Yahoo! and Humanity's Crooked Timber

As all Philosophy 101 students should recall, Immanuel Kant famously said, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." Its meaning is debated ad infinitum. One reader on a philosophy forum website opined: "Kant is saying that humans have an irrational predisposition so there is little hope of perfecting anything or ever getting it totally right." Another reader said Kant meant "that rarely does humanity ever do the right, logical thing for itself in a linear, logically concatenated manner but more in a perverse, dialectical zigzaggy manner." Both interpretations, variations on a theme, are probably right, methinks.

That said, whenever one Googles a quote, even one by Kant, it invariably kicks back a top-of-page link to that most useless of websites: Yahoo! Answers -- a digital conglomeration of the nitwits, by the nitwits, for the nitwits. Yes, yes -- that's unfair and I'm being overly harsh. Y/A wouldn't exist were it not popular (or, more accurately, didn't attract page hits like moths to a porch light). But in deciphering Kant's "crooked timber" quote, one Yahoo-er hit the proverbial nail on the head for his audience of mouth-breathers.

He/she wrote:

"Kant ... is basically implying that 'humanity' i.e. humans, are incapable and not interested enough in each other to do something for another without personal gain. In other words, we are all 'crooked'. If that was the case, then this website of yahoo questions and answers would not exist. Although Kant would dispute that and say that the only reason people answered these questions was to show off (therefore 'gaining' some misguided form of recognition for their efforts) and the only reason people asked the questions in the first place would be because they were craving some sort of attention."

If Dr. Kant could visit Yahoo! Answers, he just might agree with this unique take on the bent condition of modern "humanity" i.e. humans in the Yahoo-verse. Priceless.