Once upon a time there was a princess. She thought she must be a princess because
she helped her father run a kingdom and made appearances to boost morale and
acted hostess at the palace. She was
trained to act like a princess, to hold herself like a princess, to be a
delegate to those outside the palace.
She was encouraged to pursue fulfilling education and careers for the benefit
of the commoners.
Logic would have our heroine believe herself to be a princess.
The major premise: Princesses
are female members of a royal family.
Minor Premise: She is the daughter of a man who rules a kingdom.
Conclusion: Because she is a
female child of the man ruling the kingdom, she is a princess.
However, because our heroine has been raised and educated as a princess
she knows the evidence supporting the minor premise may not always line up with
the major premise, leading to a break in the logic and failure of the deductive
reasoning. If, for instance, her father was usurped and someone of another
family was positioned to rule the kingdom, what then? One can’t have stray, untagged princesses
running amuck. They would taint the commoners causing discontentment. Or, what if the royal family ceased to be a “family”
or that she was somehow ostracized from the family? Could that technicality negate
her princess-ship?
It just so happens, while in the process of forming these calculations,
our heroine receives a message from the kingdom. “Your father was inefficient at running a
kingdom so we are removing him from power.
We request the attendance of his family at his sending off to exile.” Options were few, so she paid her respects to
her father and left the kingdom. As she
wandered far from her position of power she could feel the discontent
growing. The discontent was not her
discontent, no, it stemmed from those around her. Her now, supposed peers, saw through the
meager disguise of poverty and hard work and sensed that here was someone used
to power and honor. Reactions were
mixed. Some were repulsed and
afraid. Others wanted to harness
whatever power she did possess for their own gain. More than anything, our
heroine noticed that she did not belong among them. So, she set out to try again to be a
princess.
She began further calculations.
Major Premise: Princesses are female members of a royal family
Minor Premise: The wife of a prince is a member of the royal family
Conclusion: Therefore, I will be
a princess if I marry a prince.
Now, perfectly ridiculous arguments can be logically correct. And this was logically sound, albeit ridiculous, she
thought, to hope that she could find a prince when she had no
access to money and little to no allies in other kingdoms. But, she thought, everything about her was
trained and trusted to be a princess. If
she did not fight for the place she knew she belonged she would betray the
sacred trust of her own soul.
The problem was, our heroine had never seen or met a prince. She had only seen pictures in fairy tales and
museums. The premises she set out she
was unable to verify with fact.
Therefore, she proceeded with caution but decided the only way to find a
prince was to test the validity of each logical conclusion.
… to be cont.
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