From "American Humbug" (NY Review of Books).
This is a review of a book called "Barnum: An American Life." The review ends:
The great danger to democracy today comes not from marks slow to spot a humbug but from a public made cynical to the point of believing that everything, and everyone, is a humbug, especially the humorless class of credentialed experts whom Barnum took such joy in ridiculing. In the end, though, it’s a distinction without a difference. Too credulous or too incredulous—you’re a sucker either way.So... I guess... in a world of uncertainty, you've got to get your credulousness somewhere in the middle. That made me think — vaguely — of a famous quote that appeared in my head as He who will believe in anything believes in nothing. Google understood my groping and set me straight. It's the other way around! Those who believe in nothing believe in anything. I considered believing that it's one of those A = B so B = A situations, but that's the kind of mistake you can only make if you dabble in logic.
I kind of like my version. What's the bigger problem — believing in nothing or believing in anything? I say it's believing in anything. Nothing is a good start. (Better than nothing is a high standard.)
Anyway, the famous quote is about a specific belief in nothing: "When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything." The quote tends to be misattributed to G.K. Chesterton.
Yesterday, I was listening to the car radio and this came on — Chris Cornell singing the old Prince song "Nothing Compares to You":
The singer's love interest is comparable only to nothing. It's intended as the supreme compliment.
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101 comments:
When Barnum finally treks to his inheritance at the age of ten, he discovers that Ivy Island is a waste of muddy bogs plagued by hornets and snakes. He shrieks and runs home."
When does a trek turn into a run home??
This is bullshit.
I kind of like my version. What's the bigger problem — believing in nothing or believing in anything? I say it's believing in anything. Nothing is a good start. (Better than nothing is a high standard.)
Humans aren't wired to believe in nothing. Something always fills that void, which is why the original quote exists: the people who claim to be the most rational, the most skeptical, are very often the ones who adopt some of the craziest beliefs.
Terrific version of that song. Thank you and Happy Easter.
"What's the bigger problem — believing in nothing or believing in anything? I say it's believing in anything. Nothing is a good start."
Reminds me of PJ O'Rourke some years ago:
"What I believed in the Sixties: Everything. You name it and I believed it. I believed love was all you need. I believed you should be here now.[...] I managed to believe Gandhi and H. Rap Brown at the same time. With the exception of anything my parents said, I believed everything.
"What I believe now: Nothing. Well, nothing much. I believe things that can be proven by reason and by experiment, and believe you me, I want to see the logic and the lab equipment."
In her quest for certainty, Althouse stops at nothing.
I am a big Chris Cornell fan, but Sinead O'Connor's is the definitive version. It's even better in video form. Mostly just a tight shot of her face with the shaved head. It takes a special kind of beauty to pull that look off. It's now often forgotten, but when Sinead O'Connor tore up the picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL, she was doing it in protest of sexual abuse within the Church. Prescient.
I prefer, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
Is it really even possible to "believe in nothing?"
And obligatory Big Lebowski reference: "They were nihilists, man. They kept saying they believe in nothing." "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
I miss his voice.
When nothing is guaranteed, anything is possible.
I believe that all those statements about belief are worth ignoring.
Farmer, I agree re Sinead O’Connor’s version and have read that her mother had recently died when that video was shot which is what gives it that extra emotional punch. She inserted that “mama” into the wrenching line about the flowers in the backyard.
We are bound to see a lot of malarkey now on this thread. Thanks, Althouse.
Why are writers bringing up P.T. Barnum if not to make the predictable comparison to Donald Trump? God this is getting tiresome. I loathe these predictable "writers." .
Happy Easter
It's all in how quickly you can believe stuff. Women are a lot faster than men.
Indeed Ann is always basement dwelling, typical of 60s boomers. As Bloom stated "they replaced something with nothing"
Why couldn't Chris and Prince just faded away?
I find it somewhat depressing that a song written by Prince is now considered old.
I'm too old to appreciate the song or the musicians. Couldn't make it beyond the first minute-- I stopped paying attention to pop music almost entirely about 1976. That is, I only know what the music industry chooses to push at me in my daily rounds.
I believe the essential ground truth of all the higher religions and philosophies:
People Are No Damn Good.
Narr
Simple, easy, awesome
She inserted that “mama” into the wrenching line about the flowers in the backyard.
Yes, I've heard that anecdote as well. Supposedly the tears she sheds in the video are real. The video also inspired Michael Stipe to lip sync in the video Losing My Religion. Apparently, for the decade prior to that, he had always refused to lip sync in videos. First time I heard that I remember thinking, "Wow, Michael Stipe sounds like an unbearably pompous douche." I personally blame him for the birth of modern hipster culture.
