The amoral universe
Is morality, literally, just a figment of our imagination?
Every parent will, sooner or later, experience clashes between their beliefs, and those of their children. The first such clash in my life happened when my father and I disagreed about the make of a particular car.
Throughout the 1950s, Auto Union — later to become Audi, but at the time also known as DKW — had been producing a sequence of very rounded, streamlined cars not unlike the VW beetle. These emitted a characteristic sound, typical for their two-stroke engine, which my four-year-old ears found quite funny. In the early sixties, the newest model, the DKW Junior, however, looked very different (but sounded the same), and my father disbelieved my adamant claim that it was, nonetheless, a DKW. It was not a profound conflict (certainly not compared to the one that would follow a decade later, concerning the length of my hair), but it was still a disagreement. More importantly, it was a disagreement that could be settled — and actually was shortly after, when, on a walk somewhere, we saw one parked up and could substantiate its identity. (My father kept a brave face, but I am not sure he ever really forgot that he lost that argument with me!)
