The Philosophical Optimist

              It was Shakespeare's Juliet who asked "What's in a name?"   The answer to that question appears at times to be: more than you might think.   This truth, which seems to recur in my thinking again and again like a musical theme, struck me again recently as I was watching the science fiction action film Demolition Man (1993).   In that film, Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan, a late 20th-century police officer sentenced to 70 years in a "Cryo-Penitentiary" for the death of 30 hostages in the course of apprehending the mass-murdering Simon Phoenix.   36 Years later, when Phoenix escapes during his parole hearing, the practically violence-free world that has developed in the interim finds itself unable to deal with him, and must revive the 20th-century "barbarian" John Spartan to apprehend him.             The revived Spartan finds himsel...

[The following essay and its sequel were first published on my previous blog several years ago, but its ideas are just as relevant as ever, if not more so]             I first began this little meditation some time ago when I was recalling a commercial for the then-new (and then quickly canceled) television show My Own Worst Enemy .   The show involved a man who was in some sense (what sense, I did not know, nor did I care) a split personality, with two opposed minds within him.   Of the two, the good one was named "Henry," while the evil one was named "Edward."   It was some time before I realized why those names seemed so appropriate: they are, of course, the respective first names of the two eponymous characters of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous short work, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .             So I thought to myself: that was a nice ...