Dominic Fox wrote:
>
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 21:29:28 -0400, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> >I like this.  Some suggestions.  Whether or not it's a "snapshot," it's
> >a poem, and one that needs a clarifying title.
>
> CONCERNING A RASH DECISION TO MARRY
>
> perhaps.
>
> > Apparently a married man
> >is speaking to a single, probably female, friend...
>
> who is proposing to marry an Iranian asylum seeker, in about a fortnight's
> time. I'm sure he's lovely (although I haven't met him); however, I don't
> believe that the circumstances permit a satisfactory degree of clarity in
> the inspection and apprehension of motives. Both parties may mean well, but
> I'm not sure that either can be nearly sure enough of what they *really*
> mean.
>
> > But the situation
> >doesn't become clear until the third stanza; the first two suggest any
> >number of other situations and, given a suitable title, could stand
> >nicely alone.  Niggling points: I'm not sure if "get real" entirely
> >fit.
>
> Almost any other admonitory exhortation would do as well - "come on!"
> or "come off it!" for instance. "Come off it" works better with "deported",
> I think.
>
> > "It's you who'll be deported."
>
> Agree to this.
>
> > Suggest quotation marks rather
> >than italics for "chooses."
>
> I'm not sure about just where the emphasis needs to go, in fact. The point
> I'm trying to make is that whatever one *thinks* one's choosing, in
> choosing to marry, it isn't what actually happens. What actually happens
> is - amongst other things - a kind of negation of choice. The person who
> chooses is literally unable to imagine what it will be like to be the
> person who has no choice (or whose choices are in any case extremely
> restricted), and this imaginative gulf obviates, to a degree, the sense in
> which that original choice can be considered to be fully informed. It is
> lacking some qualifications (e.g. when we say "informed, adult consent", we
> mean consent bolstered by certain established capabilities of the
> consenting person. Consent by itself is somewhat inadequate).
>
> The flipside of this is that the decision to marry, or to have children,
> involves an imaginative leap: it's arguably an act of daring, which one
> might always applaud rather than admonish. I mean, I took both of those
> decisions precisely in order to take leave of my life as I knew it, in
> order to admit an unknown quantity, so I understand and even value the
> impulse. The poem should not be saying, "because you cannot possibly know
> what you are doing you should be considered incompetent to make decisions
> of this kind, and must therefore listen to someone who knows better" (which
> would be rather intolerable, and also unlikely to succeed). It should be
> saying, "beware of the illusion that you know what you are doing - don't
> let it blind you to the risks you are taking".
>
> So "nobody *chooses* this" might equally be "nobody chooses *this*" - one
> makes a choice that must inevitably miss its target, and "the inevitable
> slow machine / that brings you what you'll get" serves up the real goods.
> One can't inspect them in advance of their arrival, but it's at least
> sensible to sniff the air a little.
>
> Dominic


It's debatable whether a choice that is, in a strict sense, "fully"
informed is a choice.  Engels' "freedom is necessity realized" is a way
of dismissing the problem of freedom.  What you call "daring," a "taking
leave of one's life as one knows it," informs all vital life-choices -
including, not only marriage, but the decision (subtle as it is) to
love.