Thursday, March 11, 2010

Irresistible force or immovable object?

I'll admit that the first thing that came to mind was the Knight Rider episode where KITT had to face KARR, an evil doppelganger of a sentient robot car. And at the end of the episode, Michael (The HOff) Knight described the inevitable faceoff between the two super cars with this description.

And it did turn into something like that, both cars playing a high speed game of chicken in a desert. But KARR--full of selfish, self-preservation--swerved and KITT was proven the better car . . . or something.

But then, after that bit of pop culture nonsense flitted through my brain, I got down to actually thinking about the question.

And here is what I came up with:

The irresistible force is something that is unstoppable. Its momentum gives it such power. Think sort of like inertia, where an object will continue in a straight line unless it is acted up to alter that path. But if there is no force sufficient to change tha inertia, it goes on and on and on. In terms of how that describes a personality, I think of someone who has such charisma that powers on, dragging others in their wake. A cult of irresistable personality, perhaps?

The immovable object is something so rooted, so strong in its foundation that nothing can shift it. Think of someone whose morality is not to be swayed. No matter the counterargument, no matter the evidence, no matter the rhetoric, the person with an immovable morality is not going to change their mind.

So . . . where does that leave ME?

I don't know that I embody either one of these characteristics, but if I did, I think I'd suggest that I am closer to an irresistable force than an immovable object. My liberal arts education and my general bent of spirit make it hard for me to settle on a fixed position that can't be adjusted. I am affected by good arguments, logic, evidence, and rhetoric. So that even more suggests that I should pick the irresistable force, since I can be swayed by an irresistable personality.

So, Irresistable Force.

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