefits to society and us than not wearing a mask; as for the freedom argument to wear such a mask is not even an issue.

 

On the balance of probability if we all wear a mask some people won’t catch the virus. The “ignorance” element for our topic is given a situation, how many people won’t catch the virus and what percentage won’t catch the virus because everyone is wearing a mask? I am sure this information is available or can be made available but it is not necessary to know at this level of knowing.

 

Stupidity is being indifferent to the debate and what matters is the opinion of the person who refuses to wear a mask irrespective of whether that opinion is based on fact or fiction. The stupidity part for the debate is the failure to think whether that opinion is based on fact on fact or fiction. For the sake of the argument I am excluding the possibility that someone refuses to wear a mask out of malice towards society.

 

Ignorance as in not knowing does not mean that we are being irresponsible or uncaring people. However, not knowing because someone is indifferent whether they know or not is something that at the very least is negligence and most certainly moral irresponsibility.

 

*Essay on Wisdom: https://www.philomadrid.com/2021/02/wisdom.html

 

Best Lawrence

 

 

 

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

http://www.philomadrid.com

 

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 21st February: Wisdom

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Wisdom.

Originally, Pedro proposed "Knowledge vs Wisdom" but we recently
discussed the theme of Knowledge quite a few times. In my short essay I
approach the topic as the final chain of processing perceptions.

Wisdom essay by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2021/02/wisdom.html


In the meantime you can link to the current news and notices here:
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/10/news-and-notices.html

-Alfonso has a new website and he gave us link to his latest book of
poems: Después

-Oscar's book on his reflections on COVID-19 is still available

-David J. Butler has published a new book "Absent Friends" regarding the
Cementerio Británico in Madrid

Finally if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link.


Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 21st February: Wisdom

Wisdom

Wisdom

Topic by Pedro 

(The original title was Knowledge vs Wisdom, but we recently discussed many topics on knowledge.)

 

Essay by Lawrence

 

There seems to be a trend in our relationship with nature and the environment in trying to be one step ahead of the basics of survival. Our task in life is precisely to bridge our rudimentary sense perceptions and process them to survive against nature and then move on to live the comfortable life. Cats and dogs are very successful at this strategy for survival.

 

So we start with sense perceptions, basically raw data that in reality are perceptions that are filtered by the senses. We then move on to decide whether these perceptions are familiar and if not try to familiarise ourselves with these unknown perceptions: the end result ought to be information. At this stage we ought to be able to distinguish between information and white noise. This process should then really lead us to what we call knowledge. We confirm this status that our beliefs about this new information is justified and, therefore, complements our existing knowledge and should be considered as knowledge. We can even categorise our knowledge into nice-to-know and necessary-to-have for practical action. For example, it is quite fun to know that the “Morning star” and the “Evening star” are the same celestial body which we call Venus. But it is necessary to know if someone wants to observe Venus with a telescope.

 

This long and convoluted route should end in what we call “wisdom”. Wisdom we are told is the difference from living to living the comfortable life. For practical purposes, we can look at this definition of wisdom from the Google dictionary: “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise.” (Google dictionary: wisdom). I want to argue that a necessary condition for wisdom is good judgment. The issue for us to have good judgment is the difference between acting correctly and a lucky strike? How many times do we have to make the right judgement to be considered a wise person? When are we wise and when we have a lucky strike?

 

Professor Grayling in his public lecture at Lincoln University (1) touches on this issue and his answer is basically thinking: indeed thinking and wisdom have been linked since the classical Greeks. We are familiar with the dictum by Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living" (2). For our purpose we can interpret “unexamined” (i.e. examined) to involve thinking, but also to “improve”, remembering that the context is the good life.

 

Aristotle comes even closer to our idea of “good judgement” for example: For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and the cause……  Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes…..” Metaphysics by Aristotle (3). But consider Socrates (4),”….I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.” (Socrates – Apology). Usually interpreted as “I know that I don’t know”.

 

Of course, Socrates is not contradicting himself on the grounds that thinking for Socrates is based on the “Socratic method of questioning” (5). Learning by asking questions leads to two important states in our mind so necessary for wisdom. We get to confirm what we know, and we get to know that we don’t know: we might then be motivated to investigate what we don’t know. And there is nothing more motivating that having a need and finding out things to meet that need.

 

We can, therefore, say that wisdom is first of all our ability to interact with our environment successfully on a regular basis: a lucky strike is not an inductive trend. Questioning is the most effective way of learning-what and leaning-how-to. From this background we are justified in thinking that the life worth living depends on the life that makes us curious and motivated. Of course, there is a weakness here. Since this Socratic Method should, by rights, lead us to new knowledge that knowledge, like all knowledge, is valid in a specific context and not valid for all contexts. A consequence of this is that a successful and wise entertainer is not necessarily also wise to pontificate about the love life of viruses and bacteria.

