In the latter part of the last century, as a student, I learned to trust my senses and instincts as I traveled long hours on the now defunct “BMT line” from my home in Brooklyn to a university way uptown in Manhattan. I had a few “adventures” in that mostly underground world.
As it is today, a passenger had to keep strictly alert to one’s surroundings, make use of one’s senses to avoid dangers. Things haven’t changed much in the underground transit world from those days. People placed in similar circumstances behave in similar ways. Rush hour still brings massive crowds. More working class passengers used the trains in those days. The stations were often littered with debris. There were pickpockets, sex offenders, “nut cases”, and many many hard working folk just trying to get to work or home on time and with the least inconvenience and danger as possible.
On certain trains at certain times the carriages were packed, all seats were taken and there was standing room only. Men who were seated in the crowd and surrounded by women (may have boarded at an outlying station) just sat there, staring down at the floor or feigned at being asleep with women standing near them. Some men did give up their seats to women. A standing passenger felt lucky to have an overhead handhold to grip onto to avoid bumping into others as the trains rocked and jerked ahead.
On some days and times passengers were packed in like sardines. An to make things worse the trains were often stalled for periods of time as the conductor-motorman-operator waited for a light in a tunnel, or for transit workmen to move off the tracks in the tunnel ahead.
On occasions these passenger-packed trains which were stalled in an underground tunnel, had all the carriage lights turn off, leaving passengers in total darkness—and remain that way for seemingly long periods (but perhaps only several minutes).* On one particular summer trip some sweaty, lightly clothed, and jammed-together-passengers clearly took advantage of the several minutes of absolute “35mm film safe” darkness. The lights blinked and then turned on and the packed and sweaty passengers bumped together as the train jerked ahead and finally stopped at the next station. The clandestine activities in the dark were only revealed when, as the crowd rushed through the open doors to depart the dusty and ‘reddish concrete floor again became visible—-there to reveal a discarded pair of tiny, black-lace panties! Harried exiting passengers carefully stepped over the “evidence”, some taking a furtive peek downward on their way out the door. I couldn’t see the expressions as they left but some seemed to be smiling, while others shook their heads in disbelief.
Some stations at certain times of day or night were a “no go” region and had to be avoided permanently. Other circumstances could not be anticipated.
Sitting at a window seat on a late afternoon, my textbooks on my lap I was jogged from a doze ans the train whooshed into a lonely uptown Manhattan station. The doors opened and closed. No one entered or left the near empty train. As the doors closed, and the train slowly pulled away, it passed a teen “tough” our eyes met only for seconds. Seeing me innocently looking out the window must have raised some objection to my appearance, as the train sped up he raced up and with a gloved hand punched the window so hard, it shattered, tossing dull glass shards into my face and lap. Fortunately the glass was of the “shatter proof” laminated type and no blood was spilled, but the shattered window and hanging pieces of glass bulged inward letting damp tunnel air into the train. I moved to another seat away from the windows.
After that incident, on a long lonely ride home, I made a list of some “BMT travel rules” I used so as to pass it on to my younger sister and others. The yellowed, crumpled list showed up recently as a page marker in a once treasured textbook of mine.
The scribbled shaky script in pencil lines read:
“Always appear as if you know where you are and where you are going.
Trust no one.
Share no personal information.
Wear no icons on your clothes.
No eye contact, eyes ahead! Keep moving.
Just step over that drunk lying in your path, no comments or special attention.
Watch out for pickpockets. Keep your wallet and valuables in your front pocket!
When the distant hollow roar of an oncoming train and rush or subterranean air from the dank tunnel tells you your train is roaring in to the station, be sure to stand well back from the edge and behind the milling crowd. Never near the edge!
And when your roaring train exits the tunnel and speeds into the lighted station, look out the grimy window and survey the crowd for thugs or gangs. Sometimes going one station more, may be safer.”.
But mostly one must learn to trust your own senses..and warnings of danger the intellect provides. Aristotle the philosopher and polymath of the Hellenic Golden Age would have agreed.
Aristotle (384BC-322BC) an ancient Greek scholar, teacher, scientist and philosopher was born in northern Greece, studied under Plato in Athens, eventually started his own school the Lyceum in that city, and later in life, traveled to the Court of King Philip of Macedonia whee he taught the young Alexander the Great . Aristotle was a realist, an empiricist philosopher who argued that our senses are the gateway to reality. For Aristotle the senses provide the only reliable information on the real world around us.
Aristotle held that knowledge and understanding of the world around us all stems from what we see, hear, touch, and smell. He didn’t formulate this relatively recent aphorism: “If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has feathers, it’s probably a duck.” But he most likely would have agreed with it.
The physical source of our knowledge of the real world is from the senses. But Aristotle also recognized that our intellect uses sensory stimuli to analyze and further refine the fundamental nature of things that may not be perceived directly by the senses, but can be understood from human reason. Some would term this a form of inductive reasoning—-an early form of Aristotelian common sense..and a part of a formal means of scientific inquiry in which we gather sensory information to arrive at a tentative conclusion. In this way Aristotle laid the groundwork for the scientific method, based on his use of observation and systematic inquiry.
