Turnabout

An “enigma in praise of women,” from an 1820 miscellany:

Happy that man may pass his life,
Who’s free from matrimonial chains;
Who is directed by a wife,
Is sure to suffer for his pains.

What tongue is able to unfold
The falsehood which in women dwell?
The worth in women you behold
Is almost imperceptible.

Adam could find no solid peace
When Eve was given him for a mate;
Till he beheld a woman’s face,
Adam was in a happy state.

See, in the female race appear
Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride;
Truth, darling of a heart sincere,
In women never can reside.

They’re always studying to employ
Their time in malice and in lies;
Their leisure hours in virtuous joy
To spend, ne’er in their thoughts arise.

Destruction take the men, I say,
Who make the fair their chief delight;
Who no regard to women pay,
Keep reason always in their sight.

“By reading the first and third lines together the Enigma is explained.”

| Poems · Puzzles · Society

Degree

https://www.hiclipart.com/free-transparent-background-png-clipart-duiim

Political controversies, as Mr. Graham Wallas has pointed out, ought to be conducted in quantitative terms. … The dispute between anarchism and bureaucracy at present tends to take the form of one side maintaining that we want no organization, while the other maintains that we want as much as possible. … Some people think that we keep our rooms too hot for health, others that we keep them too cold. If this were a political question, one party would maintain that the best temperature is the absolute zero, the other that it is the melting point of iron. Those who maintained any intermediate position would be abused as timorous time-servers, concealed agents of the other side, men who ruined the enthusiasm of a sacred cause by tepid appeals to mere reason. Any man who had the courage to say that our rooms ought to be neither very hot nor very cold would be abused by both parties, and probably shot in No Man’s Land. Possibly some day politics may become more rational, but so far there is not the faintest indication of a change in this direction.

— Bertrand Russell, Icarus, 1924

| Society

Strike Up the Bland

In 1986, Michael Kinsley, editor of The New Republic, spotted the headline “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” in the New York Times and challenged his readers to come up with a more boring one. This was a tall order: The Times head, someone said, manages to be “not only boring as a whole, but boring word by word.” Submissions included:

  • “U.S. Leadership Needed” (New York Times)
  • “Trade, A Two-Way Street” (New York Times)
  • “Beyond the News, Larger Issues” (New York Times)
  • “Thoughts at Graduation Time” (New York Times)
  • “Continue Manned Flight in Space” (New York Times)
  • “Chill Falls on Warming Relations Between Australia and Indonesia” (New York Times)
  • “University of Rochester Decides to Keep Name” (New York Times)
  • “Dramatic Changes Fail to Materialize on Hill” (Washington Post)
  • “Surprises Unlikely in Indiana” (Chicago Tribune)
  • “CIA Analysis Sees Soviet Economy in Need of Changes” (San Diego Union)
  • “Prevent Burglary by Locking House, Detectives Urge” (Boston Globe)
  • “Methodists Oppose Use of Nuclear Arms” (New York Times)
  • “Economist Dies” (Wisconsin State Journal)
  • “Turbulent Days for Donald D. Engen” (New York Times)

The winner was found in the New York Times science section: “Debate Goes on Over the Nature of Reality.”

| Language · Literature · Society

“We and They”

Father, Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But — would you believe it? — They look upon We
As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
And They who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!

— Kipling

| Poems · Society

The Ringelmann Effect

In studying the relationship between productivity and efficiency in 1913, French agricultural engineer Maximilien Ringelmann found that members of a group perform worse on average as the size of the group increases. In a tug of war, as the size of a team grows, each member begins to “loaf,” relying on his teammates to put forth the necessary effort. Worse, the team’s growing size makes it increasingly difficult to coordinate its actions.

Interestingly, though, ants have been shown to increase in efficiency when working in teams. New World army ants can carry larger loads as a team than if the burden were distributed among them individually, and Weaver ants organize pulling chains that can effectively double the strength of each member. So “the Ringelmann effect” isn’t inescapable.

| Society

A Fable

A paper kite, that soared on high,
While looking down was able to descry
A joyous butterfly,
And cried, “We faintly see your foolish efforts zealous;
Confess that you are rather jealous,
When you behold our elevated lot.”
“Jealous? Oh, surely not.
Your grandeur is a phantom, or an empty vision,
Your tethered flight awakes, believe me, but derision;
Can happiness be got from an existence ever fettered?
And how could life for me be bettered?
As I aspire I venture higher,
And never, solely for another’s idle leisure
And pleasure,
Lose freedom I desire.”

— Ivan Krylov

| Literature · Society