The candidates we deserve

It is -11 outside right now. We let the dog out to do his business, and he stopped walking after a few minutes and alternated lifting up his front paws because of the pain caused by the cold ground. The other day, a Boston classical music radio host (I hesitate to call him a "dj") said that since hot summer days are called "scorchers," can we call days with biting winter winds "biters?" If so, today is a major biter.

Yesterday I linked with a Boston Globe article noting the line of obsequious musicians hanging to the Democratic presidential candidates. Note how the candidates all profess a love of pop, country, and rock-n-roll music, some of that love politically motivated to show "the common touch." A rather odd cultural logic that says if the voters have lousy taste, I will too. Anything to get a vote.

I wonder what would be the reaction if a presidential candidate, when asked, said that Johann Sebastian Bach was his favorite. Instead of the loud, thumping beats of 70s rock at his rallies, "Orchestra Suite No. 2 in B minor" was piped into the hall, calling attention to supporters that the candidate has arrived. Instead of blowing a sax onstage, perhaps amateur guest-conducting the BSO.

And wouldn't we fall off our chairs if when asked the requisite question, "who is your favorite philosopher?" this candidate said Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, or Hume? Yes, I am greatly influenced by Hume's ideas that knowledge is primarily based on experience and that a society's customs and habits are the accrument of that experience. Common sense, observation, and experience in daily life tell us that excessive taxes and regulation smother entrepreneurial drive, that weakness abroad leads to greater terrorism and disorder, that a stupid, vapid culture will lead to a stupid, vapid citizenry. Common sense and past experience should be our guide in all things and we should always take the "long-view," both in understanding how we got here and in how our decisions today will affect those many years from now. The debate would move on, and the next candidate would say Christ was his favorite philosopher because he taught us to love and tolerate everything, everywhere, at all times, except intolerance and anti-bike path Episcopalian pastors.

Wouldn't the sheer novelty of it, the heroism of it, the bold counter-cultural implications, be alluring? How odd that to love Bach and Hume (or know who they are -- or how their names are spelled) is counter-cultural and unorthodox today.

Undoubtedly the press would laugh and say the Bach-Hume candidate was a snob, an aspiring aristocrat, withdrawn from the concerns and tastes of the average voter. To which I reply, good.