The Tooth Fairy
and the Noble Lie
Plato,
in his “Republic”, spoke of “noble lies”, which his ideal Republic must tell to
exist. But these lies, upon inspection, prove to be crass, self-serving
rationalizations of philosopher-king rule. They are also transparent. Plato’s
philosopher-kings fool only themselves.
I see
nothing noble about such lies. I would call a lie noble only if it costs the
teller, and it’s built to be temporary, and it improves the minds of the
hearers when the deception inevitably fails. A lie is noble if it creates
philosophers.
I
therefore commend the legend of the Tooth Fairy. It’s a known falsehood told to
the young by their parents; a prank designed to collapse. Eventually,
inevitably, the child discovers that there is no Tooth Fairy; so you shouldn’t
believe just anything you hear! The Tooth Fairy takes away both baby teeth and
baby mind.
The
Tooth Fairy is a failed myth, deliberately told by unbelieving adults to their
credulous children as an initiation into skepticism. Her liberating miracle is
that she does not exist. The Tooth Fairy is to the gods as a vaccine is to
disease; a failure coopted into a warning. She is a paradoxical guardian spirit
of a doubt-based culture.
As
such the Tooth Fairy is much like Santa Claus, whose final and most generous
gift of all is sales resistance. They differ in that Santa is communal and
seasonal; he comes at a time of year; whereas the Tooth Fairy is personal and
developmental; she comes at a time of life.
I am an outsider to the
Santa cult, but I did initiate my daughter Hannah courtesy of the Tooth Fairy.
See my story “Toothseeker”, on this blog, for more details.
No comments:
Post a Comment