Betta Fish Nation, or; I Am SO Fucking Smart

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin

My brain came up with an analogy between modern western civilization and fish one night a while back when I was half asleep. It seemed sleek, pithy, and clever at the time, so I updated my Twitter account's status with it: "Giving up liberty for safety is for the beta fish. They are pretty, but stupid, and eat poop with their food. I am not a beta fish." A 140 character limit certainly forces an economy of words, but you get the idea. It struck me as classically clever--the sort of thing I could use to quote myself without remorse. The combination of a libertarian quote by Ben Franklin and a reference to a popular pet fish seemed deliciously referential, like an episode of Family Guy. I decided I would write an article comparing Betta fish to my idea of the average American neo-con statist; the sort of person who is happy to trade out their (and everyone else's) essential liberties for "protections" like the Patriot Act. I figured I knew this person like the back of my hand, and that a cursory look over the Wikipedia entry for “beta fish” would lend me all the more fodder for comparison. In essence, I was SO fucking smart, and I wanted to show the world by dominating the illogical and dangerous position of my opponents.

Boy, was that narcissistic corner of my brain in for a surprise. I had way more than just spelling wrong with my understanding of the Betta fish.

Before I even hit Wikipedia, I had the whole article planned out in my head. Explain the psychology of the Betta fish. Fear of large open spaces is why they're often confined to fist-sized fishbowls. They don't need lots of scenery, and even prefer to have a big ol' plant around to hide behind, even in their tiny, tiny living space. Their ridiculous amounts of colorful plumage seem utterly wasted in an environment so constricted. Then I was going to explain how that's strikingly similar to the American statist. They seem to want to live in a more and more enclosed environment, even to the point of near suffocation. The quality of life these people enjoy is directly related to something completely outside government control, so they have their own sort of out-of-place plumage—something that comes from another place than this lockdown and is seemingly unnecessary, like a prisoner in a flashy sequined jacket. I would have gone on in that vein, concluded with something like, “I'm smart. These other people are stupid. The end.”

All of this went through my brain as I searched out the Wikipedia entry for "beta fish." I planned on using quotes about the fish's propensity for small, enclosed spaces to drive the point home. Oh, the delicious analogous points I was about to connect! But as I read the details, I found something quite interesting: The Beta Fish is actually called betta, which is a genus of fish for which about 65 species are classified. Beta is a common misspelling in North America. Betta splendens is commonly known as a Siamese Fighting Fish, and is the one sold in the United States under the name Beta, or Betta. This was interesting but extraneous information which I intended to use in my essay to convince people of the premise, "I am SO fucking smart;" trust-building through an explosive diarrhea of facts.

I pressed on, confident in my ability to use this new information to my advantage. Then I found some more shocking fish information! The Betta fish actually doesn't desire small spaces for safety. That's a myth. They're simply displayed that way in stores because the males, full of piss and vinegar, would fight to the death if left in the same tank. Huh. Weird.

This was going to entirely change the course of my essay. But I pressed on, undeterred! I was going to show people how good I was at analogies and facts and information and all that shit. I worked for months writing and re-tooling the essay. At one point it was about the government treating its citizens as uneducated fish purchasers treat the Betta upon purchase. They keep them in dangerously small tanks "for their own good," and wonder why they die in a week. Another version was about how people actually yearn to live free and clean, like the Betta wants a 3 gallon tank and plenty of space to himself. It all got very confusing, and no version of the essay felt satisfying to me.

It was time to evaluate my goals in writing the essay and accomplish them or scrap it all to the "ideas" folder on the computer. It took months, but I finally realized that my goal in writing this piece was not so much to further the conversation about human freedom as it was to further the conversation about how smart I am.

"That Jason," I wanted people to say, "he is SO fucking smart."

This is similar to the narcissism I always sense when reading Nietzsche. Pithy aphorisms that seem true enough to convince lots of people through their sheer charm alone. Nietzsche was brilliant, to be sure, but he was far from happy and had no concept of moral virtue as anything but manipulation. I was searching for a downhill bike-path to perceived brilliance. No good. People just thinking you're smart doesn't make your life actually happy and virtuous any more than putting George Bush into a democratically elected position of power makes him actually fit to lead anything more complex than a Cub Scout troop.

My way to happiness and virtue lies down the hallway marked "honesty." Honesty-to-self and -truth is the only path to virtue, and virtue is a necessary condition of true happiness. Help make sure I keep moving in that direction, kind readers, with your comments!