刻舟求言

   It can be quite an experience to go on a boat trip which lasts from sunrise to sundown, especially when the passengers are a motley crew and, on top of that, the crew a mixed bag. That day there could hardly have been a greater variety of human beings on board: young, middle-aged and old; male and female, or with some androgynous combination of the two; brown, yellow, black and white and all colors or shades in between. And there could hardly have been a greater variety of people on board: persons inclined to the left, to the center or to the right in politics; anarchists, totalitarians and proponents of more moderate views; pacifists and militarists and those who may be peaceful at one moment and defend themselves or aggress against fellow-humans at another. In the denominational field, too, all were represented: those believing in several, if not many, gods and demons, or in only one god, with or without a devil, and those doubting or denying the existence of any god or demon, besides those believing in, first of all, a multitude of norms and values, or in a limited number of fundamental norms and values, not forgetting those professing to believe in nothing at all.
   The trip began in a very green, wet area with natural lakes, wide rivers and winding creeks. There were birds and fishes everywhere to be seen, and woods nearby and forests with wild animals on the distant higher grounds. It continued thru a drier area with smaller rivers connected by straight canals with polders on the sides, where there used to be lakes. There were still woods at the horizon and hedges between the nearby fields grazed by sheep and cattle. The trip ended in a completely built-up area with only human-made waterways crossed by steel bridges that connected stone and asphalt roads and streets lined with cars which led to majestic skyscrapers, the one even taller than the other. There was the occasional park, but there were no woods, let alone forests anymore. And the clear waters of the beginning of the day gradually made way for dirty ditches, full of the plastics and rubbers of human civilization.
   I traveled with a couple of friends, a man and a woman who had two children with them, a girl and a boy. As the sun was shining during a prolonged period of time, we were sitting on deck, like most other people. The scenery was pleasant and we had some food and drinks. Not far from us there was a family with something like ten to twenty children. One of the adult members, a man with a long beard, a mustache and a pair of glasses was sitting only two chairs away from me. It was not clear whether the children were his or whether he shared them with another man, who was probably his brother. It was not impossible that all the children belonged only to the other man in his group. They were undoubtedly a well-to-do family, the ladies bejeweled and wearing fashionable dresses, the men in tailored suits with shiny black shoes and glittering watches around their wrists.
   Not long after i sat down on deck, i noticed that the bearded man was reading from a large, heavy book on his lap. I also heard him mumbling something. It sounded like Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it, but it could also have been Increase and multiply, and fill the Earth, and subdue it. And i saw that the man marked the page with a dog-ear. "Don't forget, he mumbled, "these words were offered to the world at this place". I realized that the man could so find the words back easily and point them out to his relatives and friends --or were they members of his flock? Whether the bearded man had an official position in some temple organization or not, i started looking upon him as an ordained warlock.
   Within an hour or so my warlock called one of the older daughters before him. He asked her something about a boyfriend or young man, but she was shy and answered evasively. Yes, Father, No, Father were the clearest answers the others in her vicinity could hear. Was she betrothed already and going to marry? Or was it about time that she, at her age, got the fiancé she did not yet have? The warlock was obviously thinking ahead, beyond marriage, for he talked with her about her future duty to bear a child or, rather, her future duty to bear as many children as possible. With his left hand he held the tome on his lap and with his right hand he searched for the page with the dog-ear. Here, the Holy Book says "Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the Earth" or was it "Increase and multiply and fill the Earth", but words to this effect he spoke. And the young woman nodded "Yes, Father, yes Father, yes Father". After so much mutual understanding, he let her go back to her sisters and girl-friends.
   For a while nothing special happened on the boat, but the scenery was changing and not always for the better. Bit by bit sheds and factories were taking over from trees, rubbish in the water from fish and dirty smells from clean air. Yet, there were still a great deal of nice things to see and hear: beautifully landscaped gardens on the shores, interesting houses and imposing public buildings and if not the singing of birds, reasonable music from the speakers on the boat. Nobody paid much attention to the group with the many children. The only one of them, besides the mumbling warlock, who drew, perhaps, some attention was a youth who seemed to be showing off a precious gold watch. 'E took the watch off, looked at it attentively, pushed some buttons, looked at it again and put it back on. This process was repeated several times. Meanwhile the youth walked nonchalantly up and down the deck, while leaning against the ironclad wooden railing of the boat now and then.
   At a moment everyone had forgotten about the youth, the passengers on deck were suddenly shaken by a loud yell. A woman who was probably the youth's mother shouted: "Jim, your watch, your expensive watch!" Almost the whole family --or was it flock?-- ran towards the part of the railing where Jim had obviously dropped the gold watch, while shouting out loud: "Jim, your watch fell into the water!" The warlock, too, stopped reading and joined them. "Jim, how on earth, can you be so clumsy and stupid!".
   To everyone's surprise Jim did not seem to be shocked at all. While all were staring at 'im, 'e pulled out a small knife from a back pocket and carved a mark on the wooden part of the railing exactly at the spot where 'e had dropped the watch overboard. After having finished this he turned around and calmly said: "This is the place where my watch went overboard. When we arrive I'll find it back here, for sure". Totally puzzled everyone gazed at the little notch on the railing. "Why don't you dive into the water and get your watch back before it's too late?" Jim's mother asked, or rather ordered, with a great sense of urgency. "What good will that mark you carved do you", the warlock asked in what seemed to be much more of a statement than a question.
