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One does not expect infallibility, so it is not intrinsically upsetting if there is subsequent correction...In any event, let us take up the "tastes like chicken" syndrome. Ask someone what turtle tastes like, and he will likely say "Tastes like chicken!" The same with rattlesnake, possum, and an assortment of exotica. Now, since even other fowls, such as duck and goose, do not taste like chicken, why is it that everything else seems to? Not, we may assume, because the taste is identical, but because experience is limited. Out of the meat flavors with which the individual is familiar, it tastes the most like chicken, and, in any case, he wants to be sure that his interlocutor has some idea of what he is saying. To what extent, then, when people tell us things that are unusual in experience, are we getting the "tastes like chicken" version, and therefore is the experienced falsified and rendered trivial: if everything tastes like chicken, why not just eat chicken? |
