Would you rather make-out with your mother or spend a humid summer night naked in a hammock with your father? It's a tough choice. I have spent a good portion of my young adult life debating such questions. Some would say there is no way to answer such a question. These people are missing the big picture. If you were in a life or death situation, you would have to choose. And you wouldn't want to let your parents down.
At Dartmouth, you spend a lot of time answering questions. What was the primary cause of the French Revolution? Was that history paper due today? How did your night turn out? What's up with your hair, did you just wake up? Is Larry from Food Court super friendly or super sketchy?
Most of the time, you can answer these questions without thinking much. However, certain questions, like a few well-crafted "would you rather"s, can keep your gears spinning for days on end, and should be a part of any daily academic ritual.
Here's a little food for thought. You can blitz me if you disagree (but you're wrong).
Question 1: Would you rather get hit in the shin by Barry Bonds swinging a wooden baseball bat or by Tiger Woods swinging a 7-iron?
I spent my senior year of high school debating this question with anyone who would entertain the quandary. I polled, probed and harassed baseball players, golfers and physics teachers alike, but with every argument I discovered there were two more counter arguments that were just as logical. I felt like I was a kid choosing between chocolate or vanilla frosting with two evil voices in his head telling him which flavor to pick.
I initially preferred the bat of Barry Bonds due to basic laws of physics: the smaller strike zone of the 7-iron means more pressure per square inch of surface area. That means if Woods keeps his head down and follows through, the 7-iron will snap the bone and slice into your leg. Ouch. The wider and lower density bat of Barry Bonds seems enticing, does it not?
But upon further reflection, this school of thought doesn't hold any water. As devastating as Woods' 7-iron would be, Bonds is jacked up on steroids and will demolish your leg. The larger surface area will spread out the impact, but will still be strong enough to break the bone, and thus, will shatter the bone. Not only will recovery take longer, it will undoubtedly hurt a lot more. Yes, I've put some serious thought into this. Correct answer: "I'll take Tiger Woods' 7-iron to the shin, please."
Question 2: If you were a superhero with minimal responsibilities for saving the world and could just hang out all day, would you rather have invincibility or invisibility?
Invincibility would be really sweet. First of all, you could get into fights all the time and jump off buildings with out worrying about a thing. There'd be other perks as well. You'd never need to wear your seatbelt. You could toast marshmallows without a stick. You could eat rocks. The list keeps going.
The downside is if you ever get stuck under a large object like a boulder, you wouldn't be able to free yourself by cutting off your arm as Aron Ralston did in the Rocky Mountains of Utah in 2003. You'd be trapped for years slowly being covered by sediments until you just disappeared; never to be heard from again.
Invisibility, conversely, would also be really cool. You'd dominate in Capture the Flag and would never awkwardly bump into people on the street that you once hooked up with. Your only fears would be fast moving traffic and sharp-beaked birds. However, if you ever fell into a river and started to drown, unfortunately, no one would come rescue you. Correct answer: invincibility.
Question 3: Would you rather give up all functional use of your sexual organs for six months or give up eating cheese for the rest of your life?
This is a true war of instincts. On the one hand, sex is ... well, sex. And six months without functional use of the old twig and berries or the equivalent female counterpart (the mossy knoll?) would be horrible. The pent-up sexual frustration would just be too much: like freshman year all over again, minus the masturbation.
On the other hand, cheese tastes really good. Mmmmm, cheeeeese. How could you really live without cheese? It's good on pizza and nachos. You can put it in sandwiches. It tastes great with crackers. You can even eat it by itself. I love cheese.
It's a hard decision. From a midnight snacking standpoint, cheese has got to stay. Men make lifelong vows of celibacy to become priests, but they are unable to give up cheese. From a health and mental sanity standpoint, cheese has got to go. But if it's stomach vs. penis, one on one, penis wins every time. Correct answer: Give up cheese for life.
Question 4: Would you rather be the hottest man/woman alive in the world but think you are the ugliest, or think you are the hottest man/woman alive but actually be butt-ugly?
They say it only matters how you feel about yourself. But I imagine if you are the hottest person in the world, other people are always holding doors for you, buying you free meals, and giving you lap-dances. You might have no self esteem, but your life would be a lay-up. Also, if you're the world's ugliest person, people are probably always trying to kick you. Feeling good about yourself doesn't help when you are always getting your ass kicked.
Correct answer: be hot and depressed.
As Socrates wisely said before accidentally drinking a vile of hemlock while hammered on red wine, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The key to a liberal arts education is asking good questions and trying to come up with the best answer. There are plenty of other difficult questions like these out there worthy of contemplation. Just combine some intellectual curiosity with a critical mind and a group of scholars amenable to debate, and, who knows, you might find out that, deep down, you really do want to French kiss your mom.
