“The Englishman likes to imagine himself at sea, the German in a forest. It is impossible to express the difference of their national feeling more concisely.” — Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, 1960
Society
Onlookers
“Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think creation’s.” — E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951
“Sometimes an admirer spends more talent extolling a work than the author did in creating it.” — Jean Rostand, De la vanité, 1925
Decisions
After last week’s post on Morton’s fork, reader Nick Hare sent three items. Rather than levy taxes, Athens used to task each of its wealthiest citizens to perform a liturgy, essentially a duty to finance a public project voluntarily. A citizen who was assigned this duty could avoid it by naming a citizen who was supposedly richer than he and thus better qualified to perform it. If the second man disputed this claim, the two would exchange their entire estates. The first man could hardly object to this, as by his own claim he would gain by it. This had the effect of discouraging spurious claims. The practice was known as antidosis, literally “an exchange.”
Virtue ethics meets consequentialism on Sesame Street:
And a trolley problem:
The trolley is hurtling toward Alice. Bob is on the other track.
Alice says, “Please, I don’t want to die, divert the trolley so Bob dies instead.”
Bob says, “Yes, divert the trolley onto my track — I don’t mind sacrificing myself so someone else can live.”
Should you divert the trolley?
(Thanks, Nick.)
Veritas
If we heard it said of Orientals that they habitually drank a liquor which went to their heads, deprived them of reason and made them vomit, we should say: ‘How very barbarous!’
— La Bruyère, “Of Opinions,” Characters, 1688
Morton’s Fork
John Morton, Lord Chancellor under Henry VII, used a universal argument to demand gifts for the royal treasury:
- If a man lived well, he was obviously rich.
- If a man lived modestly, he obviously had savings.
Either way, he could afford the tax. Francis Bacon wrote, “There is a tradition of a dilemma that Bishop Morton … used to raise up the benevolence to higher rates; and some called it his Fork.”
Miniature
If there were only two men in the world, how would they get on? They would help one another, harm one another, flatter one another, slander one another, fight one another, make it up; they could neither live together nor do without one another. They would act just as all men do today. They possess the gift of reason — yes — but they also possess the gift of instinct; and they will feel, and reason, and act always as nature has destined them to do.
— Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764
Worldly Wisdom
Maxims of Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658):
- When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.
- To overvalue something is a form of lying.
- Do something well, and that is quickly enough.
- Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised.
- Those who want to look like hard workers give the impression that they aren’t up to their jobs.
- Complaints will always discredit you. … Once divulged to others, the offenses done to us seem to make others pardonable.
- Not believing others implies that you yourself are deceitful. The liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed.
- Better to be cheated by the price than by the merchandise.
- Because the ignorant do not know themselves, they never know for what they are lacking. Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already.
- Some die because they feel everything, others because they feel nothing. Some are fools because they suffer no regrets, and others because they do.
- Some marry the first information they receive, and turn what comes later into their concubine. Since deceit is always first to arrive, there is no room left for truth.
- To hear a prince’s secrets is not a privilege but a burden. Many smash the mirror that reminds them of their ugliness. They cannot stand to see those who saw them.
- Some people belong entirely to others. … They have not a day, not an hour to call their own, so completely do they give themselves to others. This is true even in matters of understanding. Some people know everything for others and nothing for themselves.
- Many pleasant things are better when they belong to someone else. … When things belong to others, we enjoy them twice as much, without the risk of losing them, and with the pleasure of novelty.
- Imagination travels faster than sight. Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes.
- Freedom is more precious than the gift that makes us lose it.
- Virtue alone is for real; all else is sham. Talent and greatness depend on virtue, not on fortune. Only virtue is sufficient unto herself. She makes us love the living and remember the dead.
“Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people’s expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would. This rule does not hold true for bad things: when an evil has been exaggerated, its reality makes people applaud. What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable.”
Reflection
a man who is so dull
that he can learn only by personal experience
is too dull to learn
anything important by experience.
— Don Marquis, ‘archy on this and that’, Archy Does His Part, 1935
A Blow to Tourism
Anglican priest Samuel Peters opposed American independence and was forced to flee the colonies as the revolution approached. From London he exacted a sort of revenge by publishing a list of 45 draconian laws that he said prevailed in Connecticut, in an attempt to make the colonies look backward and fanatical. Among the sterner measures:
- No one to cross a river, but with an authorized ferryman.
- No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.
- No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave, on the Sabbath day.
- No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day.
- When it appears that an accused has confederates, and he refuses to discover them, he may be racked.
- Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, silver, or bone lace, above two shillings by the yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the offender at £300 estate.
- A debtor in prison, swearing he has no estate, shall be let out and sold, to make satisfaction.
- No one shall read Common-Prayer, keep Christmas or saints-days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and the jaw harp.
- The selectmen, on finding children ignorant, may take them away from their parents, and put them into better hands, at the expense of their parents.
- Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned.
- Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.
The full list is here. Peters’ hoax did have one lasting effect — it popularized the term “blue laws” to describe laws that restrict activity on Sunday.
Connections
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“I and my rhinoceros, said the tick-bird.” — Sotho proverb, quoted in Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa, 1970