The Source of All Discord

Few people enjoy the sound of silverware scraping porcelain. It is worse even than the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard because you are often enjoying food when it occurs, which interrupts the pleasure of food and family. It may not, in fact, be all-too shocking to hear that eliminating this horrid sound will, according to my calculations, end all human warfare and usher in an era of peace.

Here is why: all conflicts start because individuals are not raised in peace-loving homes. A child accidentally scrapes his porcelain plate with a knife, which causes the elder sister to wince. Noticing this response, the child laughs and, wanting to reproduce his pleasure, scrapes again. The sister then sucks in her breath sharply and tells the little one to stop. Mother and father, having also been raised in porcelain-scraping homes, begin to laugh, encouraging the child to scrape even more profusely.

Incensed, said sister-- at a loss now as to how to counteract her brother's wayward behavior-- grabs hold of him and begins to shake his shoulders as a firm warning against continuing. Not to be outdone, the brother responds in kind, grasping his sister by the shoulders and shaking vigorously. The two, now throttling one another, wrestle until both are exhausted and until their parents banish them to their rooms.

The problem of porcelain-scraping does not end here, however, for said brother has now learned a valuable lesson that he eagerly takes into adulthood. The lesson is this: you can agitate any passer-by, and thus have your way, with nothing more than a simple fork and plate. Thus, the conflicts he learned in childhood as a result of his porcelain-scraping, he now employs in the public arena, and thus produces all the rivalry, discord, and warfare we all perceive to be a ubiquitous part of our existence.