Discussing
Bye-bye Flappy Bird

In its emphasis on futility, the short-lived game Flappy Bird served as a fitting reflection of Ecclesiastes.

Bethany, thanks. I don't know whether to be proud or regretful that I never played Flappy Bird -- when I heard about it from friends, I figured that was enough.

You really got my attention, though, with Will Oremus' reference to the "Platonic ideal." (If you were trying to lure me into commenting, I've just taken the bait.) I've actually come to see Plato's dialogues -- some of them, at least -- as something much like the Flappy Bird experience you've described, a performative reorienting of our attention. It's entirely possible to get really, really involved in parsing all the details of those dialogues, and they do repay that involvement; but it's also possible sometimes to hear Plato laughing at our earnestness between the lines. "No one who really understands what real reality really is will ever try to encapsulate his best thoughts in writing" (a loose paraphrase of a passage from Plato's _Seventh Letter_).