   But unperturbed, still as nonchalantly as before 'e dropped the watch, Jim replied: "Why panic, what's the rush? My watch went over at this spot. Why should I dive in now and keep everybody waiting? I'll just wait till we get to our destination and dive in at where I made this mark. Then I'm sure I'll find my watch back. It's made of gold, it won't rust. My watch is waterproof for at least 50 meters. And these waters are much shallower; they're not deep at all. So it'll keep on ticking."
   The woman who was supposedly Jim's mother yelled: "But Jim, that mark ...". The man who was supposedly Jim's father interrupted her: "Jim, get that watch back or ...". The warlock who was supposedly a priest interrupted him: "Jim, after your watch fell into the river, the boat kept on moving and your watch stayed where you dropped it. You don't believe your watch follows the boat, do you? The boat is getting further and further away from the place where you dropped your watch. How could you possibly find it back by a mark made on the side of this moving boat?"
   All the deck passengers had now gathered around Jim and the warlock and many of them --the kind who have little respect for others-- started laughing aloud and some of them --the kind who have even less respect for others-- started saying nasty things which Jim could overhear: "This one is crazy. He's perhaps 16 years old and still doesn't understand a simple thing like that!" With so much unexpected aggression Jim's posture was, maybe, a little bit less self-confident than before, yet 'e was not at all unsettled and stood firm: "Here, here, at this point on the railing I lost my watch. Therefore, this mark will guide me to the place where I can find it back. There's no need to worry, there's no need to worry ...". After this final proclamation Jim's parents took 'im to one of the cabins below decks and the warlock returned to the formidable tome where 'e started mumbling again.
   "It's typically a case of notching the boat to seek the sword", i said to my friends, "except that it's not a sword this time but a watch". "How do you mean?" my friends asked. "Kè zhōu qiú jiàn", i said slowly and drew the characters on a piece of paper: 刻舟求剑. "Notch the boat to seek the sword", i translated. "It's the story of a man who went on a long journey. Out of carelessness he dropped his sword in the middle of a wide river while crossing it in a boat. He then did almost precisely what the youth did now: made a small cut in the side of the boat below the railing, thought that he could find the sword back at his destination near the mark carved and --you guessed already-- never found it. Today Kè zhōu qiú jiàn is a short saying to remind people that they must do things in accordance with reality. That reality is that the boat we're in is moving. If the boat didn't keep on moving, the youth would be right. But the position of the boat does not remain the same, and therefore 'e's wrong. In a similar way some viewpoints, policies or customs may not be outrageous if circumstances never change, whereas they are outrageous at a different time and place, because circumstances have changed and usually do change."
   "Take that man, for example," i said, pointing at my warlock, "presumably he's a priest or something. He marks the page where it teaches that human beings should increase and multiply, and duty-mad as a hatter he interprets it as a commandment that all human beings are obliged to increase and multiply, and increase and multiply, ad infinitum, regardless of the consequences. At the time of the story he was probably reading, there were only two human beings, which you may call "a shortage of humans"; and a little bit later two sons as well, which you may call "a shortage of daughters". And at the time the story was written, there may still have been a shortage of human beings or, perhaps, in a type of culture in which they fancied killing one another, a shortage of men. In those days the human race could easily increase by, say, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 %, without repercussions, let alone great repercussions."
   "At present, however, we find ourselves in completely different circumstances. An incessant increase of the human population with its equally incessant growth of human needs will now slowly but surely destroy what is left of nature, and the human environment and eventually the human race itself. That priest dog-ears a page in an ancient book and 'e thinks 'e can still find contemporary goodness or contemporary justice from its time- and place-dependent commandments or rules. Men of his sort and their ribs, who take religious fiction literally and swallow it hook, line and sinker, with all its extremism and exclusivism, couldn't care less about the accumulated consequences for this planet, nor about the individual preferences of people. There's no need to worry, there's no need to worry ..."
   "But", my friends asked, "doesn't the same apply to any rule laid down in any book which was not recently published in your own region of the world?" "It depends", i replied. "It applies to rules which make use of concrete place- and/or time-dependent, factual or modal, conditions. If the priest had realized that it can never be a norm for humanity to grow in number forever, but that it can be and is a norm for humanity to a keep a balance, whatever that may mean in detail, with the rest of nature, he would never have marked that particular page. He would have understood that we need more humans or more male humans or more female humans at one place and time and fewer humans or fewer male humans or fewer female humans at another place and time or under other conditions."
   "That priest is as crazy as the youth. The youth nicks the boat in which we travel; the priest the boat in which we live, and he is therefore almost infinitely more dangerous. Because of the youth a watch has been lost, but because of warlocks thinking and acting like that priest the human species is going to be lost, after so many others. You may diagnose it as a case of notching the boat to seek the word, kè zhōu qiú yán." And, again, i wrote the characters on a piece of paper: 刻舟求言. I wanted to show them to my friends, but a sudden blast of wind took me by surprise and the paper was pulled out of my left hand. First it fell on the deck and i ran after it, but a second gust soon blew it further away thru the railing into the water.
   I leaned over the railing. The white spot on the water was rapidly becoming smaller, before disappearing completely. The boat tossed wildly over the waves, and not until then did i realize how much it was accelerating.