When I was in college, I took a test in which the final question was Why is a raven like a writing-desk? The class was made up of a good deal of students majoring in hard sciences who were checking off the box of a pesky humanities requirement to graduate. These students were looking for an easy A so they could go about the business of being good and contributing members of society. Fair enough. But this question about the raven and the writing desk knocked these students on their butts. They couldn’t identify which play we had read that the professor was referencing, they couldn’t remember ever having covered it in lecture, and they couldn’t figure out how they could possibly compare such random, disparate objects, nor why it was relevant to do so. The question came out of the blue and some of the students were downright apoplectic about it. Why?

Because the question makes absolutely no logical sense.

There was no logic to the question nor to any conceivable answer, and no logic as to how or why it fit into the course curriculum. The question abandoned logos, Aristotle’s third artistic proof of persuasion in rhetorical argument. Logos is the appeal to reason, relying upon facts to prove a case. The word logic derives from the Ancient Greek logos, but it’s more than simply logic. Logos means both word and reason; it’s both the thought itself and the expression of the thought.1 When the famous verse from John 1:1 was translated from Ancient Greek to English, it replaced logos with Word:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.”2

By the powers vested in deductive reasoning (more on that in the coming weeks!), Word (Logos; i.e., reason/thought/logic) IS God. Logos was one of the titles conferred upon Jesus, and early Christians argued Jesus’s divinity and his place in the holy trinity based in part upon that quote from John 1:1. Merriam-Webster’s first definition of logos is:

“the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and redemption of the world and often identified with the second person of the Trinity.”3

In that case, logos is the manifestation of divine order and the key to saving the world. Just slip some divine order and redemption into your next argument, presto chango. No big deal.

Despite Aristotle’s formula for successful persuasive argument, the appeal to reason and reliance on logic and fact is sorely lacking in today’s trend of alternative facts and fake news. More and more often I find myself, like my former classmates, apoplectic at illogical policies and blatant disregard for fact. I think back on those students with sympathy whenever I encounter statements or tweets that smack of doublethink. (“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”4 (Orwell 220)). And my old friend Fiction is mostly mum when it comes to logos because of its congenital love-affair with pathos. But never fear, intrepid swimmer, fiction doesn’t abandon logos completely. There’s an entire genre of fiction devoted to the exploration of reason called Nonsense Literature. This genre lays a foundation of logic and reason and then subverts it. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a famous example of Nonsense Literature in which the heroine, Alice, is continually caught between the well-mannered, reasonable world of adults and the chaotic, fantastical one of childhood:

"‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
‘You shouldn’t make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’"5 (Carroll 59)

At the Mad Hatter’s tea party, Alice insists upon the civilized discourse of adults and attempts to instruct the others on proper manners. But the logical world of adults that Alice is on the verge of joining does not fly in Wonderland:

“The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’” (Carroll 59)

The reader, like my former classmates, may be quicker than Alice to see that riddle and realize that all bets on logic are off here. But we see Alice’s innocence and determination to abide by the rules of reason, even when her companions aren’t playing by the same rules of logic:

‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. –I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.
…
"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
"No, I give it up," Alice replied. "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.
"Nor I," said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers." (Carroll 59-61)

Poor Alice is utterly lost in a landscape of shenanigans that she doesn’t have a hope of reasoning her way out of. My poor classmates, too, were inflicted with the same riddle. And poor you and me, trying to make sense of the world around us that suddenly refuses to adhere to reason. So what are all these poor people to do? Isn’t there anyone with the ethos to clear everything up? Legions of fans wrote to Lewis Carroll begging for an answer to the riddle until he felt compelled to proffer an answer:

"‘Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!’ This, however, is merely an afterthought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all." (Huxley 21)

That’s right, like the Hatter, Carroll never intended to complete the logic circuit with an answer. And just in case you’re getting ready to message me about that nevar typo, I’ll save you the trouble: Carroll wrote it that way on purpose; it’s an extension of his nonsense theory. Nevar was the original redrum.

In a moment in time that feels like life imitating the art of Nonsense Literature, where do you see logos used, abused, or completely absent in the world around you? What fiction informs your own logos? How do you respond when you find yourself in Alice’s shoes, at a loss for a firm grip on reason? Share your brilliance in the comments below, we sure could use a beacon of reason right about now.

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Notes:

Artwork: Alice in Wonderland by Azzy Roth is licensed under CC0 Creative Commons.

1)      Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. “Λόγος .” An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon , Tufts University, Apr. 1999, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry%3Dlo/gos.
2)      The Student Bible. New International Version. Zondervan Publishing House, 1996.
3)      “Logos.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Logos.
4)      Orwell, George. Part 2, chapter 9, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, 1949.
5)      Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Everyman, 2000.
6)      Huxley, Francis. The Raven and the Writing Desk. Harper and Row, 1976.