The wisest thing . . . .

Recently, I read a question on a forum, something to the effect of - What is the wisest thing you’ve ever heard?

Although some contributors put a laundry list, I thought the question called for one.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”   

This is from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I first read quite a few years ago – possibly as long ago as college or law school. He was a holocaust survivor. I believe his whole or almost his whole family was killed by the Nazis. Mostly, the book, or the first half anyway, is about forgiveness (the second half is about the psychotherapy he developed). I’m not talking about forgiving the descendants of Nazis, who should not be saddled with their ancestor’s sins. I mean the actual killers.  I admit, while I think forgiveness is valuable and often healthy, his capacity for it greatly exceeds mine. Still, he managed to forgive brutal and prolific murderers – I am taking his word for it. Anyway, whether I could forgive the people who wiped out my family (or other people’s families) or not, having a good attitude is pretty key in this world. And, I just know too many people who don’t have one. Even people who were born into such a great time and place as our own and objectively seem to have little to complain of. 

*

Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

Descartes, beginning his Discourse on Method. Actually, I think it is wise, but only because when I first read it, I read only the single sentence. I took it as ironic and funny. The idea that it is natural to think your own way of thinking is not only right, but common to any right thinking person. But, he wasn’t being funny. He seems to be serious and believed that reason existed “naturally equal in all men.” Here’s the longer quote from his Discourse.

“Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world: because everyone thinks he is so well endowed, that even those who are hardest to satisfy in everything else, have no habit of desiring more than they have. What it is unlikely that all are wrong, but this shows that the power of judging well and distinguishing truth from falsehood, which is properly what is called common sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men, and as well as the diversity of our opinions does not come from what some are more reasonable than others, but only that we conduct our thoughts in various ways, and do not see the same things. For it is not enough to have a good mind, but the key is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues, and those who do not work very slowly may move much more, they always follow the right path, as do those who run, and away from it.”

If there really is such a thing as common sense, and it is not just a way we gratify ourselves by categorizing people we agree with, I disagree it is equal in all people. Probably the potential for it is when we are born. But, particularly among the more conventional, we think it is so. So, I’ll truncate his statement and take out the part I like. In the end, wouldn't it be better to have uncommon sense?

*

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world - and it never will.

This from a Mark Twain speech, Consistency, which, to my thinking was brilliant start to finish. Not a lot of speeches like that anymore. Like many great sayings – you have to stop before you take it to its logical conclusion and read it in the spirit offered. But, if he wrote “Loyalty to petrified opinion rarely breaks a chain or frees a human soul in this world – and usually won’t in the future,” it would lose a lot of its oomph.

What opinion is petrified and what is just solid wisdom? How about “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Old, venerable and petrified? Not yet it’s not. Really age has nothing to do with it.

So, why do I think it was wise? Because it often is. Twain meant (says I), don’t hold onto old ways of thinking when they’ve lost their usefulness and can’t be true. It’s what I see happen with friends and acquaintances, with different social groups all the time. Not that I’m opposed to tradition. I love many traditions and I’m sure I hang on to petrified opinions too. I’m pretty sure that, generally speaking, the older people get, the harder it gets to deal with change.  I just hope that I can change when it is called for.

*

“For at least I know, with certainty, that a man’s work is nothing but the long journeying to recover, through the detours of art, the two or three simple and great images which first gained access to his heart.”

Albert Camus. Lyrical and Critical Essays. 

I read L’Etranger (“The Stranger”) in high school French. Camus was a huge literary hit during WWII, in which he was part of the French “resistance” (as a writer, not a fighter). He wrote a few novels, which I liked, and some essays, which I found torture (unlike his sometimes friend, Sartre). The book from which the quote is taken was published a decade after his death, as he died a young man in an automobile accident. Politically, he was far left. When I was reading him as a kid, I had a lot more patience for the far left (never the far right – but, that’s how I was raised) than I do now. He was also generally a pacifist, a notion I grew up with in my head. Later in life he championed human rights. Not surprisingly, I was attracted to his personal story and I liked his created ones. Only a few years ago I read a biography about him and concluded, presuming it was relatively fair and accurate, however charming his personality might have been, however attractive to women he may have been, he was a jerk in his relationships.

But, whatever he was, I appreciate his statement about the great images we continue to seek after. For myself, I know where those images came from. They can be found in the first books my mother read with me – Born Free and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. It shouldn’t be a surprise that books like Peter Mathiesson’s  The Snow Leopard and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, both of which drip in mythology and nature, are at the top of my list. Not only have I read both multiple times, but I am always looking for something else that might match them, not just in ability, but in the images – nature and myth that I apparently have sought to recapture since my youth. Wagner's Forest Murmurs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08vTtu4pmjk) captures the essence musically and to my ear is one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed. Camus' statement is true for me. I don’t know if it is true for others. But, if I take everything I think I know about human psychology, I suspect it is and so include it in my list. Many insights can be found multiple times and said multiple ways throughout literature. But, I don't think I've read this elsewhere. If true, it explains many things about people, particularly artists, that we will never understand, as it is buried in a childhood past that we can’t penetrate without the aid of scholars able to mine an unexpected amount of personal material from someone when they were little. More often, even with famous people, we get to pick these images up only later in their lives, if at all.

