There is a way of asking
for our reasons
which makes us forget our best reasons
but awakens in us
a defiance of
and a repugnance for
reasons in general

-a way of asking
which makes us very stupid
and a typical trick of
tyrannical people!

The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, aphorism 209

As sometimes happens, yesterday in the course of facilitating a philosophical discussion, the forward progress of discussion temporarily halted. It seemed that our craft had run aground. Is not a small group discussion always an probing exploratory effort, after all?  In this case we were examining the role of, and the meaning of water in our lives personally, in the history of our Fox River Valley community. At issue was to imagine what form the future could take given our relationship to water, and to the Fox river in particular.

Decisions were made by our predecessors living here, to build a series of dams, to make power from the river for manufacturing.  Livelihoods, sustenance, towns were developed by laboring to use the river according to the period needs, the early settlement by those who immigrated here.  The times, and the manner of supporting community have changed.  Has the time come to remove the dams, to return the river to unimpeded flow? Nature’s life-forms within the river and finding habitation along its banks would raise their collective voices, if they could, in the affirmative. A complicated question certainly, which has ignited disagreement in the past. The temptation is to make a straight forward cost-benefit calculation assuming what will cost the public purse less is the “right” thing to do. The matter is complex. Even to accede to leave things alone, would be a type of decision and action.

A question was asked to illumine the assumption upon which this type of dilemma is grounded:  what is the difference, where lies the distinction between the fundamentals of life which we would describe as our needs, and those accoutrements, the “luxuries” that we’d characterize desires? Proposed that we consider where the outlines of this distinction lay for each of us in our discussion circle, – and how that influences our decisions!

In the fertile atmosphere which followed, a member of our circle demanded of the questioner that the matter be made more clear, insisting upon help to better understand the issue… In the thin moment that followed, no more than a second or two, it felt as if our vessel of philosophical inquiry had run aground.

There are times when “a question” feels like the edge of a blade. Or the end of a heavy bludgeon.

Philosophy, “thinking with others” is hazardous business, risking the shoals.

Is it worth the risk?

Definitely.