The kitchen light did not turn on.
Damn! Have all the fluorescent tubes burned out?
I bought four new tubes. Wrong size: too fat.
Four skinny tubes did not work, either. There was current there.
It had to be the ballast; a mysterious device
designed to massage the electrical supply to the light.
That worked! It was like replacing an electical octopus.
I did have to fuss with the main breaker panel, of course,
trying to find the right circuit breaker.
A circuit breaker is like a light switch, up wind,
controlling--for instance--electrical supply to a room,
or some larger, limited section of the wiring system.
Circuit breakers and light switches are on/off devices.
If there is an in-between on a light switch, something is wrong.
On/Off. That explained why the alarm clock was blinking
when we went to bed: I had tried a couple of the wrong breakers.
A breaker or a light switch does not just slow down a clock:
it stops it. Then it starts it, again. Starting at 12:00.
Most of the mechanical world is on/off.
It is hard work to make on/off devices show nuance.
It is not in the nature of the beasts.
Life is an enormous contrast to a light switch.
It is very difficult to find and describe the difference between
living and non-living organic matter. At a fundamental level,
it is nearly impossible to distinguish plant and animal life.
I have two packets of wild flower plant seeds
on the table behind me, ready for planting in the stream of flowers
running down through our west lawn bed of perennials.
Seeds are not flowers. They have what it takes to become flowers,
but they aren't flowers. Acorns aren't oaks. Sperm and ova are not people.
Living things become something, gradually.
I used leftover ham, bones, beans, carrots, onion, and celery
to make a soup. They were all in various stages of burgeoning life.
Children are not adult human beings. That is why we protect them.
They become adult human beings, eventually, it is to be hoped;
devoutly hoped, interminably hoped. All of us were once teenagers,
thoroughly deluded, convinced how grown-up we were, going through
a process that might have led to the spawning our own kids,
from our own seed, and it became our own turn to hope, again.
That is why the crime of sexual assault against children
is so damnable: they are not yet fully capable human beings.
The laugh, and learn, and run, but they aren't there, yet.
They is why the law says it is a crime to molest a child.
That is also why the law has so much trouble dealing with
two kids fooling around, sexually: they are not yet
fully responsible adults, held to adult standards.
The law is more like a light switch than a living thing.
Law is a clumsy device that, by its nature, switches on:
you cannot do this; you can do that! Strict Constitutionalists
love the mechanical nature of the law or, at least,
the notion that law is clear, unambiguous, right or wrong.
Life is not like that. Law controls behavior in the same way
that a circuit breaker controls light-emitting devices:
it switches on and off. It works, but it is crude,
and not entirely what we wish were the case.
That is why some people are not Strict Constitutionalists.
They know that it is very difficult to determine, sometimes,
whether an eleven-year-old should be treated like a growing seed,
or like a nearly adult person. Life is shaded, not like a dimmer switch,
but like a blossom opening, with infinitely variable results.
They believe law should follow life; not shape life to single-phase law.
The good, and the true, and the beautiful are not traffic lights.
They are dawn, and noon, and dusk, and the dark of night.
And we need law, and laws. We need clumsy ways to make it clear
that what is true and good for a later stage in the process of life
is not appropriate in the developmental stages.
Things become what they never were before.
Simple-minded, on/off thinking might be a useful device,
and even a necessary codification, but it is not enough.
Fooling around with circuit breakers and light switches
and ballasts, with canon law, and constitutional law,
and simple-minded moralism requires care. It can hurt you.
Ballasts burn out, but they do not feel pain.
Damn! Have all the fluorescent tubes burned out?
I bought four new tubes. Wrong size: too fat.
Four skinny tubes did not work, either. There was current there.
It had to be the ballast; a mysterious device
designed to massage the electrical supply to the light.
That worked! It was like replacing an electical octopus.
I did have to fuss with the main breaker panel, of course,
trying to find the right circuit breaker.
A circuit breaker is like a light switch, up wind,
controlling--for instance--electrical supply to a room,
or some larger, limited section of the wiring system.
Circuit breakers and light switches are on/off devices.
If there is an in-between on a light switch, something is wrong.
On/Off. That explained why the alarm clock was blinking
when we went to bed: I had tried a couple of the wrong breakers.
A breaker or a light switch does not just slow down a clock:
it stops it. Then it starts it, again. Starting at 12:00.
Most of the mechanical world is on/off.
It is hard work to make on/off devices show nuance.
It is not in the nature of the beasts.
Life is an enormous contrast to a light switch.
It is very difficult to find and describe the difference between
living and non-living organic matter. At a fundamental level,
it is nearly impossible to distinguish plant and animal life.
I have two packets of wild flower plant seeds
on the table behind me, ready for planting in the stream of flowers
running down through our west lawn bed of perennials.
Seeds are not flowers. They have what it takes to become flowers,
but they aren't flowers. Acorns aren't oaks. Sperm and ova are not people.
Living things become something, gradually.
I used leftover ham, bones, beans, carrots, onion, and celery
to make a soup. They were all in various stages of burgeoning life.
Children are not adult human beings. That is why we protect them.
They become adult human beings, eventually, it is to be hoped;
devoutly hoped, interminably hoped. All of us were once teenagers,
thoroughly deluded, convinced how grown-up we were, going through
a process that might have led to the spawning our own kids,
from our own seed, and it became our own turn to hope, again.
That is why the crime of sexual assault against children
is so damnable: they are not yet fully capable human beings.
The laugh, and learn, and run, but they aren't there, yet.
They is why the law says it is a crime to molest a child.
That is also why the law has so much trouble dealing with
two kids fooling around, sexually: they are not yet
fully responsible adults, held to adult standards.
The law is more like a light switch than a living thing.
Law is a clumsy device that, by its nature, switches on:
you cannot do this; you can do that! Strict Constitutionalists
love the mechanical nature of the law or, at least,
the notion that law is clear, unambiguous, right or wrong.
Life is not like that. Law controls behavior in the same way
that a circuit breaker controls light-emitting devices:
it switches on and off. It works, but it is crude,
and not entirely what we wish were the case.
That is why some people are not Strict Constitutionalists.
They know that it is very difficult to determine, sometimes,
whether an eleven-year-old should be treated like a growing seed,
or like a nearly adult person. Life is shaded, not like a dimmer switch,
but like a blossom opening, with infinitely variable results.
They believe law should follow life; not shape life to single-phase law.
The good, and the true, and the beautiful are not traffic lights.
They are dawn, and noon, and dusk, and the dark of night.
And we need law, and laws. We need clumsy ways to make it clear
that what is true and good for a later stage in the process of life
is not appropriate in the developmental stages.
Things become what they never were before.
Simple-minded, on/off thinking might be a useful device,
and even a necessary codification, but it is not enough.
Fooling around with circuit breakers and light switches
and ballasts, with canon law, and constitutional law,
and simple-minded moralism requires care. It can hurt you.
Ballasts burn out, but they do not feel pain.
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