*

"I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said 'I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison.'"

Ben Franklin’s Speech at the Constitutional Convention, read by James Wilson. Franklin is my great American hero. One of the two indispensable men (along with Washington, that’s a convention that I agree with it – others were very important, but no others had the age, dignity, wisdom and personality to be indispensable).

There are many statements one can find that are odes to self-doubt. Darwin wrote – “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” I have a fondness for that type of statement. In fact, I have a tendency to like philosophers who explain our ignorance more than those who think they know a lot more than is possible. But, I don’t know that anyone ever stated it so effectively or charmingly as my favorite founder.

*

“I have long entertained a suspicion with regard to the decisions of philosophers upon all subjects, and found in myself a greater inclination to dispute than assent to their conclusions. There is one mistake to which they seem liable almost without exception; they confine too much their principles, and make no account of that vast variety which nature has so much affected in all her operations. When a philosopher has once laid hold of a favourite principle, which perhaps accounts for many natural effects, he extends the same principle over the whole creation, and reduces to it every phenomenon, though by the most violent and absured reasoning. Our own mind being narrow and contracted, we cannot extend our conception to the variety and extent of nature, but imagine that she is as much bounded in her operations as we are in our speculation.”

David Hume – The Sceptic

Karl Popper, also one of my favorite philosophers, wrote something similar once, using the psychologist Alfred Adler as an example. “As for Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."

I suspect that the process of resorting to Hume and Popper describe pertains not only to philosophers and theorists but to all of us. And maybe it can be a good thing and a survival mechanism because having frequent resort to a defense makes it practiced and effective. That is, until we come up against something new or that needs a different approach. And we are almost always coming up against something new.

*

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”

St. Exupery, Wind, Sand & Stars

This is frequently attributed to C. S. Lewis, who was known for three things – writing the Narnia series, being a Christian apologist and being for a time J. R. R. Tolkien’s best friend and a member of their group, the Inklings, at Oxford. The falling out appears to be Tolkien’s fault, at least by more modern thinking, as he opposed Lewis’ second marriage on religious grounds.

Maybe Lewis wrote something similar. I couldn’t tell you and I have no intention of reading all of his works in order to try to find it. I did try to read a couple of his non-fiction books and couldn’t get past the first chapter. He probably was a really good writer, but, it was dull as far as I was concerned.

St. Exupery was, of course, most famous for The Little Prince. I read it in French when a kid for in French class (that is, the class read it – I believe I attempted it when awake enough on rare occasion), but found it much easier recently with the help of a dictionary, when necessary. It’s a fun and occasionally poignant story, and the desert plane crash that figures largely into it is autobiographical. St. Exupery was a pilot before he was a writer. I’m not sure that other than TLP, he was a great one. My experience with him is limited to one other book. Nevertheless, this pithy statement about perseverance resonates with me. Often in life, including in my own profession, there is nothing to do but put your head down and slog along. It is true as well, as was sung in one of my favorite songs, The Gambler, “you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” It is at that dividing line that wisdom comes into play. But, when you fold ‘em, someone else walks away with the pot. Or the job. Or the victory. Or the girl.

*

“But extremes of all kinds are to be avoid[ed]; and though no one will ever please either faction by moderate opinions, it is there we are most likely to meet with truth and certainty.”

Hume, History of England

I’ve written on several occasions on the topic of moderation and what it means to me, but foremost in Why I am not a conservative (or a liberal) III; Eight political propositions on August 28, 2011, but in a great act of generosity and self-sacrifice, I will spare you having to read it and just give you the propositions:

Proposition 1 – Most statements about politics are general statements and should be subject to qualification, exception and nuance.

Proposition 2: Authority is necessary to a peaceful civilization, but, your obedience should end at the point it would require you to violate a deeply held belief or personal commitment, regardless of the ramifications.

Proposition 3: Being independent comes from a recognition that our political associations, particularly if formed when young, come from factors other than critical analysis or reason; it is deeply affected by how we were raised.

Proposition 4: Being independent requires an understanding that values are not immutable and often change over time for a society and for individuals as well; it is anathema to those who believe that ethics or morality are given to us by a deity, or must be a product of some authoritarian or historical factors.

Proposition 5: Moderation is a temperament that is necessary to learn or playing nicely with others, on a personal, political or societal level; however even moderation needs to be moderated, for in too strong a dose, it can be astronomically dangerous in the face of a lethal enemy (think Nazis, Bolsheviks and al Qaeda). Moderation also takes into consideration that conflicting principles or values can sometimes both be true.

Proposition 6: Just like honesty is the best policy, and yet not the only policy, the goal of individual freedom or liberty is but a primarily important political policy or value, and not the only one. 

Proposition 7: Of all the values which contribute to the happiness of man individually and collectively, the value of individual liberty, as a direction and a goal, is the most efficient, the most effective, and the most desirable way to get there.

Proposition 8: The good news is that our society has always been directed to a large degree on a libertarian pathway and it is our heritage of what is called the enlightenment or enlightenment values that have forged the way.

I don’t know that I would write it the same way today, 7 years later, but I think it would be largely the same – only vaguer.

But, some other things are true of moderation that come to mind, and, since I cut out most of what I wrote 7 years ago, these points may also be in there somewhere –

      1.     As Hume points out, moderates aren’t too popular with most others, including other moderates, b/c they disagree with most everyone about any number of things.

