Cookie Monster Ethics and The Odyssey

Great Debates
1

I recall watching Sesame Street with my daughter. Cookie Monster was on a game show hosted by Guy Smiley, of course. Cookie Monster won (most of the questions dealt with Cookie physics, so no surprise there.)

Guy Smiley: “Well Cookie Monster. You are our winner. Congratulations!”

Cookie Monster: “Thank You.”

Guy Smiley: “As your prize, you get to choose between five thousand dollars Cash, or… this cookie.”

Cookie Monster: ::Does a double take:: “I’ll take the cookie!” ::Grabs cookie, throws it in the air, catches it in mouth chews furiously throwing crums everywhere.:: “COOOOOOOOKKKKKKIIIIIIEEE”

Likewise the Count is also single-minded. Put him in any situation, and he knows what he wants. He wants to count. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around him. Given the opportunity, he will always count.

“ONE ::Sound of thunder:: eh, eh, eh, eh. TWO ::sound of thunder:: eh, eh, eh, eh. THREE (etc. etc…”)

I find this concept fascinating, and am glad that my daughter is exposed to it.

Singlemindedness, or having a burning purpose isn’t a new idea. If the purpose is worthy, it can guide all your future actions. At the risk of contradicting myself, one need not only have a single purpose.

Take Homer’s great epics, The Iliad, and The Odyssey; I would argue that Odysseus is the protagonist of these books. He is not the smartest, though he is smart. Nor, is he the the strongest, wisest, fastest, the best warrior, or anything else.

Consistently, Odysseus is described as “The man who is never at a loss.”

Given any situation Odysseus knows the proper course of action. He does not agonize over choices. He makes decisions fully and completely.

Sometimes they are the wrong decision, and they don’t work.

For example, at the onset of the war, Odysseus decides that the whole thing is bullshit. He doesn’t want to go. He decides to pretend that he’s insane, and tills his fields with salt to prove it. Unfortunately, his insanity is tested and his newborn child Telemachus is placed in front of the plow. By swerving to avoid his son, Odysseus’ ploy is found out, and he joins in the war without complaint and gives it his best effort.

After the war, all his efforts are guided by his burning desire to return home. At one point he is washed up on shore, half-starved dirty, disheveled, and naked. He sleeps under a Bush. The next day a young princess and her maiden’s comes by to bathe. Without hesitation Odysseus steps forth from the Bush, appearing for all the world like a beggar or wild man accosting these young ladies. However, his certainty of purpose, and lack of hesitation convince these girls of his honesty and reveal his dignity of purpose and he is treated with great respect despite having no credentials.

The books are full of this concept. Hector is first a son of Troy, and only second a husband and father. He knows that he is doomed to die in battle, that his son will be killed, his wife enslaved and raped. He has the opportunity to escape with them. Yet he chooses to remain and fight. For duty perhaps, but he also knows that that is his purpose.

The concept survived quite some time.

During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee realized that the South would lose. He understood that the South was wrong. He was even offered the leadership of the Union Army. Though he felt it was a doomed enterprise, he felt that his place belonged in the South. He turned down the Generalship and headed South. To lose.

I see little of this concept in the world today, and think we are less because of it. I wish to call the idea “conviction” or “certainty,” but that brings to mind fanaticism, which it is not.

The description of Odysseus sticks with me. He was not always right, but he “was never at a loss.”

As a society we argue deeply and are divided over topics many and sundry. Our politicians reflect these conflicts. Too often, we and they hedge. We sway in the wind, and go every which way. We argue endlessly over abortion, Civil rights, welfare etc. etc, and we do not commit to a course of action. We are at a loss. In our own private lives we cannot commit. We make love to people we do not like. We bear children for people we do not respect and we marry people we do not love. When we change our minds we decide what is right for us regardless of the consequences, and annull our previous commitments.

One of the strengths of American society is that we have always been a society of individuals. Sadly, we have become individuals each to his or her own society. There is little in the way of common ethos. Right action and commitment have little bearing on who we are, or what we do.

We are as lost as Odysseus ever was marooned upon the sea. However, we are without Odysseus’ commitment to find our way home.

But, I have hope. In our most basic and vapid action films, the concept of decisiveness and identity is returning as a virtue. It is played out in the morality play of Wrestling, and the working class sucks it up.

The Cookie Monster may perhaps lead our children to a better place.

I have fixed the UBB codes – CKDexter Haven, Admin.

[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 01-17-2001 at 10:01 AM]

2

GRRRRRR. Damn UBB code! Shit!

3

That which doesn’t bend, breaks.

That said, in many respects, I’d rather break.

4

D’you have a cite that Lee knew the South was going to lose, knew he was going to lose, and went to fight anyway?

5

Boldly stated, Scylla.

Somehow though, when you say “decisiveness” I hear “fanaticism”.

“Often wrong, but never in doubt” is not what I want in a leader.

To revert to the classical, think about what would have happened if, instead of quickly deciding to bring the Horse within their walls, the Trojans had decided to sleep on it awhile…

6

You are teaching your daughter that $5000 cash can buy many cookies, yes?

