Boating and Practical Philosophy
I recently toured a boat. Not just any boat. This was a 58-foot yacht. The owner lives on it for much of the year. Funnily, this owner insisted that I drink his “premium” beer, Modelo, because he didn’t want to diminish his personal supply of Busch Light!
The boat was outfitted with a feature called a “Seakeeper.” If you, reader, are as much of a fan of marine gyro stabilization as I am, you will know that a Seakeeper is one of several brands of recently democratized technology, originally developed in naval vessels about a century ago, to mitigate the pitch and roll of boats in wavy seas. It is an elegantly simple concept. An appropriately sized flywheel is embedded in the structure of the boat. It is spun up to very high RPM’s. The angular momentum of the flywheel counters changes in the boat’s orientation that the waves would impose.
The advantages are many. Unlike external fins or towed ballast, a Seakeeper can function when the boat is at rest. A deeper and heavier boat might offer similar stability under power, but at the cost of speed, fuel efficiency, and adjustability. While it takes energy to operate the Seakeeper, you only need to use it when the seas require it, whereas a heavier boat is always going to be heavy. Since the Seakeeper is dynamic, it can be coordinated with the propulsion system to optimize trim and performance under power. The boat owner attests that he doesn’t need to use it often, but when he does it is incredibly effective.
Despite an abundance of both Modelo and Busch Light, the owner and I never discussed the parallels of boating and philosophy. Perhaps there are better substances to lubricate that conversation. But nautical phrases pepper our language, linking the art and science of marine navigation with the variability of life. Thus, most people, especially those with boating experience, will understand my premise that philosophy is the ballast that helps society maintain an even keel.
Why does it seem, then, that boating technology advances, but philosophy doesn’t?
When our founding fathers wrote about governing concepts for our new nation, they substantiated their positions with philosophic underpinnings. Some were primitive. They referred to Greek and Roman experiences as recorded by the ancient theorists Homer, Aristotle, and Cicero, among others. Their religious convictions included agnosticism, Deism, and Christianity with the attendant biblical citations. Some were recent. Fresh off the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution, they were fluent in the learnings of Galileo and Newton. Some were modern. As children of the Age of Enlightenment, they were well-versed in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Adam Smith.
The founders included these references in their writings to explain their positions to each other. Also, to those among the population who had the skill and the time to read. This added depth to their reasoning. I observe that it also equipped their constructive interaction and, perhaps, optimized their ultimate choices.
Today, it seems we’ve thrown overboard any dogmatic ballast associated with faith. We’ve shortened our ethical keel in favor of shallower pursuits. By comparison, today’s leaders seem morally rudderless. Despite having 3,000 years of societal observations, they act as if the last 100 years of technological advancement have made such history, and its attendant philosophic understanding, irrelevant. Decisions that affect the whole of the country, and sometimes the world, are made as if one party is correct and good, the other party is wrong and evil, and history will be examined (or rewritten) only far enough to demonstrate those perspectives. If a leader invokes faith or philosophy as a basis for policy, which they rarely do, they are dismissed as too doctrinaire. Impractical.
But like science, there should be a practical component to philosophy. I love the Oxford Language Dictionary’s definition as “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence…” At a governmental level, when making consequential decisions, ignoring such critical thinking must lead to sub-optimal choices. From the outside looking in, it seems that like rats deserting a sinking ship, they have abandoned even the most commonly sensible of heavenly virtues in favor of the most fashionable trends in self-actualization.
I’m not a philosopher. During the period of my formal education in the ‘70’s, I considered philosophy a waste of time. Now, the older I get, the more I believe this is a deficiency. I should be more well versed. We all should. At very least, it would be comforting if our leadership was. But evidently, they’re not.
Not only do I lack foundational understanding, I have no idea if there are innovations. Is there nothing new? A philosophical Seakeeper, a modern guidance system for Morality and Reason, more applicable than Kant? I can’t know. But I notice that we seem unable to identify a north star, much less point our heading toward it. I wish the metaphors that link boating and philosophy kept pace with the technical advances of boating. Perhaps that would help us stem the tide of philosophically random choices that we appear to make as we are tossed about on the turbulent seas of technical discovery.
As fun as it was to write that last sentence, I didn’t get into any of this with the boat owner. That would’ve required Jack Daniels. Besides, most people today wouldn’t find it fulfilling conversation. They would hustle through it until they got me to leave. It is not part of our lexicon. Perhaps it should be.