Dinner with the intellectuals

I went with my friends Meier, Susie, and David to Mark's Duck House for dinner tonight. I've known the three of them since I was studying Korean at DLI and they're all great people, but they're also all smarter than me. That can be irritating, but it does make for interesting dinner conversation. Tonight we discussed rationality and genocide over some delicious duck.

From left to right, David, Susie, Meier.

David and Meier in the restaurant.

For anyone who is ever in the DC area, I recommend the Duck House; it was some of the best Chinese I've ever had. The decor isn't much to look at and the chairs are kinda hard, but man that's some good duck.

I found myself arguing that most of our actions and motives are pre-rational and that our conscious thought system is merely a shroud that we use to cover our primal instincts. I think I may have come off more extreme than I meant to, but I am finding myself more and more cynical. It's become very difficult for me to continue to believe in what formed the basis of my philosophy when I was younger: objective morality, the primacy of rational thought, and the basic goodness of mankind. According to Meier, I've adopted wholesale the thinking of Richard Rorty. I read Rorty a little when I was in college and don't remember much, but apparently he rubbed off on me.

Even Rorty, I assume, could appreciate roasted duck with sour ginger and pineapple.