The Four-Light Club

I'm about to do something I swore I would never do. I'm about to write a
philosophical post based on a Star Trek episode.

You remember that episode where Picard was captured by the Cardassians?

They didn't ask him any questions about Federation security or technology
or anything like that. The interrogator sat him down in front of this bank
of lights and asked him how many there were.

There were four lights.

Picard answered correctly. "I see four lights."

The interrogator shocked him with this torture device and corrected his
mistake. "There are FIVE lights. Now, how many lights are there."

Picard paused, recognizing the game. He answered again, "I see four
lights."

The interrogator shocked him again and repeated his question, "How many
lights do you see?"

Picard stuck to his guns. Louder this time. "I SEE FOUR LIGHTS!"

The interrogator stormed out of the room. Picard would not get any food or
water until he agreed that there were FIVE lights.

I believe our country, our culture, our whole bloody WORLD is like this
interrogation room.

Consider my perspective.

I'm living in a highly Christian town, in a highly Christian state, in a
very mystical world.

I have intelligence, ability, charm, and ambition. I could wrap this town
around my finger if I wanted to. But first, I have to answer the question,
"How many lights do you see?"

I feel like Jesus, brought high on the mountain to look down upon the
Earth. The powerful men, the string-pullers, are making me an offer. "You
can have whatever you want. We'll give you fame and power and money and
love and everything else men crave. All you have to do is tell us how many
lights you see."

I know what answer they want. But I can't give it to them. The answer
they want is the WRONG answer.

But who am I to decide what the right answer is? I'm just one man.
Fragile and scared and alone. Besides, these guys have been counting
lights for 40 years. I just started counting three years ago.

Maybe there really ARE five lights. Maybe I'm just being stubborn. Maybe
my dad is right. I've been told there are five lights all my life. Maybe
I'm just REBELLING. Maybe I'll "grow out of it."

I hear the old ones talk sometimes. I tell them how many lights I see and
they look down on me and they pat my head. They say, "When I was your age,
I only saw four lights. But when you get to be MY age -- when you get a
little more EXPERIENCE, you'll realize that there were five lights, all
along."

I met a pretty girl yesterday. She was smart and funny and talking to her
made me feel happy inside. I didn't want to ask the question. I tried not
to ask. I tried to forget there even WAS a question. I tried to stop
caring about the answer.

But finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked her, "How many lights do
you see?"

She smiled at me in that familiar way and said, "There are five lights, of
course. What a silly question!"

I asked my Grandmother about it. Tactfully, of course. I asked her,
"Grandma, have you ever considered the possibility, just the POSSIBILITY,
that there are only four lights?"

Grandma got very angry. She said it was evil to say things like that. She
said bad things happen to people who don't see five lights. She told me
about Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sue. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sue said there
were only four lights, but they did lots of drugs and they beat their kids
and they didn't even celebrate CHRISTMAS, for God's sake!

She said my mother saw five lights and she wanted me to see five lights,
and if she wasn't dead already, hearing that I only saw four lights would
kill her.

She said I might as well go to my mother's grave and spit on it, talking
about four lights that way.

I loved my mother, and I miss her, and I wouldn't want to make her angry or
sad. But no matter how hard I squint and stare and rub my eyes, all I ever
see is four lights.

When I was really little they took me to this pretty house and asked me how
many lights I saw. I was very young, and I wanted to make my parents
happy, so I said I saw five lights. They held me under the water for a
little while and when I came up, they said I could be in the five-lights
club.

At first, it was fun being in the five-lights club. Talking about the five
lights made my parents very happy. I got to play with the other children
and sing songs and once I made a little house out of popsicle sticks.

But as I got older, I started to worry. Everybody around me got so happy
when I talked about the five lights, I started to feel guilty about it. I
felt guilty about lying.

I was a good speaker, and I knew lots of big words. My parents said I
should devote my life to talking about the five lights. I didn't really
say anything when the subject came up. I just smiled and changed the
subject.

Finally, after I was all grown up, I decided to stop lying. I decided to
tell everyone that I only saw four lights -- to apologize for lying all
this time.

Some of the people I told got angry. Some of them got sad. And some of
them said it was "just a phase" I was going through.

I told my friends about it. Friends so close they were like brothers.
Closer than any real family I ever had. We all agreed on the number of
lights while we were growing up, but we never really talked about it.

It wasn't something you really TALKED about, when you were a kid. You just
accepted it as fact. There were five lights. Everybody around you saw
five lights and they taught you to see five lights, and that's how many
there were, until the day you died.

You could talk about what color they were or how bright they were, but the
number never changed. There were FIVE lights, dammit, and bad things
happen to people who only see four!

I told my friends how many lights I saw. I knew it would shock them but I
knew they loved me. I knew they would accept my belief, even if they
didn't share it.