 

Wisdom is wisdom in a specific context and, therefore, it is not universalisable over all contexts or even for the same context. This is partially because it is knowledge that is objective and not the thinking process. Consider the Socratic Method for the examined life: this method does not prescribe what questions to ask, but rather that questions ought to be asked.

 

This does not exclude two persons from reaching the same conclusion for a similar problem, irrespective of whether they have similar knowledge or not. This implies that a wise person A and a wise person B do not necessarily have the same wisdom just because they both arrived at the same conclusion. The common belief that great minds think alike is obviously false: however, great minds think! What we can safely assume is that what we think about a problem is unique to us, and by extension one might argue also how we think about it is unique to us.

 

In conclusion, a wise person knows when they don’t know, and, therefore, keep their mouth shut: Socrates. And when the wise person knows that they know, they must know both the “what” and the “why”: Aristotle.

 

 

1 - "Professor A.C. Grayling: Knowledge, Truth and Wisdom | University of Lincoln" on YouTube https://youtu.be/JPI_4n_QNtc

 

2 - Plato  Apology (38a5–6 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D38a).

 

3 - Metaphysics By Aristotle  BOOK I Part 1 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.mb.txt 

 

4- Socrates Plat. Apol. 21d  -- Apology http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DApol.%3Asection%3D21d

 

5 - see for example Socratic Method, Socratic Questioning e.g. in Wikipedia and What is Socratic Questioning at Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/socratic/second.html  

 

Best Lawrence

 

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

 

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

 

http://www.philomadrid.com

 

 

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 14th February: The Limits of knowledge

Dear Friends,

The topic for Sunday's meeting is: The Limits of knowledge

It was proposed by Luis and in my essay I discuss how we can interpret
the topic.
The Limits of knowledge
https://www.philomadrid.com/2021/02/the-limits-of-knowledge.html

In the meantime you can link to the current news and notices here:
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/10/news-and-notices.html

-Alfonso has a new website and he gave us link to his latest book of
poems: Después

-Oscar's book on his reflections on COVID-19 is still available

-David J. Butler has published a new book "Absent Friends" regarding the
Cementerio Británico in Madrid

Finally if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link.


Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 14th February: The Limits of knowledge

The Limits of knowledge

 

The Limits of knowledge - topic by Luis

 

Essay by Lawrence

 

 

Natural language can easily lead philosophers into contradictions or quandaries. The concept of infinity excludes the possibility of knowledge being limited. Unless, that is, infinity stops when the physical universe stops. But wouldn’t this mean that infinity does not mean forever without coming to an end?

 

Moving on from this conundrum we need to establish what we mean by the issue of the topic. Do we mean the limits of what we can know? Or the limits of what can be known? We can exclude the option that the limits of knowledge are the limits of what humans can know. In effect what we know is a part of what is knowable, and by our standards what is knowable is practically limitless.

 

For example, this definition of what is knowable does not seem to contradict the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In other words knowledge must have the condition of having knowable properties. Can we therefore say that in the two slit experiment it is not knowable where the particle is between the particle launcher and the photographic plate behind the two slits? Contrast this with infinity coming to an end when the universe stops.

 

The two slit experiment seems to imply that since we cannot account for the whole trajectory of the particle then there is a gap in what is knowable that does not follow the chain of causality. An objection or two might be that the two slit experiment applies only to the quantum world whereas what is knowable has to be in the macro world (Newtonian physics) otherwise we wouldn’t be able to perceive it. Alternatively there is always the element of scepticism with our methodology on how we account for the quantum world. Maybe our mathematics is deficient or has limits in what we can account with it. The letter argument reflects the objection that if nature abhors a vacuum then surly it abhors the “nothingness” between the launcher and the photographic plate: there must be something going on but we don’t know what it is.

 

I have already argued that the meaning of such concepts as infinity is itself limited. The problem is not that infinity by definition means forever and ever, but rather we now know that sometime in the future the universe will either suffer a Big Crunch, that is it will stop expanding and collapse on itself (maybe becoming the mother of all black holes). Or the universe will keep on expanding leading to a Big Yawn. Either way information about what is knowable cannot become independent of the big crunch or information is too scattered to be meaningful to convert into knowledge.

 

Another key issue is that the word “knowledge” is just a language word and what we can learn about this word is very limited and totally uninteresting. Thus when we speak of knowledge we need to imply the question, knowledge about what?

