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Thomas Blenkinsop
Lower Sixth
South Town

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The Colour of Logic

It’s duck-egg blue. You may be wondering why I’m saying that. You may be wondering how I know that. You may, if you’re rather attentive, be wondering what I’m talking about. I’ll tell you; but slowly, so as to preserve a little bit of tension.

The first and most important thing is to answer why Logic is blue, and in particular, duck-egg blue. This is because it’s not logical at all to suggest logic has a colour. Be it red, white, black, green or indeed blue. But if logic was going to have a colour, it’d have to have duck-egg blue. The colour blue might suggest a lot of things to you. It might suggest the waves, or the wind, or the sky, or ice. It might speak of water, it might speak of ink. It might speak of a Jaguar, or possibly your kitchen sink. If you are insane or simply contrary, it might speak of fire, but in that case we might be straying into the “little voices inside my head” territory. But it is of ice and logic that I wish to speak. Logic is not necessarily nice. Logic isn’t usually cruel either, though. Logic originally comes, like a lot of our concepts, from the Greek. From Logos, meaning word, to Logikos, meaning “possessed of reason”. Logic is the process of reasoning and the investigation of arguments.

And that’s probably why logic is so cold. And duck-egg blue. Why should we act emotionally? It doesn’t work to our advantage. Why should we treat the poor well? It benefits us not at all in most situations. Why should we carry other’s burdens along with our own? The problem with logic is that it cares not a whit for emotions and humanity. As Nietzsche said, “Logic, too, also rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world.” So we must balance this logic with emotion; logic makes a fine man for himself, but a poor man for everyone else. Because there’s another reason Logic is duck-egg blue, not red; because Logic hasn’t got common humanity. It doesn’t have the same blood running through its metaphorical veins as any human beggar. It might tell you that logic’s better than that, but frankly it isn’t.

So that’s why I’m saying Logic is duck-egg blue. That’s how I know Logic has a distinct tinge of duck-egg blue. And that’s what I’m talking about.

But really? Just help your fellow man. Forget the Logic; you have life.

14 October 2008

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