The philosopher Voltaire once said that if
God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
I’m not sure exactly why he thought that
creating an imaginary God would be a useful thing for humanity. But perhaps one reason would be for an
imaginary God to function as a powerful policeman. Even if no human eyes could see you
committing crimes, then you might still be frightened of being seen by God.
My wife recently tried a similar tactic to
encourage our son to behave well – she created an imaginary alien, who watches
over our son’s behaviour.
My wife calls her own phone from her
computer. “Oh dear! The alien’s calling. He wants to know if you have gotten ready for
the nursery yet. He’s a scary
alien. You had better get ready, or he
will come round!”
So far her ruse seems to be working. The pretend alien is the only thing that can
get our son to do something that he really doesn’t want to do.
But you have to be careful not to push
these ruses too far. One of my wife’s
friends used to pretend to be talking to the police about her son.
“The police will come to arrest you if you
don’t finish your homework,” she would say.
She had to stop doing this when one day her
son called the emergency contact number for the police.
“This is the police. What is the emergency?”
“Hello, this is (Taro Tanaka). I have finished my homework.”
“Umm, what?
Is there some emergency, Taro?”
“There is no emergency. My mum said that you would arrest me if I
didn’t finish my homework. But I’ve
finished it now. So don’t worry.”
“I see, Taro. Could you pass the phone to your mother,
please? I’d like to talk to her.”
Vocabulary:
ET – an extra-terrestrial (an alien)
a ruse–an action intended to deceive
someone; a trick
to push something too far – to continue
something for too long, or take something to an extreme
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