He also developed rules of formal logic a form of deductive reasoning. Later others would combine these forms of reasoning to formulate a formal means of scientific inquiry.
Though they claim to laud “science” as if it was a “god” of the modern pantheon— modern societies seem to have abandoned Aristotle’s basis of scientific view of sense-based reality, often with unwanted or disastrous consequences. One reason may be the overload of information we moderns are exposed to. It overwhelms us. And like a “set price” Chinese buffet we overindulge in delicacies, become bloated and ignore the “meat and potatoes” real food. Then too, we moderns love to be part of the crowd. We fear having to stand alone with an unpopular idea sheet pinned to our lapel, reading: “I believe in XYZ”. We often suppress the perfectly obvious and valid information from our senses to accept the “feel good” concepts about reality that we are offered, even is these are unsupported by what our senses see and feel and what our intellect tells us—“this is reality”. The urge to be part of the accepted or “elite”, the so called intellectuals overwhelms our sense of how we perceive reality. We tend to “go along” with the chimera of a fantasy world that only exists in the minds of those who want to proselytize or propagandize.
Our senses told us that President Biden was age “challenged” and unable to perform his duties but the elites and others assured us that “out of sight” he is as sharp as a pin intellectually. Some told us our southern border was “sealed tight” and while we could see our neighborhoods overflowing with undocumented strangers from abroad.
Our senses tell us with certainty that men are, on average, taller, weigh more, are stronger, have greater muscle mass, more bulk, are more aggressive than women—and many more differences too. Our sense of vision can clearly differentiate man and woman. That is reality. Rejection of our sense of reality (or fantasy) is a 6 foot 2 inch male swimmer, weighing 200 lbs, dressed in a female bathing suit and prepared to compete in a swim race contest with females (“team mates”) weighing around 120 lbs and at 5 foot 4 inches or less. The long armed, long legged (former male) competetor wins hands down and claims overwhelming, consistent win streak wins in completion is fair—because he “feels” female. Though all those heeding their senses do not agree.
When race official claim the transgender “win” they ignore the reality or their senses. The tranagenser person claims “female hood” therefore “it’ is a female. Race officials, observers, and competitors must ignore their senses and reason to make this decision.
This is the abject betrayal of objective reality! Our eyes and intellect tell us so. But too many posit the fantasy world confined to a peson suffering from a form of dysphoria. Why should we and the female competitors be forced to deny our senses and our rationality based on another person’s fantasy world? Our senses should take precedence.
Our perceptions of our world should be, not what some fiction writer, sociologist, political theorist or political hack thinks it ought to be…but what is reality. Our senses and intellect are as Aristotle claimed our access to reality and should take precedence.
Were we to revert to the reality of Aristotle we would abandon the permissive fantasy of DEI, Radical Feminism, BLM, WOKEism and many other forms of irrational thought…in which the information which our senses provide us and what our intellects conclude—are ignored or denied and instead we act or enter into the chimera world of the fantasists in our midsts.
My many years of travel on NYC’s old BMT line trains hardened me to the need to trust my senses..it saved my skin on several occasions. Our senses tell us to beware of the the rash of knife slashing, torching, baseball-bat beatings, black teenage gang stompings, robberies, rapes, murders, random shootings and more, are dangers we should avoid and what we may possibly face upon entering certain districts, such as those of NYC or the underground subway system, for example. But the fantasists would have us ignore these threats —and foist on us their phony reality—that the City and its NY Subway System are a safe, clean, well lighted transport facility which supply a visitor with a clean rail car that will bring you safely to your station. Who is the realist? Who is offering you propaganda? Who is more likely to survive?
The realist also looks at the college scene with trepidation. Their senses warn them that young men and women who go off on “Spring Break” are likely to come home with STD or perhaps not come home at all. Spring Break its not a “break” at all, but a excuse to leave the almost “no rules” existence of campus life for the absolutely “no holds barred” life of drugs, alcohol, and episodes of sexual orgy called “Spring Break”.
Our senses and intellect tell us that our youth who at this Spring Break age are at the height of blood-hormone-saturation and peak sexual drive, but at their 18-22-years old their levels of mental risk-aversion is well below its zenith. When a young woman goes missing in Aruba or Santo Domingo while oin Spring Break, or is harmed or physically abused, where is the realist who has ignored their own mature and trusted sense of reality and sent their mentally immature child off into danger. Why? They ignored their own senses and trusted the propagandists.
Where are the realist, the adults…the parents? They too have become the fantasists.
* “Experts” on the old BMT tell me that the “lights off” events were the result of the train having to switch from “third rail power” to “battery power” for the interior lights temporarily. The lights went off when battery power was not available.
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