Vesna McMaster – Nature

‘Leopard ate his face!’ the cry currently going round when right-wing supporters get shafted by systems they helped to implement. ‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.’ But why leopards? I guess that’s not the point, but the naturalist portion of the brain can’t help considering that the face is one of the least tasty parts of a body. It’s simply not in a leopard’s nature to eat your face.  Not for starters, anyway.

Frivolous political jibes aside, several philosophical approaches rely pretty heavily on some dubious assumptions about the ‘nature’ of humans. The Greek concept of Eudaimonia posits that the best life is lived by doing ‘good’ – and ‘good’ itself a dodgy concept. I mean, back to that imaginary leopard – on the day it eats your face it’s a great day for the leopard but not so good for you; it’s all a matter of perspective. Few people actually go around doing good and getting a buzz out of it on a regular basis, unless they film themselves and get a few million likes on Insta, in which case it rings a bit hollow. Maybe Eudaimonia is in short supply outside the patrician classes of Ancient Greece; maybe that’s our problem. Kant’s Categorical Imperative sort of assumes the same thing: that people should do what they enjoy the most, and this will lead to a happier, better adjusted society. Which is great if you have a bunch of people who love being plumbers and builders and philosophers. But there are heaps of folks who get a real professional kick out of some fulfilling murder, rape and pillage – which again might be a great day at the office for them, perhaps not so much for their subjects. I don’t think Kant thought that one through, tbh.

So the leopard. You wouldn’t think they’d eat faces but maybe they changed their minds. Use to be that everyone thought cats and dogs didn’t like each other, but in fact they can get on perfectly well. Maybe leopards have become accustomed to eating faces, and they now appreciate the crunchy, bony texture. Similarly, is it in a politician’s nature to be duplicitous? Or do they train up for it? Maybe deep inside every politician, somewhere hidden, beaten, there is the tiny remnant of a truthful person, cowering, trapped, forever locked away. Maybe the leopard only eats your face because it already ate its own.

 For a musical interlude, see:

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QGy9D_c1pY