My son being one of the smart kids, I am obliged to attend a lot
of high school functions. All these events tend to feature the
obligatory inspirational-type speaker (a politician, lawyer, or
clergyman) who unfailingly parrots the same message. And it’s not
the virtues of capitalism, trust me. Rather, it’s some version of
the old saw that “to whom much is given much is expected.”
But don’t expect much in the way of variety. Nearly all
the speakers begin by telling the same tale. I’m guessing you have
heard “The Starfish Story.” It’s the one that begins with the
speaker strolling down a beach when he comes across a fellow
chucking starfish back into the ocean. The speaker approaches and
says something to the effect that there are tens of thousands of
starfish washed up on the beach. He can’t possibly make a
difference. The man patiently smiles and skips another fish into
the salty brine. “Made a difference for that one,” he
says.
At this point my son will glance at me from the stage and
roll his eyes. We are both having the same thought: “I’ll tell you
what kind of difference you made. You just deprived some starving
baby seagull of its dinner! And I didn’t see you helping those poor
jellyfish that washed ashore. Is it because they are not as pretty
as sea stars and hurt like hell when they sting you?” My son is
only 17; he can look forward to rolling his eyes through “The
Starfish Story” for many years to come.
I have never been asked to give one of these inspirational
speeches, for obvious reasons, but that doesn’t keep me from
imagining what I might say. Being a natural-born contrarian, I am
inclined to view with a jaundiced eye the notion we can improve the
world. I might quote Voltaire: “We shall leave the world as foolish
and wicked as we found it.” Or Samuel Beckett: “The tears of the
world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep
somewhere else another stops.”
Or I might really mix things up by reading from Loren
Eiseley’s original essay, “The Star Thrower,” which I happened to
come across the other day:
In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms
up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling
mud.
“It’s still alive,” I ventured.
“Yes,” he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he
picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the
sea. It sunk in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once
more.
…”There are not many who come this far,” I said, groping
in a sudden embarrassment for words. “Do you collect?”
“Only like this,” he said softly, gesturing amidst the
wreckage of the shore. “And only for the living.” He stooped again,
oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across
the water. “The stars,” he said, “throw well. One can help
them.”
…”I do not collect,” I said uncomfortably, the wind
beating at my garments. “Neither the living nor the dead. I gave it
up a long time ago. Death is the only successful
collector.”
Eiseley’s parable is Darwinian in its stark
“Nature, red in
tooth and claw” conviction. Quite another
thing from its sentimental successor.
Fortunately for thousands of after dinner speakers,
Eiseley later undergoes a philosophical shift. He dumps Nietzsche
for Oprah. As a scientist Eiseley knows nature’s inclination is to
thin the herd. At the same time, he recognizes man often
contradicts his Darwinian dictates (contraception, anyone?). He
knows man can be altruistic and compassionate even to strangers,
that we can, in that horrible clichéd phrase, make a
difference:
“But I do love the world,” I whispered…. “I love its small
ones, the things beaten in the strangling surf, the bird, singing,
which flies and falls and is not seen again…I love the lost ones,
the failures of the world.” It was like the renunciation of my
scientific heritage.
Eiseley then joins the star thrower on the beach, and
concludes: “It was men as well as starfish that we sought to
save.”
Yeah, we got that.
Liberals love this story. But the irony is that to a great
extent big government liberals, in their zeal “to save” men through
social engineering schemes, oftentimes take on the role of
“Nature, red in
tooth and claw.” Their utopian ideas
devastate the least fit, and all too often destroy their chances
for a better life.
Maybe that’s what I would tell the smart kids. This
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make a difference. Just realize you’re
hardly giving back when you throw some starving kid’s breakfast
into the sea.
