On-Sale Milk

This week’s prompt immediately brings to mind an eccentric friend of mind named Jake, who is the definition of a classical thinker to a tee. Educated in Germany, and a former mechanical/chemical engineering dual-major, Jake does everything in a very logical and efficient manor—or so he thinks.

For example: Jake is obsessed with health and fitness, and has dialed in the amount of protein, carbs and fat he should be consuming on a given day to reach “optimal performance.” He strictly follows a regimen called carb cycling, frequently utilized by fitness professionals. One day, he consumed an entire angel food cake to reach the amount of carbs he had “logically” deemed optimal. His way of thinking often leads him to deduce that more of a good thing is always a good thing—which is certainly not the case.

The next day, Jake purchased five gallons of milk on sale from Town and Country that expired in the next two days; he had calculated the grams of protein he could get for a dollar between fish, chicken and milk, and had “logically” deduced that buying the sale milk would give him the most bang for his buck. He proceeded to drink the milk during and after playing a game of soccer in the 90 degree August heat. I’m not sure where his logic went with that one.

Although Jake’s logic has made for some strange dietary habits, it really causes problems when it comes to dating…

Recently, another friend of ours set Jake up on a date with a nice, intelligent girl who we all thought would be a great match. They went to a movie and everything went well; they both seemed eager to see each other again. The next date, he told her that unless she saw a serious future between them, a relationship that could potentially end in marriage, he didn’t want to continue seeing her.

“Logically, it doesn’t make sense for me to waste my time on someone with whom I don’t see a potential future,” Jake rationalized.

He’s as purely logical as they come, thinking only in black and white, in binaries and calculated steps, working always toward the optimal solution. He lives primarily in his head, and although logic works perfectly in hypothetical situations, it doesn’t always come to fruition in real life. Logic leaves out the reactions of others, the elements of life that are out of our control. Jake assumes that there’s a formula for everything, a single Truth that one must always strive for in every situation. He also often disregards his feelings and emotions in favor of what he perceives this Truth to be.

Logic, I would say, aims to leave out rhetoric; it attempts to forgo the consideration of all the options for that which is perceived as the best. But as Nye mentions, as one looks at the history of logic, it is easy to see that it is as susceptible to change as any other sector of human thought; it evolves as shifts over time.

Kim mentioned that she thinks that logic cannot possibly eschew all human feeling, visceral reactions and emotion. After a semester in France, I can certainly attest to the differences in logic and heuristics, and the rifts in perception created by distinctive cultures and worldviews.

I certainly agree when Nye says that even logic is not above human motivation, and must, to some degree, fall under rhetoric.

Logicians, Nye points out, “have the nagging suspicion that they must stop thinking and feeling to succeed.” But logic devoid of emotion brings us to dangerous places; it gives rise to social travesties like slavery and genocide and compels a “purely rational” thinker to buy five gallons of marked-down milk.