Yes- I think of this as O'Connor's song, not Prince's, even though he composed it. Hers is the definitive version, in my opinion.
It was funny to read Bethel, Connecticut described as poor. I suppose it was in the early 19th century.
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” One of my favorite Chesterton’s.
“A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left. Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.” Ecc. 10:2-3 One of my favorite Solomon’s.
@Limited Blogger:
Why couldn't Chris and Prince just faded away?
Ever see the film High Fidelity with John Cusack and Jack Black. Black's character asks, "Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?"
A similar sentiment from President Ford.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
A = B statements usually take one broadly and the other narrowly.
Might makes right, and right makes might, are nearly opposites for that reason.
Remember --> P.T. Bridgeport!<--
It is not true that if A=B, B=A; one needs the contrapositive:
if not B, not A.
The Welsh band Stereophonics did a cover that is kind of interesting. Be warned, if you do not like extremely raspy vocals, avoid at all cost. Chris Stapleton also did an interesting take. Again, you can't see either version in Sinead's rear view mirror.
I liked that film, and I generally can't stand john cusack, in a starring role,
I believe in anything.
What's grammatically odd about it is that it uses "anything" in an assertive context. As it stands, it implies a denial of something just ahead of it in the conversation.
Usually "any" requires at least a quasi-negation in the vicinity, or a question.
Joan has always been my favorite Cusack. John is hit or miss for me, but I loved that film. It also features Lisa Bonet in her most ravishing form since Angel Heart.
@David Begley:
A similar sentiment from President Ford.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
We have long since passed that relatively low bar. We have a government that can destroy the entire planet.
I'm with the Sinead brigade. Her version is the best.
This guy's guitar is annoying. It reminds me of all those times some asswipe brings out his guitar and just strums a couple of cords.
Further, I believe that modern civilization is doomed, if not in my lifetime then certainly within the lifetime of my son (34 next week).
Bill Bryson wrote that "life wants to be--it just doesn't want to be much." Niall Ferguson maintains that the main reason we have billions of people in dire poverty in so much of the world is that European imperialists were able only to impose basic health and sanitation on their colonies, but not the attitudes and outlooks that make for self-sustaining progress--
colonization basically just allows more people to be backward at a slightly higher and temporarily healthier level.
Kaplan, echoing Toynbee, points out that where two systems, one advanced and one less so, meet on the ground, one will give way. We're seeing the advanced civilizations giving way to inferior ones everywhere, from the American Southwest to Europe.
Narr
None of this will end well
Watched part 1 of The Circus on PBS. I stopped watching after the first part...so depressing but will take it up again in the future. Well told story. Highly recommend.
I've always arranged my record albums in the order I obtained them.
@Narr:
We're seeing the advanced civilizations giving way to inferior ones everywhere, from the American Southwest to Europe.
Indeed.
"Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally." -Donald J. Trump
And don't forget that the people who are most enthusiastic about this steady flow of cheap labor were also the primary beneficiaries of Trump's tax cut. You know, the "job creators." Winning!
But then again, Trump did get a sick burn against Jim Acosta at one of his press conferences. So we've got that going for us.
It's that octave leap on the word 'noTHING' that really makes Sinead's version so sublime.
I assume that was her own idea.
I believe 2.2 million people in the US will die of Covid-19.
Make that about 1 million.
OK 500,000.
Nope 200,000.
Anyone agree to 80,000.
Dammit, 60,000 and that's my final offer!
But it's a computer model.....
Nothing is as good as mom's Apple pie. A crumb is better than nothing. Ergo, a crumb is better than Mom's Apple pie. See the problem? It's built on two different meanings of the word nothing.
Practice Tip: belief is an action. When one believes in another’s promise, you then act on it. And you will soon find out what and who to believe. But we must first credit the other person with promissory estoppel. That’s what is called taking a Leap of Faith.
"If you believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything" is literally a consequence of logic. Formally, it's known as Ex falso quodlibet.
From the NY Review:
As one of Barnum’s early partners told him in a letter, “Remember, all we need to insure success is notoriety.”
Doesn't that sum up today's media. Truth, insight, understanding.....Humbug!. All we need to insure success is clicks.
.
@JAORE:
But it's a computer model.....
