Fewtril #136

In some circumstances, it takes a great effort to tell the difference between a clever man doing us wrong and an idiot doing his best.

Fewtril #135

What explains the absurd confidence in dialogue and debate but that they provide innumerous opportunities for the loquacious to try their luck at charming the spots off leopards?

Fewtril #134

Every new idea runs the risk of becoming surrounded by pitchforks and firebrands; though it must be said it would serve us well if some of them were lynched.

Chamfort

“If you want to make a good impression in society, you have to submit to being told all sorts of things you already know by people who don’t even know them themselves.”

Nicolas-Sébastien Roch de Chamfort, Reflections on Life, Love and Society, tr. & ed. by Douglas Parmée (London: Short Books, 2003), §165, p.84.

Essential Icelandic for Online Debate

Þú, vinur minn, ert hálfviti. – You, my friend, are a half-wit.

A Dust and a General Disorder

Disbelief is a most useful servant for the glib and shallow soul who might like to impress with the fancy of his sober incredulity. Anyone – even a fool – might discern the obvious, and for want that he be taken as a sage seeing beyond common sight, and for want moreover that his thoughts remain unprovoked by sense, a man may shut off his sight, and set himself immodesty to decrying as myths all threats to his repose. This is the aspect of false scepticism which T.H. Huxley noted:

When I say that Descartes commemorated doubt, you must remember that it was that sort of doubt which Goethe has called ‘the active scepticism, whose whole aim is to conquer itself’; and not the other sort which is born of flippancy and ignorance, and whose aim is only to perpetuate itself, as an excuse for idleness and indifference. [1]

There is another aspect of false scepticism, however, noted by many, and to which G.C. Lichtenberg gave succinct expression:

With most people disbelief in one thing is founded on blind belief in another. [2]

Thereby a man might describe as a persistent myth any fact that stands against his beliefs. I suspect that this aspect largely underlies the other. Whatever the case, with both aspects in full play, we find that a mass of men sets about exploding “myths” all over the place, such that a dust and a general disorder is thrown up around every matter, to which it is then difficult to attract clear and calm attention.

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[1] T.H. Huxley, Aphorisms and Reflections From the Works of T. H. Huxley, selected by H. A. Huxley (London: MacMillan & Co, 1907), §.XVII, published online at The Huxley File.

[2] G.C. Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher, (Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1984), L.670 from Sudelbuch L (1796-1799), p. 514. [“Bei den meisten Menschen gründet sich der Unglaube in einer Sacher auf blinden Glauben in einer andern”.]

Silly Old Trout

In the opinion of Germaine Greer, the better kind of art is that which one cannot collect. Therefore, since one can collect the works of, say, Hogarth, Rembrandt, Turner, or Caravaggio, she must think them necessarily inferior to works such as Martin Creed’s The Lights Going On and Off, an uncollectable work to which I presume Professor Greer alludes in the following passage:

The artist positions you in a dark room and turns the light on, and off again. He does no more because there is no need to do more. In finding yourself equal to the encounter, you are empowered with the artist’s own intellectual energy. For the time you are together, you are sharing the same cerebral space. [1]

If she really finds herself intellectually stimulated by a light going on and off, one might suggest she take up a vocation more suited to her level of intellect, though, considering that she now frequently writes opinion-pieces for the The Guardian, one might suspect she has already found it.

[1] Germaine Greer, “Here’s a message for the art mafia in their black Bentleys: the really good stuff is uncollectible”, The Guardian, 23rd October 2006.

Fewtril #133

We often shy away from understanding and talking about the adverse and harmful consequences of our actions; for those actions seem so much the better if we concentrate instead on the principles that guided them. Such is the mannered and callous way in which we remain faithful to our principles come what may.

Under the Watch of Liberalism

Ms Soumaya Ghannoushi of The Guardian asks:

Are liberal societies completely immune to totalitarianism and despotism? Could the boundaries between these systems not be blurred? Could the liberal system itself not slide into tyranny, whilst still preserving its veneer of freedom, tolerance and pluralism?

She then gives three supposed examples of liberal societies descending into tyranny: the United States of America during the McCarthy era of the nineteen-forties and -fifties; France during the student tantrums of the late nineteen-sixties; and Britain during the miners’ strike of the mid-nineteen-eighties. It should be clear, however, that these are examples of relatively liberal societies trying to defend themselves against far more illiberal movements, against whose advance illiberal means were necessary. After all, if liberal societies were to allow — by a consistent application of liberal principles — the spread of ideas and movements antithetical and hostile to them, then they would soon enough fall to their enemies.

