are matters one knows for certain withoutnhaving to verify. “Why do I notnsatisfy myself that I have two feet whennI want to get up from a chair?” Looking,nafter all, would be useless: if onenfailed to see one’s feet one doubtsnone’s eyes. The same point is con^ntained, more elaborately, in the oldnjoke about “Can you play the violin?”nAnyone who answers “I don’t know:nI’ve never tried” can get an easy laughnbecause anyone can see that you donnot have to try in order to know thatnyou can’t.nThe ignorance of the doctors, for allnthat, goes on, and it will survive thenBeijing massacre of June 1989 and thenfall of the Berlin Wall five months later.nIt will survive, as doctoralnignorances do, by looking sophisticated.nFor example, in a recent philosophicalntreatise. Contingency, Iwny andnSolidarity (1989), Richard Rorty hasnshown himself a classic foundationalist.nQuoting George Orwell’s NineteennEighty-Four, a book that appeared innthe same year as Mao’s seizure of powernin China — “Freedom is the freedomnto say that two plus two equalsnfour” — Rorty concludes that there isnno sufficient ground for any arithmeticalncertainty. It does not occur to himnthat a truth might be ungrounded andnstill certain. The most he can offer, innexchange, is an uncomfortable way stationnon the path to knowledge:nIt does not matter whether “twonplus two equals four” is true.nAll that matters is that if younbelieve it, you can say it withoutngetting hurt. If we take care ofnfreedom, truth can look afternitself.nBut Orwell’s point, and a far sharpernone, was that to abandon all claims tontruth is to abandon freedom, too. Thenphrase about leaving truth to look afternitself comes sadly from a philosopher.nTo admit it is to erribrace despair. Butnthen it is the search for foundations thatnhas led to that despair, and the next tasknis to persuade educated mankind thatnthe search should never have beennbegun. “He who does not know truth atnfirst sight,” the poet Blake once wrote innthe margin of one of his books, “isnunworthy of her notice.” A child, asnWittgenstein remarked, does not believenin the two-times table when henlearns it at school: he sees that it is so.n46/CHRONICLESnThe critical mind, in our times, hasnbecome deeply, tragically consciousnthat it has not yet found the theoreticalnfoundation to judgment. Now it needsnto be persuaded that it has found nonenbecause there is none to be found.nGeorge Watson, a fellow in English atnSt. John’s College, Cambridge, is thenauthor of The Certainty of Literaturenand British Literature Since 1945n(St. Martin’s Press).nMORESnAssaulting thenCompactnby Janet Scott BarlownOne afternoon last winter, I wasntrying on jackets in a departmentnstore dressing room when a womannwith a child entered the compartmentnnext to mine. The child was cranky; thenwoman was chatty. Choosing hope overnreality, as mothers in chancy situationsnoften do, the woman said, “Be a goodnboy, Jeffrey. This’ll only take Mommy anminute.”nFrom the size of his shoes, whichnwere visible beneath the partition thatnseparated us, I guessed Jeffrey to benabout three years old. And based on thensounds he was emitting — snuffles,nwhines, and great wounded moans — itnwas obvious that Jeffrey was a kidnheading straight for the edge. He carriednon loudly for a while, his trappednand miserable body occasionally collapsingnwith a thud against our sharednpartition. Then suddenly, all was quiet.nnnAlmost as suddenly, I was aware ofnsomething at my feet. I looked downnand there was Jeffrey, flat on his back,nstaring up at me impassively, a little slugnin a hooded parka. It was a sight thatnmight have been captivating if the circumstancesnhadn’t made it completelynundesirable. I had nothing against Jeffrey—nin fact, I sympathized with hisnplight—but I did not wish to share thisnmoment with him.nFiguring his mother would promptlynremove him — I mean, how could shenmiss what he was doing? — I gazedndown at Jeffrey and waited. I waited fornwhat seemed like a long time. WhennJeffiey’s mother finally chose to addressnthe matter at hand, her words were tonher son but her message was for me.nWith sing-song confidence she said,n”Oh, Jeffrey! That lady doesn’t thinknyou’re funny.” Which meant that I wasnsupposed to think Jeffrey was funny.nShe was finessing Jeffrey; she was finessingnthe whole situation, for hernbenefit (after all, Jeffrey finally wasnpacified), at my expense, with a brazennlack of ambivalence.nUnhl that moment, I had felt sympathynnot only for Jeffrey but for hisnmother. If it’s tough to be a kid draggednaround on a shopping expedition, it’snalso tough to shop while draggingnaround kids. (My strongest feelings,nhowever, were for Jeffrey. Mothers usuallynhave a choice in those deals. Kidsndon’t.) But all sympathy left me when Inrealized she was exploiting the greatnunspoken compact among parents, thatnshared understanding of the job thatnallows them to view each other with anlittie charity and give each other a littlenroom. Not only was Jeffrey’s mothernwilling for me, an innocent stranger, tonserve as Jeffrey’s distraction, she expectednmy cooperation. What’s more, I wasnsupposed to think the whole thing wasnsort of cute. Worst of all, she wasnwilling, for her own convenience, tonsacrifice what I can only think of as hernchild’s reputation as a kid by in effectnvolunteering him as a pain in the neck.nNeedless to say, the situation was notncute (although from what I saw of him,nJeffiey was), and since his mother hadnleft both Jeffiey and me to our ownndevices, I said firmly to the slug at mynfeet, “Good-bye, Jeffrey.” Without gettingnoff his back, without uttering anword or taking his eyes from mine,nJeffiey slowly inched his way back undern