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Feb. 10: “Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”
Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
Of course, there isn't any reason to be partisan about this. Florentines were also being encouraged to hug random Chinese people, and New Yorkers were be encouraged by their politicians to ignore the hype and attend a crowded festival in Chinatown. There's the white liberal mindset for you: I'd rather be dead than racist.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the movie The Greatest Showman, a rousing tribute to ... I guess enthusiasm, and knowing your place in the world. Highly recommended to lift your spirits!
"He who will believe in anything believes in nothing."
Better than which is a high standard. Or not?
I've always arranged my record albums in the order I obtained them.
I did the same thing when I was teenager.
Here is the order of my album purchases:
1. The Wall
2. London Calling
3. Back in Black
4. Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack
5. Off the Wall
6. The Game
7. Dark Side of the Moon
8. Wish You Were Here
9. 52nd Street
10.Urban Cowboy Soundtrack
All of them bought between February and about August of 1980. After that point, I joined one of the record clubs which ads you could find in every TV Guide at the time.
JAORE:
" believe 2.2 million people in the US will die of Covid-19.
Make that about 1 million.
OK 500,000.
Nope 200,000.
Anyone agree to 80,000.
Dammit, 60,000 and that's my final offer!"
Real calculations! Had to build in some "uncertainties"!
Anyway, are you sure your final offer includes only actual Wuhan victims? How can you tell?
"the art of money getting or golden rules for making money" by pt barnum is free on kindle and pretty interesting.
As for "making money", before anyone goes off on a tangent about how evil it is, consider the words of Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia:
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘tomake money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality
John Henry
"The singer's love interest is comparable only to nothing. It's intended as the supreme compliment."
Not just unique, but superlatively so, the very most unique sort of uniqueness!!
(cf "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now")
SO, the moral of the Barnum and his biography is "don't be a gullible sucker", and the NYT turns that on its head and turns it into "Don't be too skeptical of the rich and powerful". LOL. Keep trusting those MSM Reporters, "Constitutional" judges, lawyers, Wall Street and Bank execs, and Foreign Policy experts. They'll never steer you wrong, Mr. Average American.
Trust in authority, unless its a Conservative Republican!
Making mix tapes is a lost art. Does anybody still have a cassette deck?
the data was terrible, the who is fatally compromised with their Ethiopian neil Tyson manqué, the cdc had their head up their (redacted), investigation obesity gun control and the Mississippi fruit bat, the resistance had taken down the previous director, fitzgerald on some none germane issue, the successor was not up to speed, Obamacare had made any testing regiment,
If you believe in nothing then there will never be wars, no competition, no beliefs, no right or wrong , no truth , no objectivity and thus utopia is possible. Mugs game fostered by the Liberal elite.
yes it's fully Harrison Bergeron, how many will die like kurt cobain under this wave of unrelenting despair, they serve us up, morning noon and night, in addition to the economic deprivation, the isolation from human contact,
Chesterton's observation is more a psychological than strictly logical insight, into the general human tendency to need a world-historical frame to give meaning or direction to human life. Likely based on his observation of the rapid adoption of communism or fascism in the wake of the 19th century death of God among the educated classes of Western Europe.
True nihilism is an unsteady state, especially in a social animal. Rare individuals with sociopathic tendencies might maintain it for a lifetime, but for the vast majority of individuals born into gene pools adapted to complex post-hunter/gatherer societies, it is unendurable, or endurable only as a short life of suicidal addictive behavior.
Outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, the problem of nihilism presented itself in Second Turning Buddhism teaching on emptiness, giving rise to "Middle Way" teachings emphasizing the importance of compassion for all sentient beings.
@Darkisland:
As for "making money", before anyone goes off on a tangent about how evil it is, consider the words of Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia
"Evil" is over-the-top, but it's probably no coincidence that most major religious systems caution against excessive concern with material consumption. I get that Ayn Rand rejects this of course.
"Chris Cornell singing the old Prince song "Nothing Compares to You":
The singer's love interest is comparable only to nothing. It's intended as the supreme compliment."
This is clever and cute, but I'm pretty sure "else" is implied after "Nothing."
it's debatable he said it, but vacuums are eventually filled by something, driving Christianity out of the public square, meant this pastiche of half baked bromides filled the gap, this was bad for the upper classes, but it was fatal for urban and even rural sensibilities,
Prince got older, got injured, got hooked on pills.
Nothing compares to Youth.
I am Laslo.
That list is wrong- Back in Black was the last vinyl album I purchased from a record store- I had it confused with the first ten list for that reason. It was High Voltage that I bought that Winter in 1980- I bought Back in Black the following Christmas if my memory is now correct.
it's probably no coincidence that most major religious systems caution against excessive concern with material consumption.