.....Yet there is in the purest form of liberalism the seed of an insane optimism — a belief that everyone will act well and wisely, or at least not evilly, once he is set free from authority, superstition and adverse circumstance, such that society will progress to ever-greater perfection — an optimism which permits the growth of tyranny if it is not first made sane by the admission that freedom does not by itself teach goodness or halt evil. It is because liberal societies tolerate in the first place ideas, sentiments and movements which are antithetical to freedom that they become so illiberal in the end; for they allow the growth of those things against which they must eventually respond in kind, or be overthrown.

.....In the nineteenth century, Jacob Burckhardt wrote:

The word ‘freedom’ sounds fair and rich, but only he who has never experienced slavery under the baying masses, called ‘the people’, seen it with his own eyes, and suffered civil unrest, should talk about it. There is nothing more piteous under the sun, experto crede Ruperto, than a government from under whose nose any club of intriguers can steal the executive power, and which then must tremble before zealous ‘Liberalism’, churls, and village magnates. I know too much history to expect anything from this despotism of the masses other than a future tyranny, wherewith history will have its end.

Even when liberty is extinguished under the watch of liberalism, however, its slogans and principles may remain, in whose lip-service a thousand laws seek the security of everyone from everyone else, over which the State is the sole and all-embracing judge.

.....The trouble is that, as long as authority is disdained in the name of freedom, we shall fall victim time and again to power that sets itself no limits.

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[1] Soumaya Ghannoushi, “Skin-deep Liberalism”, Comment is Free (Weblog of The Guardian), 19th October 2006.

[2] [“Das Wort Freiheit klingt schön und rund, aber nur der sollte darüber mitreden, der die Sklaverei unter der Brüllmasse, Volk genannt, mit Augen angesehen und in bürgerlichen Unruhen duldend und zuschauend mitgelebt hat. Es gibt nichts Kläglicheres unter der Sonne, experto crede Ruperto, al seine Regierung, welcher jeder Intrigantenklub die executive Gewalt unterm Hintern wegstehlen kann, und die dann vor dem “Liberalismus” der Schwünge, Knoten und Dorfmanaten zittern muß. Ich weiß zuviel Geschichte, um von diesem Massendespotismus etwas Andres zu erwarten al seine künftige Gewaltherrschaft, womit die Geschichte ein Ende haben wird.”] Jacob Burckhardt, Brief an Gottfried Kinkel, 19. April 1845, Briefe (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1929), pp.119-20

Fewtril #132

The poser who fancies himself a man of the Enlightenment, taking all matters through reason rather than authority, reveals his imposture when the position which he has adopted from clever and celebrated men, and in which he has invested his whole credulity, is proven to be untenable by the argument of a nobody — for whose impertinence he damns the man’s eyes and asks who the hell he thinks he is.

An Undue Complaint

Upon a slowing pace of change towards his ideals, the radical is wont to complain unduly of a regression therefrom, a deceit by which he hopes to impel a greater pace of change. An example:

[G]overnment and society are socially progressive on a whole range of issues and the Church of England is more reactionary than at any time since the English civil war. [1]

Now, the Church of England may well be having trouble keeping up, but it can hardly be described as “more reactionary than at any time since the English civil war”. Indeed, not so long ago, it was said that the Church of England was the Tory party at prayer, whereas nowadays it would be more fitting to say that it is the Liberal Democrats at a loose end.

[1] Michael Hampson, “A loss of faith”, The Guardian, 16th October 2006.

Herr Lichtenberg Again

“It is sufficient for a man’s justification if he has so lived that he deserves forgiveness for his faults on account of his virtues.”

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[“Es ist für des Menschen Rechtfertigung hinreichend, wenn er so gelebt hat, daß er seiner Tugenden wegen Vergebung für seine Fehler verdient.”]

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G.C. Lichtenberg, Sudelbücher, (Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1984), J.1014 from Sudelbuch J:1789-1793, p. 422.

Narcissist Hari

Ink-slinger and paid narcissist Johann Hari tells us that, after he had begun taking Seroxat — an anti-depressant which he has been taking every day for the last ten years —, he felt “no more self-absorption” [1], which leads me to the suspicion that the drug acts to suppress self-awareness.

[1] Johann Hari, “My week of withdrawal”, Evening Standard, 6th October 2006, reproduced online at JohannHari.com.

Fewtril #131

When a fool cannot find the reason for something, he might say it lacks a rational basis, when in fact it is he who lacks the means to find it.

Fewtril #130

There are some people who are so political that they might feel that even paradise would be incomplete without a constitution.

Fewtril #129

Some persons prefer their vulgarity to go by the name of honesty.