Of Men and Tomatoes

 (This post is coming from someone who had a yield of exactly zero ripe tomatoes last year. I had big beautiful plants. I had flowers. No tomatoes. This post is actually not much about the care and feeding of tomatoes, and if I ever offer such please take it with a grain of salt. ;) )

Image by cogdogblog - https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/5073842069/

 

There is, in essence, one right way to grow a tomato and all others are wrong. You either get a good harvest of tomatoes from what you are doing or you do not, so nature tells you when you are not following this one right way.

Now, that one right way may require different applications in variations of soil, nutrients, light and temperature, to achieve that one set of optimal conditions. No human being has ever read the secret user manual on tomatoes, revealing everything that the tomato needs to be happy and productive, but on the whole the science of tomato growing is fairly well known. The limits in OUR KNOWLEDGE (not the truth of the matter) are in the variability of conditions and genetics rendering experimental confirmation uncertain. I do not know whether it is known for a fact whether planting an aspirin tablet with your tomatoes increases yield. Some do it, some don't.

Tomatoes, as far as we know, do not have a social life. They do not chat with, love, or curse other tomatoes. If they did, then there would also be ONE TRUTH of the matter as to which social relations and rules were most constructive to tomato life and which more destructive. Our knowledge of that one truth would also be limited, just as our knowledge of their growth and productivity exists but is limited. On the whole however, the contents of the Tomato Social User's Manual could be approximated by science, if such social relations existed. Which, as far as we know, they don't.

HUMAN BEINGS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. There is one set of optimal conditions for human development, growth, strength, and intellectual improvement. Human beings, if you will, have a secret unseen instruction manual, and if you were able to read it and then followed it, what would result would be optimal human development and progress. Since humans are also social creatures, there is also ONE TRUTH of the matter of which social arrangements are most beneficial and which are not. The unseen Users Manual would include information on the most biologically beneficial conditions for humans, but also the most beneficial social rules and laws for them.

If you act contrary to the ONE TRUTH of how to grow good humans, there is no point in saying that your way is right for you. Your way is wrong, period, no equivocation about it. In this society you are free to be wrong, you are even free to cut your nads off and pretend to be a different sex, but this does not mean that your actions are not fundamentally destructive. They are destructive to YOU at a minimum, and to lots of other people and the social fabric potentially.

Just like with the tomatoes, there is ONE TRUTH of the matter of how to create biologically, intellectually, morally and socially prosperous humans. And all other ways are wrong. Period. There may not be agreement on what this one truth of the matter is, but if you deny that it even exists, you deny the evidence of your senses and indeed science that all living things have a set of needs and that some things are productive towards those needs and some things are not. You can argue all day long that pouring whiskey on tomato plants is good for them, but the evidence says otherwise. 

There exists an instruction manual for humans. It's called the TORAH: the first five books of the Bible. Now the Torah has instructions for other things too that are not currently relevant, like Tabernacle/Temple procedures, and instructions for things that were done in the past, like building the Ark of the Covenant. It also, interestingly, contains some environmental instructions. Instructions on how to deal with the natural world in ways that are constructive. However, among the instructions it contains are instructions on human biology (don't eat things that are bad for you or diseased,) human immunology (avoiding causes of disease,) and laws on human social relations. And these are laws that absolutely are the right ones, and any laws or instructions which contravene them are wrong, regardless of what anyone thinks about it.

Now back then they couldn't just have people sitting at computers for long periods of time typing and then print out all 6000 or whatever pages of a more complete instruction manual, but the existing instruction manual contains by implication enough information to reasonably piece out the whole thing. And the social instructions are pretty complete as is. Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet what does not belong to you. Honor G-d. Honor parents.

If people did follow the instructions we have, this would be a drastically different world. They don't want to, and they really never wanted to, but the instructions are there.

They could be followed, if people wanted to.