      2.     Moderates don’t all agree on everything with one another, sometimes anything.

      3.     Most people think they are moderates, as they associate it with fairness, and who doesn’t think they fair? They also have trouble believing others are moderates because they disagree so much. But, I actually think it’s a plurality of American voters.

      4.     Being moderate doesn’t mean being in the middle on every issue, nor perfectly balanced between the views of partisans. Sometimes there only is one valid side.

      5.     Even if it were metaphysically possible to be absolutely in the middle politically, you couldn’t stay there without moving, because the two basic sides move, most often towards the extremes, and not always evenly.

      6.     People on one side or the other will see moderates as the other side; partisanship requires looking through the wrong end of a telescope at others, and not behind them on their side seems like they are in the distance – that is, the opposite side.

      7.     Because moderates are all over the board and have no group dogma, they don’t make good political parties and are only a political force when the two major opposing camps are roughly evenly split.

      8.     Sometimes moderation is only possible when one side wins and has all the marbles; this has actually happened many times in history.

      *

These Bickerings of opposite Parties, and their mutual Reproaches, their Declamations, their Sing Song, their Triumphs and Defyances, their Dismals, and Prophecies, are all Delusion.

We seldom hear any solid Reasoning. I wish always to discuss the Question, without all Painting, Pathos, Rhetoric, or Flourish of every Kind.

John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson

I can’t tell you how many times I have used that quote in a comment online. It is so apropos right now where two sides are yelling at each other and no one listening. Politics in general is largely about trying to keep the other side from even having a voice at all, and we see plenty of that.

I know most people will not be watching the Justice Kavanaugh hearing, maybe this fall (not if the Ds can help it – they will hope to delay until after the election to see if they can flip the Senate and block Trump appointments). I’ve watched every Supreme Court hearing since the eighties when C-Span started showing them, although some of them years after they were held, and they are pretty much a joke. The party out of power, now the Ds, will do what they can to make this about anything but whether he is a jurist qualified to be on the Supreme Court, which, obviously he is. They will try to find personal frailties, some mistake he made in life or something that looks like a mistake in the goldfish bowl of politics, someone who will tarnish him, they will ask him questions about hypothetical matters or to make them promises – anything they can think of which he can’t answer. I actually watched his hearing when he became a Court of Appeals justice in 2006 and it was pretty much just like that. In fact, other than the fact that he has aged a dozen years, you might not be able to tell the difference between the two hearings – unless they find some dirt.

*

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.   

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another quote I use over and over again in my goal to write the least popular comments in media history. On rare occasion I get as many as 30 people writing angry replies, although more often I’m politely ignored by most people. It’s quite rewarding. Unfortunately, what I’m usually saying about the King quote is something like this – “Those who now pass for “civil rights” advocates have killed MLK, Jr. a second time, standing his dream of our judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, on its head – now, they want everyone judged by the color of their skin, or their sex, or some other superficial aspect, rather than their intentions and character.”

I’ve written about King a couple of times here (Beating up on Martin Luther King, Jr. in public, 10/30/08 and Killing the dream again, 8/28/17) so I won’t belabor it. He might not have originated the “I have a dream” concept and certainly much of his celebrated speech was taken from others (if interested, check out the 2008 post), but no rational person would argue that his speech wasn’t powerful and eloquent. There are many ways to say that we should judge people by their character. But, it seems like it was something everyone knew but rarely applied. And, then, something changed. I saw it in my lifetime. While you could not say without laughing that there was no longer prejudice or racism or that lifetimes of oppression does not have effects long after it is gone, oppression and discrimination began slowly, but steadily, to decline. I am not saying that it would not have happened without King and the dream, but I do believe he was a great leader and inspired a lot of people. It happened faster and better because of him. The length of time it took Rs to recognize what he accomplished and their long desire to minimize his contribution to all of our lives, is a mark against them. I doubt many of them would own up to it now. But, now it is the left that is looking to judge by ethnicity and color. All you need to do is read the articles that repeatedly come out taking this approach. Racism is disturbing in whatever form it comes in. 

What happened to change this among those you would think would want to continue his legacy and success? Why is victimization, separationism and anti-education (a trilogy I learned from great linguist and writer on race, John McWhorter) still so prevalent, when it seems to increase, rather than decrease, racial disharmony? I have a theory. When people identify with a group that has been oppressed and denied dignity and respect for so long, and they finally get equality of opportunity - or approach it, it is hard for some to accept it without wanting something more. Call it revenge, call it comeuppance, retribution, social justice - call it whatever you like. But, the recent result in our country has been stepping away from wanting to be judged by character and instead demanding to be judged by skin color or something similarly superficial, to demand to be seen as a victim that needs retribution or required acceptance by others who might at least internally discriminate. In turn, there is a reaction of distrust and resentment from others and not only the minority - but those competing for the benefits of being a minority in our society. Sadly, this is what young people are being taught. It's more early Malcolm X, before he rejected his approach himself and was killed for it.

I don’t know what the solution will be, but I think it could be a return to the dream.

