PU #247 - WOULD YOU RATHER? - On the Value of Silly
I offered my students the chance to discuss something philosophical that they were interested in as we reached a break in our A-level lessons last week. Historically this gives students a chance to ask about things like political philosophy or philosophy of art, which aren’t on the A-level specification. This year, I was asked if we could discuss whether I would rather have the head of a dog, but a human body, or the body of a dog with a human head.
I rolled my eyes. Such silly “would you rather” questions have been around forever. We were asking them when I was at school to idly pass the time, and I still found myself indulging their stupidity every now and again even now as an adult. The day before the philosophy lesson, in fact, I had been seriously debating with my improv group whether we would rather be attacked by a swarm of bee-sized crocodiles, or a bee the size of a crocodile. But I rolled my eyes because, cynic that I am, I see these “would you rather” questions coming from my students a lot more recently and, unlike back in my day, where we made them up ourselves, a lot of the time they just tend to be some dumb online trend. A viral engagement where everybody weighs in and the originator of the video gets money from the number of clicks and shares. So my instinct at first was to dismiss the question as not being serious.
Instead of that, and instead of answering it, I asked a different question: why do we think dumb “would you rather” questions like this are worth answering? After all, their enduring nature over generations as a fun thing to do and the fact that such things really do go viral precisely because so many people like to engage in them are clear evidence that people do seem to think such questions are worth answering. Or, at least if not answering, thinking about. Why?
One student agreed they seemed pointless and silly. Her reasons were because the questions have no bearing on your real life. If I thought seriously about whether I wanted the head of a dog or the body of a dog, my answer would never matter. It isn’t a real-life worry.
She compared it with films, which were equally fantastical and not set in the real world, but from which we could at least draw some real life lessons. A romantic movie, for example, might not actually be happening in the real world, but by watching it I might be able to apply some of the ideas from the film into my real-life romances.
As she spoke, she realised she had possibly stumbled onto something about the “would you rather” questions she hadn’t considered before. Dismissing them as “not culture” (unlike these other cultural engagements with the fantastical) I asked her why they weren’t culture, given that groups of humans over time seem to have shared similar practices of engaging in whimsical thought-experiments and fanciful thinking about the absurd. We were creatively expressing ourselves and our ideas as a collective — surely the very definition of something “cultural”?
She realised something more. There was an undeniable creativity that came from playing with these ideas. Using our imaginations, etc. In other words, by asking such questions we engage in the sort of fantasy play which might eventually lead to something more. A spark of an idea that becomes a proper cultural artistic expression later. After all, stories exist full of weird and wonderful animal combinations, including human and animal creatures which borrow parts of existing things and splice them together. What is a werewolf if not part human, part dog, and what would happen if the full-moon transformation only happened to part of the body?
She told us a story she had heard about JRR Tolkien, writing his first ideas for what would eventually become The Lord of the Rings on a scrap of paper (it was actually on a student’s exam paper he was marking at the time! Tolkien wrote “in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” on a blank page between answers while bored.) From small scraps of inspiration, big ideas come. So why not play about with fantastical ideas and “would you rather” questions? The silly fun today might be the germ of the next great idea tomorrow.
I agreed that there might well be instrumental value in such questions, practicing our creativity like this, keeping the muscle warm, but was there any value in the questions themselves?
Another student attempted an answer, but hit on only another instrumental value to “would you rather” questions. They allow us to express ourselves and be heard. In a world where people don’t always feel they have a voice, or their opinions don’t matter, it’s nice to be asked if you’d rather have the head of a dog and the body of a human, or the body of a dog and the head of a human, and have your answer be listened to. They also work, psychologically, as a nice break from thinking about serious questions. The dumb dog question is a lot more fun to think about than whether the current US/Israeli war on Iran marks the end of the international order, or whether the UK is sliding perilously close into far-right extremism!
These are not insignificant things, but they are not values intrinsic to the question itself. Nor was the value given to training our intellectual muscles, though “would you rather” questions give us that too. Not everyone has read Wittgenstein, and therefore you can’t go down the pub and engage everybody in an intellectual debate about some finer point in the Tractatus, but you can ask about crocodile-sized bees versus bee-sized crocodiles because the terms of the debate are understandable by everyone. Importantly, the level of inquiry can be just as profound as the more academic discussion, and use just the same language of logical argument and counter-arguments. As philosophers we should therefore value these questions because they make better philosophers of people who may not have studied any philosophy.
But that remains instrumental. “Would you rather” questions train creative and intellectual muscles, they allow us to practice and experience having our voices heard, and they may be the first spark of some creative idea that will go on to be the next great novel, film, video game, painting, or TV show. But, of itself, is there any value in asking whether I want to swap my head, or my body, with that of a dog whilst keeping the rest of me human?
Of course there is, I finally told them.
If I sacrifice my human head for that of a dog, what will I lose? By asking the question it confronts me with reflecting on what I value of myself right now. Will doggy vision be the same as my human vision is? Will it be better, or worse? And which dog is it? Different breeds have different attributes. Some dogs have been messed up through breeding and can barely breathe because their noses have been squashed over time…but if I had human lungs but a pug dog’s nose and mouth would that make it better or worse to breathe? If I had a human nose and mouth but a dog’s lungs un-used to such large amounts of air coming through, would the lungs fail to cope?
The question of speech brought out other philosophical concerns. If I had the dog’s head, I would obviously have the dog’s tongue and the dog’s brain, but where does the head end and the throat start? Would I retain a human voice box and still be able to make speech sounds, albeit filtered through my doggy brain? And if I kept my human brain and mouth, would I struggle to form the words through my canine voice box, fit only for barking?
Do I value my hands? I’d lose them if I traded in my human body for a four-legged dog’s body. But is it worth it to run faster? Do all dogs run fast? Again — breeds matter. And given that I myself am in my forties, and dogs don’t tend to last that long, would my decision to take on a dog’s body instead of my own lead to immediate death? Would the dog’s body match my own age?
The brains obviously cause questions too. If I kept my own human head, would I still be me, albeit with the body of a dog, or would the biological chemistry of the whole of me impact on the brain chemistry. Is it purely a matter of keeping my brain, or do I need my brain and all the bits of the rest of my body that send signals there to make me who I am. Would the physiological changes below change who I am mentally?
It turns out, that a seemingly silly question might have serious philosophical value because, to engage with it properly, we must engage in serious questions about what makes us who we are, what we care about, and, ultimately, what we believe “the good life” to be. Any “would you rather” question is asking us — would you like this life, or this one? And what is that if not a serious question philosophers have been tackling for generations?
Would you rather have philosophy, but it includes silly “would you rather” questions, or no more “would you rather” questions, but no philosophy either?
I know what my answer would be.
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
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