Long Division
First let me start by saying that I am not a numerist.
In fact, some of my best friends are Odds.
However, there exist certain realities of the world we live in that can not be ignored. As much as I believe that in some ideal world, Evens and Odds could live together peacefully side by side - this is the real world. We live on one side of the street and they live on the other, and it has been this way for as long as there have been street addresses.
I know that these days, more association’s between Odds and Evens is often tolerated, and I have no problem with that - I think it is healthy. But I think it is also clear that some people would take this trend a little too far. For example, the idea of allowing internumerical marriages is clearly ridiculous. How would the couple decide which side of the street they should live on? Even if you believe that parity can be changed, which spouse would be required to go through the difficult process of conversion and leave their family and friends behind?
And converted spouses would certainly be hurt to see their children growing up in a house with an address of opposite parity from their own childhood. Even if the neighbors didn’t find out and say something, the converted spouse may feel obligated to tell their children that they were born with a different parity. This kind of information, received at too early an age, could scar the children for life. Clearly a mixed parity household could never be a healthy environment for raising children, and should not, therefor, be legal.
And the idea of changing parity is itself a distressful one. Our parity is an essential part of our identity. Can you even imagine living on the other side of the street? Always turning left where you used to turn right? Always separated from your natural heritage by the pavement? Your old hangouts would be right there for you to see, but you would be unable to visit them without arranging for a special trip to the other side. And this can be a significant hassle - requiring a passport and a special visa - not to mention being poked and probed by customs agents of another parity.
I know that some radicals have called for the elimination of restrictions on cross street travel, but they are at best naive and at worst part of a conspiracy to destroy our way of life. While most Odds are certainly decent people, it can not be denied that some of them envy and hate us, and we can not make it easy for those who do to move among us undetected. Carefully searching their possessions and checking their backgrounds is a necessary precaution if we are to allow them to visit our side of the street at all - and we can not be surprised when they feel the need to do the same - even if we know that this is unnecessary precaution on their parts.
Some have accused Evens of perpetuating this long division - of deliberately persecuting Odds. And while there may be those who believe that Evens are naturally superior because (on average) we tend to have larger numbers, I don’t feel that this is particularly true, and I don’t think most other Evens do either. While we may be better at reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic, they certainly have some talents that we don’t - for example, better fashion sense and dancing ability. This is just the way the postmaster made us.
Its not that we don’t like Odds, or look down upon them in any way, we just understand that a natural separation is desirable - that people are most comfortable surrounded by their own kind. And I think that most Odds feel the same way. They have no problem with the idea that we are separate but equal. They take pride in their Oddness and should have no problem with us taking pride in our beautiful Evenness.
I believe that we can continue to share the world peacefully, but any rational minded person sees that it is for the best if we continue to live on our side of the street and they on theirs.
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Explore posts in the same categories: Satire
May 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I want to acknowledge the influence of Douglas Hofstadter’s “A Person Paper on Purity in Language” in creating this piece. The analogy and the idea to write this actually came to mind before I noticed the similarities, but I read Hofstadter’s work many years ago and loved that particular essay, so it was no doubt lurking in my mind.
There are also some notable differences. Hofstadter’s piece shed light on sexism by casting it in terms of racism. Mine is intended to shed light on the many accidental differences that some people use to divide human beings up into silly and arbitrary groups. To this end I have invented a division that is clearly stupid but then shown it to be equivalent by analogy to many groupings that people actually take seriously: race, nationality, sexual preference, etc…
Other influences might be Dr. Suesses “Star Bellied Sneetches” and Jonathan Swift’s “Guliver’s Travels” where the tiny island nations of Lilliput and Blefuscu are engaged in a long and bloody war over whether it is the big end or the small end of a boiled egg that should be peeled first.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I find it distressing that you have completely ignored the fractional way of life. For too long we have had to hide our divisors for fear that Evens and Odds might freak out over the possible “divide by zero” scenario. I’m a 1/4 and I’m proud of that fact. My father was 1/2 and he too was proud, but we had to fit in the cracks of society, hidden between Evens or Odds. Squeezed in wherever there was room, like unplanned children of a society who neither wanted us nor needed us. At least the postmaster still delivers to us without prejudice, but one can hardly ask a question about us to even the most common denominator without getting a quirky look.
Your,
John Kipling Lewis 1/4
May 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
People are nuts.
I mentioned my Odd and Even street addresses analogy in another forum and someone pointed out to me that the Hutu and Tutsi designations in Rwanda and Burundi started out as designations almost as arbitrarily as street addresses.
Here are a couple quotes from the Wikipedia entry for “Tutsi”:
So this means that people are capable of essential thinking “that guy’s great grandfather had fewer cows or a shorter nose than mine did - I must kill him!”
Paul and I detail how this insanity evolves in our book “God Wants You Dead.” So upon looking at this book, another guy in the same chat forum notes that one of the author’s last names is “Rosenberg.” He then concludes that the book is an attempt by the Jews to get all other cultures (and of course specifically the “White Race”) to abandon their group loyalties so the Jews will be the only ones with any group unity left and can rule the world unopposed. (Apparently all the Jews get a special memo telling them not to read this dangerous book.)
I find all this very depressing.
Especially the knowledge that my people, the Scots-Irish (where my last name “Hastings” comes from) are not perceived as a serious threat to the “White Race.” We should qualify as being just as non-white as the Jews. Why couldn’t we be the ones with a vast world-domination conspiracy based on encouraging individualism in others?
Give us a little credit…