 

And this question implies that the information and data we have about something (perceptions) can be converted into knowledge. From the human perspective knowledge must be in the form we can convert to human perception. In our case information must take a physical form that can be stored in our memory. For example we see colours when we look at flowers, but today we know that bees see in the ultraviolet spectrum and therefore they don’t see what we see when we look at a flower. With the help of our understanding of the energy spectrum and our ability to build devices and tools we can “see” what the bees see. Of course, I doubt that bees can imagine let alone experience flowers in the colour spectrum.

 

Thus there is knowledge about flowers that bees cannot know about let alone have knowable information about flowers. They do not know about colours and cannot have knowledge about the colour of flowers. Until bees can device an instrument that can show them the colours of flowers that knowledge does not form part of the “bee knowledge” compendium.

 

I am not saying that just because we cannot see something then it does not exist, but rather unless we can see (or understand) something we are not even cognisant that such knowledge exists. Indeed what is important for us is that we can understand that something exists or might exist. Thus our capacity to understand the world around us puts us in a privileged position of what we can know without direct experience of it. With this capacity of understand and experience our compendium of knowledge in much greater than what we can possible know as individuals and as a collective. Our capacity to understand such mental tools as “what if…”, “A if and only if (iff) B”, “A or not A”, “what do I/we have to do to have A?” gives us a conceptual edge over other forms of thinking.

 

In 2010 Scientific American published an article (1) by Paul Reber answering the question about the memory capacity of the human brain: “For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows.” This figure reflects the potential of what neurons can achieve by networking and not the physical capacity of neurons in the brain.

 

What is important for us is that we have the capacity to hold a huge amount of information in our brain, but our knowledge can sometime also be manipulated into more efficient forms. For example we can just remember Pi() to ten decimal places 3.141,592,653,5 or we can use a practical formula for Pi, 22/7, or we can interrogate our nearest calculator to give us Pi, or even look up the value on the internet. At each level of information we need a more complex set of knowledge but the accuracy and functionality increases dramatically.

 

As far as facts about the universe are concerned objective knowledge is endless or at lease enormous enough to keep us busy for a long time to come. As I said knowledge is also the term we use to label what we know; surely we cannot label something in the universe that we do not know it exists. But this definition of knowledge, the philosophical definition of knowledge, is qualified by what we have access to and what is knowable. So just because something works it does not mean we have all the knowledge about that something; we may or may not have full access and yet what we know is enough for our purposes. For example Pi equals 3.141, is not as robust as the Pi formula 22/7 but still weak for certain purposes in science and architecture.

 

To conclude, the limits of knowledge or what can be knowable, is limited by events of the universe and by our limitations to describe and obtain such knowledge; the infinity argument. And just because we do not know certain things it does not follow that there isn’t more knowledge out there; the bee example. Given that the purpose of knowledge is for us to use it (e.g. Pi) our capacity to convert information about the universe into perceptible physical events means that we may or may not have full access to knowledge. Basically there is a good chance that some knowledge is lost in the transition from being knowledge out there to knowledge in our brain that may limit the scope of our knowledge.

 

For a footnote our imagination is not a source of knowledge not only because of the Private Language argument but also because our imagination is a function of our brain.

 

 

(1) What Is the Memory Capacity of the Human Brain?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/

 

Best Lawrence

 

Lawrence

 

 

 

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

 

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

 

http://www.philomadrid.com

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 7th February: Insults

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Insults.

When I proposed the topic we had just experienced the turmoil on Capitol
Hill and the disgrace of brexit. But behind turmoil there is also an
emotional language and in my essay I argue that insults are the language
of emotions.

Insults
https://www.philomadrid.com/2021/02/insults.html


In the meantime you can link to the current news and notices here:
https://www.philomadrid.com/2020/10/news-and-notices.html

-Alfonso has a new website and he gave us link to his latest book of
poems: Después

-Oscar's book on his reflections on COVID-19 is still available

-David J. Butler has published a new book "Absent Friends" regarding the
Cementerio Británico in Madrid

Finally if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link.


Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 7th February: Insults

Insults

 

Insults

 

Topic and essay by Lawrence

 

The sole function of insults is to offend others. And in a common language game when someone insults someone else it is in retaliation of an offense committed by the person being insulted.

 

But what qualifies as an insult? Looking at some commentators on the subject there seems to be a confusion on what is or isn’t an insult. On the mild criteria we can include common expletives but nothing serious. Some might include hate speech, racist speech, slurs, abuse, and even threatening behaviour accompanies by verbal abuse. I would argue that these are not within the scope of the meaning of insult. And many behaviours that are accompanied by verbal expressions may very well be criminal or illegal acts: for example incitement to cause violence, racist and racial abuse, verbal acts implying immanent violence and so on. These language acts are beyond the scope of a philosophical analysis of insults.

