Pinenuts: McAvoy’s Maxim
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Wed, 01/03/2024 - 7:24am
Perhaps not unlike you, I never took a hankering to algebra. In fact, I was told by an upperclassman that were I to live to be 100, I would never use it. But I did. When I wanted to know how many miles-per-hour I would have to run to finish the Boston Marathon in under three hours I used an algebraic equation to figure it out, 180 minutes/26 miles = X/1. By solving for X, I was able finish that race in under three hours, barely.
Today I would ask that we consider an alternative algebraic expression, McAvoy’s Maxim let’s call it, as a drawdown to World Peace.
This is an algebraic blueprint for a lasting armistice in a troubled world. But allow me to mansplain.
Algebra diplomacy is quite simple: Afghanistan a2/Zimbabwe b2 = (a - b)(a + b). Extrapolating that formula, Bahrain a2/Yemen b2 = (a - b)(a + b). Thus we create a comprehensive mathematical chart of coefficients for all nations, and the impossible becomes possible.
Yes, by looking at the world through an algebraic lens we can see how easy it is for us to get along, and refrain from killing each other in futile attempts to solve our differences. The age-old hard power math used today for settling warfare and violence has never worked, and never will work.
Everybody now recognizes it as a sum zero game of the very worst kind. As algebra becomes biologic, algebraic statecraft becomes our answer to world peace.
We are at an inflection point here in 2024, and what does that mean? It means if we don’t make some drastic adjustments this year, well, by 2025 we could find ourselves in deep doodoo.
The act of drawing down our weapons of mass destruction, alongside our algebraic partners, is an equation for world peace. Once our algebraic diplomacy chart is complete, we can stand in awe, admire it, and abide by its perfect polynomial expression. Yes, I have come to appreciate the fact that algebra is in fact, beautiful.
So what would Mark Twain say? Of course, with all due respect, we leave the last word to Mr. Twain.
“Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.”
There it is, wise words from the Moralist of the Main.
— For more than 35 years, in more than 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American." Go here for the spoken word version of this and other columns.
