Below is Rudyard Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". Written almost a century ago, it anticipates our own age's worst problem: the tendency to reject reality (as it is) and supply our own reality in its place. Problem is: the truth will out.
-----------------
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
ht:Douglas Wilson
No Survivors
David McRaney (youarenotsosmart.com) on survivorship bias (a common logical error):
Survivorship bias pulls you toward bestselling diet gurus, celebrity CEOs, and superstar athletes. [...] The problem here is that you rarely take away from these inspirational figures advice on what not to do, on what you should avoid, and that’s because they don’t know.Full article...
Q198: Mother's Day
"Motherhood is the big-leagues of self-sacrifice. Millions of women kill to avoid it. In our culture of self-gratification, to embrace selfless motherhood is a revolutionary act."
— Rachel Jankovic
Doctrinal Jenga
From Steven Wedgeworth's essay "What Depends upon an Historical Adam?":
"Death is, according to the Bible, a judgment based upon Adam’s sin. If that original sin was not itself real, an event occurring in this world, then the judgment is arbitrary and unjust. We should also say that if death is simply a natural part of the created order, the normal process of decay inherent in the evolutionary model, then it is not actually a "problem" at all. It is just a feature of the universe. This then must attribute death to God’s original design, a species of Gnosticism. [...] If Adam was not historical, then Christ need not be either."Read the full essay here...
Q197: Original Intent
"[D]enial of original intent is always an attempt to supply the intent of another. [...] It is not whether words will be governed in accordance with the intent behind them, but rather whose intent it will be."
— Douglas Wilson
Q196: Strengthen the things that remain.
"Intentionally stripping away dependencies on things you can no longer depend on is the single best preparation to change."
— Seth Godin
Raise your hand if you're sure...
D. Kahneman, in the NYT:
"The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with which it comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable. The bias toward coherence favors overconfidence. An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true."Read the rest...
Q195: Mavis Gallant
"He had never really held a place and could not by dying leave a gap."
and"[S]he was the daughter of such a sensible, truthful, pessimistic woman — pessimistic in the way women become when they settle for what actually exists."
— Mavis Gallant
These quotes come from "Voices Lost in Snow" by Mavis Gallant. You can hear a reading of the story (and a discussion of it) here.
These quotes come from "Voices Lost in Snow" by Mavis Gallant. You can hear a reading of the story (and a discussion of it) here.
Q194: The Elect Lady
I'm currently reading George MacDonald's The Elect Lady (if occasionally returning to a book for a few minutes can be called "reading"). So far, the book is a veritable quote factory. Here are some bits from what I've read up to this point:
- [T]here are other ways than idleness of wasting time.
- A man should not do what he would not have known.
- [H]e was a little too particular in the smaller points of his attire, and lacked in consequence something of the look of a gentleman.
- To many men and women the greatest trouble is to choose, for self is the hardest of masters to please[.]
- [W]hat we call degeneracy is often but the unveiling of what was there all the time; and the evil we could become, we are.
- He was more and more for himself, and thereby losing his life
- We wrong those near us in being independent of them.
- She had learned the how before the what, knew the body before the soul—could tell good binding but not bad leather [.]
- [T]o do the will of God is the only way to improve one's self.
- [P]eople mocked him for a poet and a heretic, because he did the things which they said they believed.
- [I]f we were so foolish [...], it would be better to find it out, and begin to grow wise!
- They got up from their knees. They had said what they had to say: why say more!
- To explain what the Lord means to one who is not obedient, is the work of no man who knows his work.
- It is a poor reward for being a great poet to be allowed to take liberties. I should say that, doing their work to the best of their power, they were rewarded with the discovery of higher laws of verse. Every one must walk by the light given him. By the rules which others have laid down he may learn to walk; but once his heart is awake to truth, and his ear to measure, melody and harmony, he must walk by the light, and the music God gives him.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)