Good Luck With That

The denial of reality has always been a lucrative industry, when you think about it. But some people do it better than others. The lady who wrote The Secret comes to mind, along with most major religions, certain modern French philosophers and about three-quarters of the staff of the schools of education in the United States. (I'm thinking of the ones who will tell you that reality is socially constructed. It isn't.)

But there are some people who overreach with this. I'm thinking specifically of those wacky kids over at the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They've got a campaign now urging people to call fish "sea kittens," the idea being that you wouldn't hook, kill, or eat a kitten so if you just urge people to say "sea kitten" instead of "fish" they'll leave the fish alone.

I'm not making this up, by the way. Life is funnier than anything I could make up.

Anyway, I'll never say never but I think the odds are low that people will start calling fish "sea kittens" in enough numbers to affect sport or commercial fishing. Extremely low, actually. Any resemblance between fish and kittens is slight and anyway, people are used to the word "fish."

"The beginning of wisdom," goes the Chinese proverb, "is to call things by their right names." The simple reality of the matter is that fish are called fish, and that's not going to change any time soon. When the people at PETA begin to be wise I think they'll recognize that themselves.