Next month or year I might have a whole different list of the “wisest” things, although probably most of these quotes have appeared in prior posts. I wasn’t going to exclude them from this post because of that. But it really doesn’t matter. I read a lot and am always looking for wise or inspiring things. And, I like to pass them on.  Someone else might have an entirely different list. I notice that when I invite people to post their own responses, no one does – not even my few regular commenters. So, instead, I am inviting no one to offer their own opinion. See how that works.

Quotations from this year

These quotes come from my reading this year. Obviously, they all interested or meant something to me, or I would not have bothered to copy them down?

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure: more perfect than Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

This comment was made in a report by a British judge and renowned Persian, Latin and Greek expert then serving in India by the name of William Jones in 1786, back when America was still just a confederation of very independent states and Napoleon was a teenager. It is often hard to say when a particular field began, but this sentence was pretty clearly the very beginning of studies in what was later called the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, a hypothetical mother tongue for almost all of the European languages, Persian, Sanskrit and their many derivatives, plus many other ancient dead ones.  Not a single example of this conjectured proto-language exists, and there was probably not ever a letter or pictogram of it in written form. But, by comparing ancient words that have been discovered with each other and making predictions as to what might other words should also have existed if there was a common stem -- and then actually finding them, made the existence of some form of PIE a virtual certainty, though it not only no longer existed, as Jones thought, but probably hadn't for thousands of years. But, who were these people who spoke it, where did they come from and why did it spread so? Those are much tougher questions and probably unanswerable. Neverthelss, I read about developments from time to time. I took the quote from David W. Anthony's The Horse The Wheel and Language. He thinks he knows the answer (Southern Russian steppes) and gives a more answer than you probably want (more than I wanted anyway). I loved the book but I would only recommend it to someone who was already so interested, that they already knew about it. It is very scholarly, but also contains much unavoidable speculation.

*

For what can man conceive with regard to God unless He has rendered Himself visible? Much rather is He hidden. The mind fails in thinking of God for He is incomprehensible. The eye does not see Him because He is invisible. The ear hears Him not, nor ever has heard unless He spoke with a human voice. The hand does not touch Him because He is incorporeal, the tongue cannot declare Him for He is ineffable. No place can hold Him since He is not to be circumscribed. Time cannot measure Him because He is immeasurable. God transcends all things and exceeds all intellect and mind. There are those who think that only by negatives are we able to define God. If one reflects upon light or anything else known to us, one plainly observes that God is not light but above light, He is not essence but above essence, He is not spirit but above spirit, He is above anything that can be conceived. The true knowledge of God is that which teaches not what He is but that which He is not. No one knows God unless one knows the way in which God has made Himself manifest.

Compare these words by the 16th century heretic Michael Servetus, whose beliefs would not seem heretical at all to us, but who was eventually burned at the stake for them, with those of the legendary Lao Tze, usually thought to have lived (if he lived) circa 6th-4th century B.C. :

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

The Servetus quote was found in Ronald H. Bainton's Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus. The quote on the Tao is from a 1995 translation by Stephen Mitchell. You have to wonder if there was not some transmission of these ideas over the centuries from China to Europe, or if the concept of the Tao, in one form or the other, was repeatedly conceived, as pyramids, agriculture, pottery forms and other universal ideas seem to be.

*

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

From  The Law by the 19th century French political economist, assemblyman and writer, Frédéric Bastiat, who was a libertarian in all but name and perhaps justifiably deemed by some the father of what is called the Austrian School of Economics.  There may be some historical truth to that, but his beliefs would be shared by almost no one today, even most libertarians, who are used to and comfortable with income taxation and larger, more powerful federal governments than those in the 19th century thought possible. Whether they are stable or not remains to be seen, but right now, it looks like they are only stable compared to totalitarian forms of government.

*

IT sometimes happens in a people among whom various opinions prevail that the balance of parties is lost and one of them obtains an irresistible preponderance, overpowers all obstacles, annihilates its opponents, and appropriates all the resources of society to its own use. The vanquished despair of success, hide their heads, and are silent. The nation seems to be governed by a single principle, universal stillness prevails, and the prevailing party assumes the credit of having restored peace and unanimity to the country. But under this apparent unanimity still exist profound differences of opinion, and real opposition.

From de Tocqueville's Democracy in America written in the 1830s. We still see this anytime one or the other party prevails - the certainty of the winners that it is all over for the losers. Only occasionally is it momentarily true - but then the vanquished become something else in name. 

*
Since Nature (here meaning total reality and its processes) has not read very carefully the American Declaration of Independence or the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, we are all born unfree and unequal: subject to our physical and psychological heredity, and to the customs and traditions of our group; diversely endowed in health and strength, in mental capacity and qualities of character. Nature loves difference as the necessary material of selection and evolution; identical twins differ in a hundred ways, and no two peas are alike.

From Will and Ariel Durant's The Lessons of History. The idea of some natural equality in results, as opposed to equal rights and opportunity, is one of the major difference between the left, libertarians and the right. Though no one would mistake George W. Bush for a socialist, the idea that you can mandate a level of success is the reason that No Child Left Behind was doomed to failure. Equality of consequences cannot be legislated with good result, hard as they may try and with the best intentions. It will, in fact, lead to a bad end.  Durant was one of the great historians and I do not think anyone could do better than his and Ariel's 11 volume The Story of Civilization as a general summary. It seems to me unfair, if not ridiculous, that some describe him as a socialist, which he tinkered with in his youth, hardly uncommon, and then left behind as he matured and educated himself. This later work from which I quote, Lessons, is virtually an ode to capitalism. In fact, that seems to be the lesson. I have mentioned before that he was Ariel's school teacher. He fell in love with her when he was 26 and she was 13 and they married two years later back when it was not frowned up. Today he would possibly be called a pederast and jailed, but they had a run of some 68 years before they died weeks apart.