 

For the purpose of this essay I will use the terms: insultor to mean a person who insults someone else. I follow the principle set in “lessor” that means “landlord”. And “insultee” as in “lessee” which is a tenant. Insultor and insultee are not present in the internet as far as I know.

 

I will argue that it is a necessary condition that an insultee has behaved by deed or language to offend the insultor. Without this prior offence any insult would just be unsocial behaviour and unjustified. Of course, what qualifies as an offence can be wide and subtle. An insultor might be mistaken about the intensions of an insultee which ought to result in due course into humble apologies. A valid insult must also be a justified insult even though the scope is wide.

 

For example, sports fans (insultors) might feel compelled to insult the opposing team (insultee) when one of their players commits a foul against a member of the insulted team. In this case insults may be directed at the offending player, the team itself, and even the fans of the offending player and team. Offence by association seems to be a valid and justified condition for an insultor to insult an insultee. Then there is the classical joke of insulting the referee by pointing out they need a pair of glasses they miss a foul committed by the opposing team.

 

Another necessary condition for a justified insult must be that an insult is said in the heat of the moment: the insultor must be genuinely hurt by the offence caused by the insultee. A justified insult must be issued at the time of the offence, this is not like revenge which may or may not be best served cold. And although insulting someone a long time after the offense might be irrelevant, it also matters when the insultor learnt of the offence.

 

An offence and an insult create a context and insults must fit that context. Whatever the morality of insults is, there are many rules and protocols to follow. These rules not only give meaning to the insult, but also offer some protection against aggressive retaliation. For example, one does not insult the other person by invoking their mother, dog, cat, or menú del día these are certainly subjects that are out of bounds.

 

Insults are a powerful language tool and should be handled carefully; not only can insults backfire but also have unintended consequences. A misplaced insult can easily get one banned from social media sites, even if justified: in real life things might turn even worse.

 

Maybe the most devastating danger of insults is when an insult backfires. For instance, when the insultee fails to recognise that what is being said is an insult: the person is just oblivious to the insult. This means wasted effort for the insultor especially for such a risky language game since the insult can easily turn into a physical confrontation. Indeed, this is also very common when someone does not have a good command of the language: the insultee just don’t appreciate the insult.

 

Again I would argue that a necessary condition for a valid justified insult is that it has to create an emotional reaction in the insultee. This is when we can argue that there is an art to insults: insults have to evoke emotions but they also have to be proportional. An insult without an emotional reaction in the insultee is just a damp squib. And an insult that breached the boundaries of language is just reckless. But first and foremost insults are the language and tools for visceral anger and fury.

 

If we accept that there is just a thing as the art of insult – be it a linguistic art- then surely it must follow the sufficient condition of art: art has to evoke the emotions. Indifference in art is the worst form of death for art. We can like a piece of art, or hate it, but indifference will kill art. The same with insults we can be angry or brush off the insult, but indifference kills the insult.

 

Proportionality and staying within the boundaries of language means that our language must be both flexible and powerful enough to do the job at hand. As expected the ability to use language effectively with an astute skill to choose the right words and concepts is imperative. The language we use should be enough to offend the insultee, but no more.

 

Insulting others is definitely part of human behaviour and part of the language repertoire. This is evident by the number of links we are offered when we search for insults in an internet search engine, not to mention the myriad of insults. We are familiar with many of the insults in our language, even considering that many insults are very local to specific regions. These readymade insults somehow lack a soul, lack the magic dust. These readymade insults are like readymade frozen pizza – they lack the passion of a creator. And like perfect homemade pizza, there is nothing more cathartic than a self made insult that carries our soul and heart as well.

 

Maybe at this stage we should question the moral implications of insults. The curious aspect of insults is that we do not need to resort to them on a day to day basis. Unless, that is, one seeks controversy on some social media sites; even the Wild West was not as wild as a social media website.

 

But what we fail to appreciate is that an effective insult is for life and not just for the moment. Sure, some insults are ineffective, many more are forgotten in the course of time, but dangerous insults are the ones that last for a life time. A misplaced insult or a well justified insult can split families and friends or even countries. Whilst we can all appreciate the value of a justified insult, we certainly ought to feel morally obliged to consider using insults.  An effective insult is also an insult that remains radioactive for life.

 

 

Best and take care

Lawrence

 

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

http://www.philomadrid.com