One theory for the poverty of South and Central America is that the Catholic Church has emphasized the goodness of poverty and the evil of money or wealth. The Spanish colonies all share this characteristic whereas the Protestant, especially Presbyterian, colonies embraced the concept that material success was an indication of good behavior and good character. Then Dutch were an early example of this thinking and were wealthy beyond the rest of Europe until the Industrial Revolution allowed England to catch up. France, with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, sent its Protestants to England and they took with them the Industrial Revolution.
it is properly said, 'the love of money is the root of all evil' because it subordinates all other priorities, including worship of God,
I made my debut here with a critique of the pseudo-Chesterton-- that people will believe ANYTHING is already sufficiently proven by the variety of religions. That religion-substitutes will be stupid is only to say that people tend to be stupid.
It's like Mencken's crack about his friends' religious beliefs--he tolerated them on the basis that his friends also believe their wives to be beautiful and their children intelligent.
It's funny (Mencken almost always was, and so was GKC) but it's a non-seq, unless the implication is that none of his friends' wives were beautiful and none of their children were intelligent.
Narr
I didn't know them, he might have been right
You might say, the singer’s love interest compares to nothing because his belief in her passed the test that proved her, which was his action expressing a romantic love. Surprise, surprise, her response was unmatched.
@Michael K:
One theory for the poverty of South and Central America is that the Catholic Church has emphasized the goodness of poverty and the evil of money or wealth.
I don't find the claim very compelling. I think low average IQ probably explains more than Catholic teachings. European Catholics are richer than Latin American Catholics. Of course, Northern Europeans are richer (and probably a bit smarter) than Southern Europeans. Disparities persist between Britain's celtic and Germanic populations.
I don't know if it's the same writer, but I saw a biographer of Barnum appear on CSPAN. He rejoiced that The New Yorker had reviewed his book but complained that that same review criticized him for not making explicit comparisons of PT Barnum with Donald Trump....I read The New Yorker review. IIRC, PT Barnum as a politician got more things right than wrong. He was a humbug but many of his instincts were sound.....Atheism is a relatively new religion. There have always been people who doubted whether God or gods intervened him human affairs, but they all believed that there was some higher power out there that controlled the movement of the spheres.....Sinead O'Connor is a fine artist, but one's talent as an artist is often inversely proportional to one's wisdom as a human being. She's got any number of weird opinions and emotional problems. Not all of them were caused by the Catholic faith or capitalism. I hope she finds her way out of her dark places and finds peace.
@Godddess of the Classroom, I believe that the mistake Althouse makes is using equality when she should be using the implication operator of propositional logic to capture the if ... then nature of the assertion. A -> B
Purposeful misinterpretation of song lyrics isn't a hanging offense. Yet.
A minor character on Howdy Doody was Phineas T. Bluster, the irascible skinflint mayor of Doodyville.
Dark matter and energy control the movements of the orbs. We don't believe in nothing. We believe in The Unknown. The Unknown is pretty amorphous. Maybe it has a place for God.
One theory for the poverty of South and Central America is that the Catholic Church has emphasized the goodness of poverty and the evil of money or wealth.
That theory is BS. European Catholic regions were as wealthy as Protestant areas. The common thread was often access to, and involvement in, the maritime trade.
“ They ask me how I feel
And if my love is real
And how I know I’ll make it through
And they, they look at me and frown
They’d like to drive me from this town
They don’t want me around
’Cause I believe in you
They show me to the door
They say don’t come back no more
’Cause I don’t be like they’d like me to
And I walk out on my own
A thousand miles from home
But I don’t feel alone
’Cause I believe in you
I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter
I believe in you even though we be apart
I believe in you even on the morning after
Oh, when the dawn is nearing
Oh, when the night is disappearing
Oh, this feeling is still here in my heart”
The French Huguenots went all over Protestant Europe. They helped make Berlin a major manufacturing and luxury goods center, with skills and business contacts they had developed in France.
And you don't read much in German history without running into French names--someone mentioned the writer Theodor Fontane, and you have the soldiers Verdy du Vernois and de la Chevallerie among others.
That period saw some interesting parallels in religious persecution. The (Catholic mostly Irish) Wild Geese took service in French, Spanish, Austrian, and other Catholic armies, and have a very romantic reputation in comparison to Protestant expellees.