7

Situational ethics, n’est-ce pas? There are times when single-minded dedication to a cause is admirable (like the Little Engine that Could) and there are times when it is terrifying (like the Inquisition’s pursuit of heretics).

Are we talking about the difference between persistence and monomania/obsession? Alternately, are you suggesting that the ends justifies the means?

I have to think that overall I would prefer people who make decisions based on right and wrong, to people who make decisions based on single-minded effectiveness.

8

Well, while I basically agree with C K DexterHaven and Jackmanii, I have to give you one thing: Nobody else ever made me see the parallels between Odysseus and Corporal Maxwell Klinger!

9

Homer reaches under the couch for a peanut
Homer: Twenty dollars! Aww. I wanted a peanut!
Homer’s brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts.
Homer: Explain how!
Homer’s brain: Money can be exchanged for goods or services.
Homer: Woohoo!

Anyway, for a cite on Robert E Lee’s thoughts on this time, here are two excerpts from his letters:

Dated April 20, 1861, available online here, addressed to his sister:

From the same link, a separate letter addressed to his brother:

Still a great example of conviction.

10

Interesting p.o.v., Scylla. Singlemindedness is not an entirely negative trait; certainly many famous historical and fictional characters had singleminded devotion to a cause, or were extraordinarily decisive in tumultuous times, disdaining any reflection on the consequences of their actions. Such people have occassionally been wildly successful in their endeavors.

But would you want your daughter to spend alot of time with a person like that? Recall how many of Odysseus’ companions were lost to your namesake… Blind purposefullness doesn’t exactly lend itself to responsible stewardship.

11

Great OP.

I believe the character trait we’re discussing is one of those irregular adjectives: I’m purposeful, you’re singleminded, he/she is fanatical. :slight_smile:

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that one of the reasons we’re quibbling over what looks like small & insignificant stuff is that most of us in the Western World have the basics more or less covered. When a very large part of society has their basic needs fulfilled, we’ll move upwards on the Maslow scale and start chasing other goals, some of which will get in conflict with each other, calling for skillful brokers of compromises as leaders.

When crisis strikes society, we’ll start looking for leaders who know how to handle this sort of situation. When crisis strikes in our own lives, many of us are turned into small-scale Odysseus characters (plural of Odysseus ?) until we’ve again secured the basics.

When I read your OP, I immediately thought “Winston Churchill”. Here was a guy with a well-defined purpose and the tenacity to see it through, using every mean at his disposal. (He was also Odysseus-like in his amazing range of skills, btw.) Also, when the crisis was over and the all-clear sounded, he was pushed aside and replaced with yet another compromise broker.

So, I guess the reason we have so few purposeful characters around is that we so rarely face challenges that demand it. Odysseus (I’m getting tired of typing that name!) wanted to till his fields - he only turned heroic when the situation called for it, be it a war to fight or just getting home to Penelope. But he’d much rather have stayed at home (making for a short epic poem, of course).

As for Robert E. Lee: Adherence to principles is admirable, but to keep on fighting a lost war is just adding to the butcher’s bill without any real reason. Of course, honour was something else in those days - and I believe that the generals on both sides still had to adjust their thinking to modern war with its awfully high casualty rates.

S. Norman

12

Not if they’re Neiman-Marcus cookies.

(d&r)

13

matt_mcl

[quote]
You are teaching your daughter that $5000 cash can buy many cookies, yes?**
matt buddy, the cookie is metaphorical. The metaphor is that sometimes the smart and practical choice isn’t always the best. Sometimes you gotta take the cookie.

Put another way, there was this guy at work. He spent two years as an intern, and finally got hired as an assistant for basically chickenfeed. He worked his ass off, finished college and finally got promoted to a high paying position.

On this day, a few guys and myself took him out to lunch for lobster. The waiter brought along the the bibs, and everybody declined but him. Noticing that he was the only one with a bib, the boss leaned over to him and said “Don’t worry about your suit. You’ve arrived. Fuck the bib!”

LNO:

Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking up a link.

xenophon41

Odysseus wan’t blind in his purposefullness. He was fully aware of the damned if you do, damned if you don’t nature of the encounter with Scylla and Charybdis. He was simply a realist as well as an idealist. A tough combination. My daughter could do worse. You recall that it was the foolishness of Odysseus’s men that was responsible for their death, not the Big O.

CK Dexter Haven

Much appreciation for the fix. The difference between persistence and Monomania is a fine one, that I hope I’ve implied.

Take Odysseus’s persistance. It borders on obsession, but if obsession it is, it’s a good one. He is also expediant and reasonable in it’s pursuit. When trapped on the island with Calypso, he makes do for five years. He sleeps with her as he does Circe. Being faithful means returning.

I sometimes think that upon examination, right and wrong are are ephemera that cannot be wholly relied upon. At such times an identity rooted in conviction of purpose can be more meaningful.

Spiny Norman

I’ll certainly agree with the Winston Churchill assessment, and much of what you say.