*
Yet the odd thing is that in spite, or perhaps by virtue, of his absurdities man moves steadily upwards ; the more we learn of his past history the more groundless does the old theory of his degeneracy prove to be. From false premises he often arrives at sound conclusions: from a chimerical theory he deduces a salutary practice. This discourse will have served a useful purpose if it illustrates a few of the ways in which folly mysteriously deviates into wisdom and good comes out of evil. It is a mere sketch of a vast subject.

From J. G. Frazer's Psyche's Task. So many writers in so many places and generation seem to disagree with this premise. I notice that many of my favorite political or scientific authors seem to agree with him.

*
Bathtubs are a menace to ex-Presidents for as you may recall a bathtub rose up and fractured my vertebrae when I was in Venezuela on your world famine mission in 1946. My warmest sympathy and best wishes for your speedy recovery.

Ex-president Hoover to ex-president Truman in 1964 after Truman fell in his bathroom, fracturing ribs. There is no point here. It just tickled me.

*
(spelling as is)
I fear you have been imprudent. You have no doubt a right to enjoy your own oppinion but I Query whether your Duty calls you to divulge your Sentiments curcomstanced as you are. While the spirit of the People runs so high, you cannot imagine what trouble these Storys have given me. I cannot bear to think that my cousins amiable disposition and great abillities should be effaced by arbitrary principles. I had rather think that he understands Divinity better than Politicks. The management of our publick affairs is in very good hands, and all that is requi'd of you is your Prayers and exhortations for a general reformation. It is not my province to enter into politicks, but sure I am that it is not your Duty to do or say any thing that shall tend to distroy your usefulness. You will not only hurt your self but you will injure your fahter in his business, for it will be said and I know it has been said "If the son is a Tory the father is so to be sure." You will grieve your mother beyond discripition, and if I know you I think you would not willingly wound such tender parents.

This was Bostonian Mary Smith Cranch writing to her cousin, Isaac Smith Jr., in 1774. We still have letters from them mostly due to their relation to Abigail Smith Adams, wife of John Adams.  As she understood, her cousin was, in fact, a loyalist (who eventually went to England), but I include these excerpts from her and his following letter because of the sentiments he expressed in response for her request to be orthodox.  Regardless of his politics, I can't help but agree with the following sentiment made in reply, in general:

"Orthodoxy in politics is," I am sensible, "full as necessary a qualification for the ministry" at this day as ever was orthodoxy in divinity." If I am reputed an heretic in either, I cannot help it. It is my misfortune; it may be my fault. I hate enthusiasm and bigotry, in whatever form they appear, but am willing to submit to censure. The greatest friends of their country and of mankind, that ever lived, have frequently met with the same hard fate. I am not indifferent to the good opinion of those around me, but I cannot, in complaisance to others, even to those for whose understanding I have a much higher veneration, than for my own--I cannot give up the independance of my own mind.

"You fear, I have been imprudent." I do not mean entirely to deny the charge. It is very possible, this may have been the case with me, in particular instances. But not so much so, perhaps, as you inagine. Into what times are we fallen, when the least degree of moderation, the least inclination to peace and order , the remotest apprehension for the public welfare and security is accounted a crime? Or what sort of cause is that, which dreads the smallest inquisition?

And, speaking of Mr. John Adams . . .

These Bickerings of opposite Parties, and their mutual Reproaches, their Declamations, their Sing Song, their Triumphs and Defyances, their Dismals, and Prophecies, are all Delusion.

We seldom hear any solid Reasoning. I wish always to discuss the Question, without all Painting, Pathos, Rhetoric, or Flourish of every Kind.

Imagine his frustration. Same as ours today, of course.

*
Learning how to behave is more the source than the result of insight, reason, and understanding. Man is not born wise, rational and good, but has to be taught to become so. It is not our intellect that created our morals; rather, human interactions governed by our morals make possible the growth of reason and those capabilities associated with it. Man became intelligent because there was tradition – that which lies between instinct and reason – for him to learn. This tradition, in turn, originated not from a capacity rationally to interpret observed facts but from habits of responding. It told man primarily what he ought or ought not to do under certain conditions rather than what he must expect to happen.

From Friedrich Hayek's The Fatal Conceit. Few read anything by him today other than The Road to Serfdom (and not too many that), but he wrote a number of great books, the one quoted from and The Constitution of Liberty being, in my mind, two of the best.  Tradition we know can be destructive as well as creative and positive and Hayek did not assert anything different. But, he did maintain that only those countries with certain traditions (such as that allowed competition and markets) thrived and the others failed. The title to his book concerns the conceit that with reason, we can create a utopian or better society than we have, wisely fix prices and so on. That conceit we see every day in our politicians and many revered thinkers. We should read very cynically, even those we cherish, and I do not agree with all of Hayek's points and observations. Some have proven simply untrue. But, I have found that he and his friend, Karl Popper, both Austrian ex-pats, better express my own views on most political and economic matters than any other writers/thinkers in the 20th century and I believe I have learned more from them on certain topics than anyone else.

*
When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

Churchill did not stand alone in his approach to Nazism, but close to it, and he was, willingly, the focal point in opposition to his own party's handling of the situation. This is why the country turned to him when there were no other rational choices and appeasement proved a failure. He could often be much more optimistic about mankind and just as eloquently. But, the world was headed for a black time and it must have been hard to have been optimistic at all, as he later was in asserting that the New World would rise up and rescue the Old. The above quote is from a 1936 speech in The House of Commons I came across in William Manchester's The Last Lion.

*
I have often been amused at the vain efforts made to define the rights and responsibilities of immortal beings as men and women. No one has yet found out just where the line of separation between them should be drawn, and for this simple reason, that no one knows just how far below man woman Is, whether she be a head shorter in her moral responsibilities, or head and shoulders, or the full length of his noble stature, below him, i.e. under his feet. Confusion, uncertainty and great inconsistencies, must exist on this point, so long as woman is regarded in the least degree inferior to man; but place where her Maker placed her, on the same high level of human rights with man, side by side with him, and difficulties vanish, the mountains of perplexity flow down at the presence of the grand equalizing principle. Measure her rights and duties by the unerring standard of moral being, not by the false weights and measures of a mere circumstance of her human existence, and then the truth will be self-evident, that whatever it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights—I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female.

Letter to Catharine Beecher from Angelina Grimké. That Beecher was the less famous sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame and, obviously, a member of the famous 19th century Beecher family. She was best known as an innovative educator (big on kindergarten, it seems, which doesn't seem so innovative to us).  Angelina Grimké and her sister, Sarah, also came from a very accomplished, if less well known family. They were abolitionists and feminists, and they have not been heard enough from in our history books. Passionate and almost fearless. On the other hand, hard for me to understand the use of "immortal" instead of "mortal." I have read the whole letter and had she used it once, I would have been fairly sure me meant immoral beings. But, she uses it twice. She was very religious and was probably, my guess, using it in the sense of immortal soul.  I have not yet studied her thoroughly (someday, I hope) and perhaps the phrase was frequently used by her and had some special meaning. Anyway, that is just a trivial matter and it was her sense of equal rights that I find interesting, however taken for granted it might seem now. For even in abolitionist circles, women were quite often thought of as second class citizens.  Not content with just slaves being free, she and some others dared believe that women should be liberated too and were willing to pay a price for it.

*
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or to make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Benjamin Franklin. I came across the quote in J. W. Allen's A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century, a book I am exceedingly fond of but wouldn't think of giving or recommending to anyone I know. The following is also from Mr. Allen, but in his own words. I think I quoted the same words recently, but it obviously resonates with me and can't be said enough. People often cannot be content when someone disagrees with them just to have stated their own opinion, but are often sure that there must also be either lack of reason or some evil motive behind the difference:

It has to be remembered, also, that there of course existed, on all sides, the constant tendency of the human mind to resent disagreement and to regard those who differ from ourselves as foolish or perverse or wicked. . . Men have to learn not to resent contradiction; and when the proposition in question is one that seems of the utmost import, the lesson is hard to learn. That which has convinced me, ought, it seems, to convince all others, or, alternatively, it ought not to have convinced me. The alternative may seem intolerable.
*
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

That was Justice Robert Jackson from U.S. v. Barnette, a case involving a forced recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. I have a little personal experience with being coerced to say the Pledge. Barnette was decided long before my birth during WWII.  But, I was subject to a subtler coercive method -- intense glaring. In high school, I was drowsy most of the time I wasn't with friends or playing a sport from lack of sleep. In home room, the first thing I would do would be lay down on the radiator and withdraw into an almost sleep mode.  When they recited the Pledge of Allegiance to begin the day, I refused to stand or recite, but not just because I was too tired. I also deeply resented being asked to make a public statement of patriotism (and more so, one that affected a belief in a deity). If there is anything I cannot abide and see as useless, however much it works others, it is public expressions of belief or loyalty. It seemed to me like something they would do in Russia or China, but should not in America.  Anyway, I do recall the teacher in the next room, glaring right through the windows at where I was sitting or laying day after day. I was reminded of him once when I was watching the one episode of The Sopranos I ever saw, where Tony Soprano's head nearly spins off in anger at a young man who was wearing a hat inside a restaurant. Since an adult I do stand during the Pledge or The Star Spangled Banner for the same reason that Tucker Carlson stopped wearing a bow tie. Some battles just are not worth fighting, even if, in a perfect world, we should (he was challenged to a fight in an airport with his kids at his side over the tie - that was enough). But, I do not recite.
*
Philosophical in the highest degree is the question I propose to discuss, namely whether the Inspired Reason is supreme ruler over the passions; and to the philosophy of it I would seriously entreat your earnest attention.

I bring this quote up only because it is the opening to the Fourth Book of Maccabees, which, ironically, has nothing to do with the Maccabees at all, but is rather a work about stoicism.  I came across it recently in Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy, which is second in its field only to Durant's effort (The Story of Philosophy). The book is not in most Bibles, but some groups do include it. Russell quoted it in a chapter about the Jews. He explored there the transmission of ethics from the Jews (or others) to Christ and the Gospels themselves. One passage he recites is from a book by a priest named John Hyrcanus, which is not not canonical, but written about a century before Christ was born, known as The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs:

Love ye one another from the heart; and if a man sin against thee, speak peaceably to him, and in thy soul hold not guile; and if he repent and confess, forgive him. But if he deny it, do not get into a passion with him, lest catching the poison from thee he takes to swearing, and so then doubly. . . . And if he be shameless and persist in wrong-doing, even so forgive him from the heart, and leave to God the avenging.

If that doesn't remind you of love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek, I don't know what could.  How long the idea was floating around before Jesus, we don't know, but obviously more than a century. Nor do we know whether he was was familiar with it. But we do know that some early Christians used the The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs themselves and that some recognized that the stoics had described much the same morality before Christ existed. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

*
When any one asks me how I can best describe my experiences of nearly forty years at sea I merely say uneventful. Of course, there have been Winter gales and storms and fog and the like, but in all my experience I have never been in an accident of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea, a brig, the crew of which was taken off in a small boat in charge of my third officer. I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.

The words of Captain E. J. Smith, a few years before he captained a ship you may have heard of -- the RMS Titanic. An excerpted version of this was quoted in Nicholas Taleb's Black Swans to the point of whatever happened in the past doesn't tell you what is going to happen in the future. Taleb either did not do enough research or cheated a bit in not mentioning that The Titanic was not his first accident (and thus not a Black Swan). Smith was also in one in The Titanic's sister ship The Olympic the year before the big one.

Good place to end - with a disaster. Happy New Year.

Who said it II

Last April we played Who said it?, and I couldn't wait a whole year to play it again. My rules are, as almost always with trivia or the like, that I have to find it in my own library. It is hoped that they are "interesting" (see below as to the reasons for the quotations). At least they are to me. This really isn't a trivia contest (although you might want to take a guess), because it would be very odd indeed if you knew many if any of these quotes. What it really is, what most of these trivia like posts are, is just my personal celebration of the only material things I own that I have a personal connection with - my books. I love to peruse through them, finding stickies in them, notes I took or just things I loved and have forgotten. I put the answer right below them, so you don't have to jump back and forth.

1. Again and again the angry monsters made fierce attacks. I served them well with my noble blade, as was only fitting. Small pleasure they had in such a sword-feast, dark things in the sea that meant to eat me, sit round their banquet on the deep sea-floor. Instead, in the morning, they lay on the beach, asleep from my sword, the tide-marks bloodied from their deep gashes, and never again did they trouble the passage of seafaring men across the ocean. (Hint, this one is the only quote from literature, but, historically, a very important work).

This is from Beowulf, the oldest epic poem, still existing, which we have in some form of Old English (I tried to read it. Few words are recognizable in modern English), and certainly near the top of my list of favorite of pre-modern epics or sagas, if not the top. This is from a scene much less famous than the battles with Grendel, his mother or the dragon. The mighty Beowulf is simply engaged in a friendly swimming contest that went on for days. He lost, but only because he was rather busy fighting monsters along the way.

2. At present every coachman and every waiter argues about whether or not the relativity theory is correct. A person's conviction on this point depends on the political party he belongs to.

This is from Albert Einstein's pen. It reminds me much of the current debate over global warming. What you read, who you give credence to, etc., seems so much to depend on whether one is more or less on the right or the left. Apparently, this is nothing new. Of course, now we know that relativity theory is correct as, without it, the gps in your cell phone and other devices would not work.

3. I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

This is from the snarly mystery writer, Patricia Highsmith, creator of Ripley. If nothing else, she said what she thought.

4. According to the reports sent to me, it appears that, thanks to the firmness of decision and courage which you showed, exposing your own person, the attempted high treason was crushed. You have saved the German people from grave danger, I am obliged to express to you my profound thanks and recognition.

From the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenberg, to Adolph Hitler, after the Night of the Long Knives. The hero of WWI, his role in Hitler's rise is disappointing to say the least, but he was already lapsing in and out of senility, and mistook Hitler on the day he died for the Kaiser.

5. These men could shave a horse's main (sic), paint, disfigure and offer for him for sale to the owner in the very act of inquiring for his own horse . . . they could hoop up in a hogshead a drunken man, they themselves being drunk, put in and nail down the head, and roll the man down New Salem Hill a hundred feet or more. They could run down a lean, hungry wild pig, catch it, heat a ten-plate stove furnace hot, and putting in the pig, could cook it, they dancing the while a merry jig.

A description by Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, of the men of the West. He was complimenting them.

6. The course that we have chosen will require wisdom and endurance. But let no one doubt for a moment that we have the resources and we have the will to follow this course as long as it may take. No one should think for a moment that we will be worn down, nor will we be driven out, and we will not be provoked into rashness. But we will continue to meet aggression with firmness and unprovoked attack with measured reply.

Or not. This was a speech by LBJ on the Vietnam conflict. At least, for his part, he meant it, and we were there long after he left office.

7. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not violated but with his wrath.

A curious conflicting statement by Thomas Jefferson, who's greatest credit was his championing of religious freedom.