Narr
Protestant atheist
"I am a big Chris Cornell fan, but Sinead O'Connor's is the definitive version."
True (other than that I would never say "definitive" about any version of anything worth singing (it strikes me as offensively exclusionary)).
But the Sinead O'Connor version is not what happened to play on the radio as I was driving my car. I did not go looking for the best version of a song. I was driving my car and something random happened and it made an impression on me. I thought thoughts that I remembered and that came to mind as I was writing about something else that happened to come up today (a review of a biography of P.T. Barnum, who wasn't exactly the most important thing to be thinking about).
"Definitive" has acquired a vague, imprecise meaning of simply the best, but literally, it means final. As if there was a question of how to understand or do something that it has been conclusively resolved.
I don't like that used for a version of a song.
Here's Jason Mraz sining "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."
"Terrific version of that song. Thank you and Happy Easter."
Thanks!
Happy Easter to all!
That theory is BS. European Catholic regions were as wealthy as Protestant areas.
Really ? So the history of Spain is all wrong. It was rich and Philip's wars of religion did not impoverish it ?
Speaking of BS.
The Catholic regions of Europe have not traditionally been as productive, prosperous, wealthy and inventive as the Protestant regions. Not since about 1750 anyway, and even given some leveling attempts recently.
And there's not much of a serious argument any more, that the Ibero-Catholic top-down hierarchical political system, and almost purely extractive economic goals, stunted Latin American political and economic growth and development. Now and forever.
Narr
Culture or Theology? You decide
Define definitive. It is setting a boundary or ending to a subject. As Jesus’s last words on the cross: it is finished.
I think low average IQ probably explains more than Catholic teachings
I think you could be right about Mexico and Central America where the population is heavily Mestizo but what about Argentina ? Settled by Italians and Irish. It was rich from commodities at one time but the infrastructure was built by British Protestants.
I have no dog in that fight. I was raised Catholic and educated through high school in Catholic schools. I remember the nuns teaching us how Mary Tudor was a saint and Elizabeth was evil.
@Michael K:
I think you could be right about Mexico and Central America where the population is heavily Mestizo but what about Argentina ?
An average Argentinian is about 60% European, 30% indigenous American, and 10% African.
p.s. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some component to the Protestant/Catholic divide. Particularly in the area of literacy.
"I Believe In You"... Easter...Dylan... Sinead
There were Wild Geese like the Austrians Lacy and O'Reilly. And who can forget figures like Bernardo O'Higgins? Or my personal favorite General Odonoju' ?
Narr
gilbar, other warheads, chime in!
Going back five generations my immediate ancestors were Catholic, Lutheran, and one token Jew. I don't think there were any radical differences in their make-up, although at one time they were certainly willing to kill each other over such differences....I was raised as a Catholic. It might have put a crimp in my early sex life, but I don't think it had much impact on my ambition or industry.
Farmer, It's about 27% Amerindian so you are close but the huge immigration wave of the 19th century should have brought numbers similar to ours in IQ and industry. I still think Catholic countries, like Italy and Spain were held back by culture, not IQ.
Catholic France was held back relative to Protestant Germany until the Revolution. Then Napoleon killed 30% of young men.
The were actually relatively few Spaniards in south America. Lots and lots of Irish went to sa in the service of spain when Cromwell was terrorizing ireland.
Narr mentions Bernardo o'higgins born in Chile. His father, ambrosio, born in ireland, was the Spanish viceroy of chile, peru, bolivia and that region.
Alejandro O'Reilly born in County Meath was inspector General of the spanish army along with a lot of other high positions. (he also built El Morro) in San Juan.
Lots and lots of other irish in high positions.
Argentina had so many germans that as late as the 1930s Buenas Aires had 6 daily german language newspapers. So many italians that spoken argentine Spanish sounds more like italian than Spanish.
When my granddaughter went to Chile, she found that there is still a large german community. The "German" volleyball teams she played against, 3rd to 5th generation Chileans, spoke German as their first language, not Spanish.
Calling South America "hispanic" is rather silly.
John Henry
Meade linked: "I Believe In You"... Easter...Dylan... Sinead"
Cat Power covered that one too with Appleton's own Judah Bauer on guitar: link
J. Farmer said...
The video also inspired Michael Stipe to lip sync in the video Losing My Religion. Apparently, for the decade prior to that, he had always refused to lip sync in videos. First time I heard that I remember thinking, "Wow, Michael Stipe sounds like an unbearably pompous douche." I personally blame him for the birth of modern hipster culture.
BS. He lip-synced the 'So. