I hate August in Oxford; it’s the peak of the tourist season
in my city and the pits for intellectual stimulation (my Harry Potter tours aside
;-). The students have gone for their long vacation or forever. The city has
the feel of a boxing ring at the end of a sixteen-round lightweight boxing match as
the dregs of the language students depart for their own countries, “Oxford
English” now embedded in their souls. Lectures are a very rare treat after the
surfeit of term time when I often have to make difficult choices. Even the
music scene is at low ebb though I did score a double whammy on a recent
Saturday evening: a writer’s drinks party followed by an upbeat performance by
the Pete Fryer band in a working class pub (yes, they do exist in Oxford) –
what a contrast.
Praise be that one thing does survive the desert of the
eighth month: Philosophy in Pubs – philosophy is perhaps eternal. The subject
for discussion is usually chosen by Ben, our erudite and urbane host, maitre D
and convenor. This time Ben was sporting a newly shaped beard (beards are in at
the moment, though I fear the word ‘in’ isn’t in) and wearing his
distinguishing philosophical hat. He had chosen an Everest of a topic: The
Meaning of Life!
At first, I seemed to be the only person at the Thames side
Isis Farmhouse pub, but I linked up with another lost person and suggested that
tonight’s topic was too daunting for the regulars or perhaps they already knew
the answer. He was a young prison officer from the local magistrate’s court
which led directly to a discussion of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘panopticon’ a prison
design that allowed all prisoners to be viewed from the centre. “Ah, a
miscreant masturbating over there,” I quipped to my new acquaintance.
“If that was the worst thing they got up to my job would be easy,”
he said sadly, and then explained that he was looking elsewhere, the job was too
demanding and unsatisfying. I could see that he needed to find new meaning in
his life.
Ben arrived at last and drew us together at tables in the
garden. One man in our group sat at another table and shouted a series of
complex words to us that I did not comprehend and said so. He responded with
another stream of rare and presumably philosophic terms. Too much philosophic
knowledge kills open philosophic discussion, so I changed tables.
I think that I am usually the oldest (but not the wisest)
attendee at Philosophy in Pubs (PIPS), but the man I then sat next to was near my
age and accompanied by two content King
Charles Spaniels: they both knew that the meaning in life is stroking and food.
He, the owner, struck me as having interesting views on our topic, but his
argument led directly to god or something like god; oh and love, lots of love.
Those spaniels can get you that way. A
much younger man took me to task as I banged on about the meaning of life being
personal, related to personal happiness and satisfaction and the need for
others to be happy and satisfied in order to create a society in which I, and
they, can be happy and satisfied. He maintained that since I did not believe in
life after death my life did not have meaning. I admitted that he had a point,
but later after a few more pints in another pub which had live music I thought
of the answer. So, I now know the meaning of life – my life.
That young man was studying for a doctorate of music. His interests
lay in the structure and meaning of music, including its relationship to complex
mathematics. He maintained that the shared enjoyment of music takes one beyond
the personal and gives life meaning – interesting. Later, on another table,
someone suggested that searching for meaning is futile: it is the journey
though life that provides its meaning. At that point I timidly suggested that
the inclusion in the American constitution of the phrase ‘the pursuit of
happiness’ may be the answer, then left to do just that in another pub. Hence,
I do not know if PIPS agreed on a meaning for life that evening. I rather doubt
it. It’s personal you see.
