Philosophy Makes Resolutions More Than Idle Promises

In recent years, it has been my practice to avoid making New Year’s resolutions, which are usually forgotten before the end of January. Instead I have tried to forge my rules of thought and conduct for the coming year from the philosophical concepts quoted in the annual RAND Corp. calendar.

RAND’s editors offer plums of wisdom from a dozen heavy thinkers, usually contemporary, but not always. I sometimes find these nuggets hard to digest; nevertheless, I feel good afterward.

Oddly, only two of the savants quoted for 1994 are women, a number that seems a bit out of keeping with present trends. The quote for January comes from Ruth Benedict, whom my biographical dictionary identifies as an American anthropologist (1887-1948). In a nutshell, Benedict urges us not to fear change.

“Change, we must remember, with all its difficulties, is inescapable. . . . Civilizations might change far more radically than any human authority has ever had the will or the imagination to change them, and still be completely workable.”

I am not sure that in these times of violent change I take comfort in knowing that it’s inescapable.

The late E.B. White, the genteel New Yorker essayist, is quoted for February on liberty and democracy. “Men of tidy habits and large affairs . . . do not always perceive that the elasticity of democracy is its strength--like the web of a spider, which bends but holds.”

I resolve to hang on and let ‘er bend.

For May, Freya Stark, the other woman for 1994, is quoted (from “The Journey’s Echo,” 1964) in praise of solitude. “Solitude,” she says, “is looked upon as a discipline or a penance, but hardly ever as the indispensable, pleasant ingredient it is to ordinary life.”

Because of the nature of my work, I have more solitude than most people, but I get along with myself very well.

For June, Christopher Fry, the British dramatist, extols the value of “the sixth sense--imagination, which we should take care never to let rust through disuse. . . . It is the imagination which makes the world seem new to us every day.”

For July, Allan Bloom, author of “The Closing of the American Mind,” urges us to think rather than feel. “It is not feelings or commitments that will render a man free, but thoughts, reasoned thoughts.”

My feeling is that rational thinking will call upon disciplines that most of us don’t have.

The late Norman Cousins is quoted for September from “Human Options.” He warns against acting on facts without finding out what they mean and where they lead. “Facts are terrible things if left sprawling and unattended. . . . The computer can provide a correct number, but it may be an irrelevant number until judgment is pronounced.”

As the prolific Anonymous said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

That philosopher and nature lover, Henry David Thoreau, urges for October, “Do what you love. . . . Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good--be good for something. Let nothing come between you and the light.”

The late respected federal judge Learned Hand speaks out for November on safeguarding the community through freedom of dissent and faith in the eventual supremacy of reason: “The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.”

The redoubtable Albert Einstein concludes the calendar with advice on goals to budding scientists at Caltech: “It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man’s blessings. Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors . . . in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.”

That was from a talk Einstein made to Caltech undergraduates several years before he urged President Roosevelt to research nuclear fission.

I have skipped three months because my capacity for this sort of advice is limited.

I will, after all, fill this space with a few resolutions of my own.

I am going to give up watching sex and violence movies on television. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

Having read in the paper that alcohol in moderate amounts may prevent heart attacks, I am going to continue my practice of having one vodka tonic a day, with my wife, before dinner. She pours them. We call them our fix.

I am going to take Thoreau’s advice and not be too moral. As he says, one must do what one loves. Maybe, after all, I’ll watch one sex and violence movie a week.

And I vow to make no more than two errors in 1994.