Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Our Odds-On Favorite


I'm no David Hume expert, but I think what he was saying was that it's all a matter of probability. That's what we live by -- likelihood, not certainty. As my wife and I watched Obama's inauguration this morning, the tears and the goosebumps came, subsided and came again throughout the whole spectacle but particularly during his somber eloquent speech.

And I thought: No guarantee of a good outcome now, only a greater probability, just as whatever Bush undertook, no matter how easy and beneficial it seemed at inception, was fraught with disaster.

As the wise man said: When Bush offers to pour you some coffee, pray for asbestos balls.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a former Hume student, I would argue that he was saying something more radical than that. He was saying that there is NO good reasons for our most basic fundamental beliefs. We believe what we do because of how we are constituted, etc.,
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
I shared your goosebumps and tears.
PS SO glad Ms.E is back!
GLO

....J.Michael Robertson said...

I have splendid readers, just splendid.