8. The inhabitants live upon flesh, rice, and milk. They have no wine made from grapes, but prepare it from rice and a mixture of spices. Both men and women have their bodies entirely decorated with needle markings, in figures of beasts and birds; and there are among them specialists whose sole employment is to execute these ornaments upon the hands, legs and breast. When a black coloring stuff has been rubbed into these punctures, it is impossible to efface the marks by water or otherwise. The man or woman who exhibits the greatest profusion of these figures is esteemed the most attractive.

Would you believe Marco Polo on tatooing in old China? There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

9. I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet spot and kill him.

Mark Twain ranks number 2 to me as the greatest American writer, and number 1 as a true author. I imagine many scholars would agree with me. I find in perusing his gems, you can find the answers to many of life's problems.

10.The more I see of the Czar, the Kaiser, and the Mikado the better I am content with democracy, even if we have to include the American newspaper as one of its assets.

Not bad for a president. That's Teddy Roosevelt, frustrated in his role as a peace maker. I hope and think he was joking.

11. I'd heard about what series are like, but I really didn't know how it would be. It was quite a shock. In this medium, you perform, everyone performs. There's no such thing as a real moment, an honest reaction, because the show is like a cartoon. You're not acting. Not the way I studied it.

From the mouth of the enchanting Ginger, aka, Tina Louise, the bathing beauty of Gilligan's Island. She wasn't much liked on the show and refused to participate in Returns to . . . As to the question, Ginger or Mary Ann, MA wins hands down.

12. I shall stand or fall in this struggle. I shall never survive the defeat of my people. There will be no capitulation to the powers outside, no revolution by the forces within.

Hitler himself, as the end neared. For a second, he sounded a little Churchillian, didn't he?

13. And what of our children, noble testament to our sacred union, fruit of our deep and enduring love; what manner of mercy is it that would slay their adored father, and deliver up their devoted mother to everlasting emptiness? Know then, you warped, gross, eaters of dust, you abominations upon this beauteous earth, I should rather embrace my husband in death than live on ingloriously upon your execrable bounty.

Ethel Rosenberg, possibly a Soviet spy (her husband Julius was certainly) reacting to hints that she might be spared (as were the other atomic spies in her circle) and that only her husband would be slayed. Betrayed by her own family, her story is still moving, even if you deem her a villain, and it is a touching love story at that.

14. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. Their is grandeur in this rule of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

So ends Darwin's The Origin of Species. He would be greatly surprised at criticism of his theory as a form of atheism.

15. Interesting. An unconvincing word; avoid it as a means of introduction. Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.

I love Strunk and White's Elements of Style. It doesn't take long to read and is probably a good idea every once in a while. It certainly is interesting.

16. Among the Jews there are three schools of thought, whose adherents are called Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes respectively. The Essenes profess a severer discipline: they are Jews by birth and are peculiarly attached to each other. They escew pleasure-seeking as a vice and regard temperance and mastery of the passions as virtue. Scorning wedlock, they select other men's children while still pliable and teachable, and fashion them after their own pattern - not that they wish to do away with marriage as a means of continuing the race, but they are afraid of the promiscuity of women and convinced that none of the sex remains faithful to one man.

The works of Josephus are just riveting. Perhaps we owe more to him for our knowledge of the first century than anyone else. Certainly, his offhand mention of James, brother of Jesus who is called Messiah (which I believe was a genuine reference, unlike some other later insertions) is our best evidence of Jesus' existence.

17. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf’s failure to appear on September 22. . . .

If you can't figure that one out, you are just an idiot. But, it's from one of Tolkien's letters, which are the best guide as to how he created his own little imaginary middle-earth.

18. My heart skipped within me, thinking they had been English men at the first sight of them, for they were dressed in English apparel, with hats, white neckcloths, and sashes about their waists, and ribbons upon their shoulders.: but when they came near, there was a vast difference between the lovely faces of Christians, and the foul looks of these heathens.

Mary Rowlandson was taken by Indians during King Philip's War (17th century) and saw her own daughter die. She was finally ransomed and restored to her husband. Her tale of captivity (short and you can find it online) was a huge best seller in its day. It is hard not to feel her disappointment in thinking she is about to be rescued by friends only to be quickly dragged back to reality.

19. My understanding is covered with sores. There is no physician to heal me. I have waited for someone to pity me, but found no comforters. from Adam to this day I have surpassed all sinners. Bestial and corrupt, I have defiled my mind by a liking for unworthy things, my mouth by words of murder, lewdness and otehr foul acts, my tongue by self-praise, my throat and chest by pride and arrogance, my hands by indecent contacts, by theft and assassination, my loins by monstrous lechery, girding them up for every possible evil deeed, and my feet by hastening to commit murder and plunder.

From the self drawn will of Ivan the Terrible. If you don't find that interesting (sorry, Mssrs. Strunk and White) we have little in common.

20. We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold, gray day, teached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air alsso was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradis of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenom, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever, and infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

Oh, to have a fraction of Henry David Thoreau's talent . . . that would be something. He is perhaps tied for second on my list of great American writers and tied for number 2 or number 3 among actual authors. You could open a collection of his works at random and come up on any page, almost every paragraph with as evocative a drawing. I can't read a line of his without thinking "wow".