I was surprised when they started asking me questions:

"How do you KNOW how many lights there are?"
"Are you SURE there are only four lights?"
"Millions of people see five lights, who are YOU to only see four?"
"The fifth light is invisible, but you're supposed to see it anyway!"
"We're not wrong, your eyes are wrong!"

They were still my friends. They still loved me. But now there was
something wrong. Even when we're not talking about the lights, I can tell
they're thinking about them.

They don't just see ME when they look at me anymore. They see the guy who
only sees four lights.

They keep their distance sometimes. They were told that bad things happen
to people like me. They're afraid that if they get too close, bad things
will happen to them, too.

I haven't told my Grandma yet. I haven't talked to her in a long time.
I'm afraid to talk to her, because I know that if we talk, she's going to
ask me the question.

I've lied to her for 20 years, but I'm not going to lie anymore. If she
asks me how many lights I see, I'm going to tell her the truth.

After I tell her the truth, a lot of people are going to be worried about
me. Some of them are going to hate me. I don't know which part bothers me
more -- the hate or the worry.

I'd rather have people hate me than worry about me. I'm funny that way.

Before I go, I want to ask you a question.

You don't have to answer right away. You don't even have to say it out
loud. Later tonight, when the doors are all locked and the lights are out
and there's no one around to hear you or hate you or worry about you, take
a moment and ask yourself -- honestly --

How many lights do you see?

Jaffo

--
Liberty means responsibility. That is why
most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw

http://www.jaffo.com/

and I believe that God exists.

Wisdom's Children: A Virtual Journal of Philosophy & Literature
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/wisdom.htm
Submissions welcomed.

:I see four lights...

And thus, my Willpower is tested.

<G>

As per your "Why do I Bother?" thread, no doubt.

No one has ever shown me good reason to believe that rationality can
come from arationality or the non-rational. Four lights are not five
lights and A = A, period.

I'm no Objectivist because I'm not a Kantian about -anything-, including
the philosophy of religion. It is an unfortunate fact that Rand and
Peikoff implicitly rely on critiques of the theistic proofs posited by
their good intellectual soulmates, Hume and Kant. When they don't, and try
to critique sound Christian philosophers using their own arguments, they
fall into the worst question-begging straw-manning imaginable. I am
militantly unimpressed by the quality of their argumentation on the
subject, and don't even get me started on George Smith.

Picard explains later, that for a brief moment, from all of the torture that
he had been through, he wanted to see five lights. It was but a moment, but
for him, an eery one. How much does it takes to grind a man into the ground,
so that he admits something that he knows is false?

The captor's supervisors come in, and explain that Picard is free to go. He is
silent for a moment or two, then loudly exclaims, "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!"

Whoever the 'supervisors' are in one's life, whether it be a friend to help
guide you, or something that you find within yourself, one of the most
wonderful times in our lives is when we are able to look our captor(s) in the
face and exclaim, "There are only four lights."

I've enjoyed your posts here to the newsgroup, Jaffo. I've only been here
for about a month, but in the discussions I've seen you hold, you stick to
your integrity of how many lights there are, and exactly why you see them. The
hue or brightness of the colors may change at times, but you remain
steadfast on your search for how many there are. That means a lot, especially
when, as you say, so many today see that fifth light.

Peter Allen

<A very good bit clipped for brevity>

I too see four lights.

But I see five shadows behind me. Where does this fifth shadow come
from? Every effect must have a cause, right? Every shadow must have a
light? And the shadow is so neat, so sharp, so precise. It would
indicate that there is a light, somewhere?

Am I just seeing things? Is it just training? I just don't know.

Ben

best wishes,
Mike
--

Mike Rael, MS, instructional technology
la...@netcom.com
listowner, self-esteem-self-help
owner, COACHING BY PHONE, the rapid way to raise reality-based self-esteem

But that would prove to Gul Lemec that you were lying about not knowing
the Federation's plans, and he would have tortured you all the more.

--
Achilles

"Calamity most foul!"

-Cobra Commander

Very well done, Jaffo. I'm glad I caught Sally's posting or I might
have missed this!

...John

: Very well done, Jaffo. I'm glad I caught Sally's posting or I might
:have missed this!

Thank you both for your comments.

Jim Klein inspired this post by pointing out my dedication to honesty.

I hadn't really thought about it myself.

I just naturally place truth over conformity. I didn't consciously DECIDE
to be this way. It was a natural reaction to an unhealthy childhood, I
guess.

I saw how evil denial and manipulation was, and resolved not to be that
way.

These days, I have trouble accepting that some people care more about
popularity than truth. It's an ALIEN viewpoint to me. I'm on a quest to
find the truth. Majority opinions mean nothing to me. This opinion is so
ingrained in me now, I forget that majority opinion is the guilding
"principle" for others.

That may be why I'm so reluctant to pass moral judgement on "evaders." I
naturally assume that all disagreement is HONEST disagreement.

Jaffo

--
You can tell I'm posting from the office since
I'm using my boring sig.

http://www.jaffo.com/