I’m lamenting that we can get too far from the heroic in seeking compromise, and focus on the increasingly meaningless minutiae of endless compromise. As a society we agonize over the morality of wearing false fur, and deconstructing language. Surely there are bigger problems.

14

COOOOKIE!

15

To call Odysseus an exemplar of singlemindedness requires a willfull misreading of Homer’s Odyssey. My thesaurus lists single-minded as an antonym for cunning, and Odysseus is nothing if he is not cunning. I would also argue that he is the smartest and wisest human, especially in The Odyssey. If Odysseus is “never at a loss” it is not due to singlemindedness, but rather the opposite. It is because he is what we have come to call a Rennaisance man, the man to whom no thought or skill (perhaps even no ideology?) is foreign, and therefore he is prepared for any situation.

Oh, and the bit about pretending to be crazy in order to avoid the war? You do realize that he was honor bound by an oath he had made to defend Helen of Troy, and that this ploy was an attempt to get out of this oath? And you think that this is a good example of him not swerving from his purpose?

As for Robert E. Lee, what I know about his decision is what I learned in grade school, so it’s possible that its wrong. He was offered the generalship of both the Union and Confederate armies, but decided to wait to see which side his home state would be on. When Virginia joined the Confederacy, his decision was made.
I’m surprised nobody questioned why you capitalized “bush” when discussing what Odysseus was hiding behind. Twice. :wink:

16

I agree with what Spiny Norman said.

When the basic needs of a society are unmet or threatened (tribal societies living subsistence lifestyles, developing societies facing economic pressures and uncertainty, or any society living under threat of military attack), then the society tends to seek out quick, easily understood, and often harsh solutions—and these are the realm of military leaders, hard-line political populists, religious prophets, apocalyptic visionaries, cult leaders, and so on.

When a society is largely complacent and secure, it tends to negotiate away its problems. It’s like the fat, comfy, middle-class philistine who would rather give up a little extra money to buy off his problems instead of going to war over a principle and take the risk of losing everything he has built for himself across the years.

Naturally, even the complacent, secure society understands the need for perseverance toward goals and commitment to principles. That’s how a society becomes complacent and secure in the first place–its citizens understand the need to eschew immediate gratification and work instead toward long-term goals. But that’s a separate thing from the hard-line obsessiveness of military leaders or the compulsiveness of cookie monsters. Secure societies have no particular need for the latter two.

By the way, Scylla, I’ve seen a post or two from you in the past indicating to me that you’re something of a comfy middle-class philistine yourself. When such people suddenly turn into stoics and start railing about how modern society has become soft and flabby, I say to myself “mid-life crisis, perhaps?” Any personal problems you want to discuss? :wink: (I’m not trying to diagnose you or anything. I’ve just found that when a confirmed middle-class philistine starts objecting too vociferously to the society around him, then his problems are usually better resolved by seeking the answers inside himself rather than projecting his problems out onto society.)

17

I’m a former serviceman and I like to think that I understand the nature of conflict and heroism better than most. At the same time I’m also a negotiator and a compromiser by nature–that’s where my real strengths lie, and that’s how I tend to address problems and issues.

As a negotiator by nature, I personally tend not to agonize over the moralities of small problems. A negotiator has to be able to rise above the kind of one-sided thinking characterized by those who agonize over small problems. Negotiators and compromisers have to be able to see the bigger picture.

When squabbling over smaller issues occurs, I chalk it up to obsessiveness and rigidity of thought, or to inability to see the forest for the trees–the kind of short-sightedness that the cookie monster demonstrates when he identifies so closely with a single cause (cookies) that he is unable to see the benefits of other approaches (large sums of money). In short, I see social squabbling as a symptom of single-mindedness and persistence carried to a negative extreme (as opposed to the other extreme of excessive willingness to compromise, otherwise known as moral flabbiness).

Alternately, I also chalk some social squabbling up to youth and inexperience. Here’s a favorite quote from one of Dostoevskiy’s short novels (The Meek One): “You see, young people are magnanimous–that is to say good young people are magnanimous and impetuous–but they lack tolerance, and the moment anything falls short of what they expect, they turn scornful…”

As a negotiator and an older person, I have learned not to get myself worked up into a fuss every time the world doesn’t measure up to my expectations. I’m happy to leave the demonstrations and the political crusades and the wars to the young folks who like that sort of thing.

18

Waitasecond – weren’t you one of the folks complaining about Al Gore’s repeated attempts to get manual recounts for the disputed votes in Florida? Didn’t you argue that he should’ve just thrown in the towel, instead of following his singleminded determination to find out what the voters wanted? Why does Robert E. Lee deserve praise for his determination, but not Al Gore?

Just curious.

19

I haven’t sifted through this, since there’s almost one megabyte of text, but Project Gutenberg has Robert E. Lee’s memoirs and correspondence available at ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext00/relee10.txt.

If Lee knew that he was joining a lost cause with the Confederacy, odds are it’d be listed in there.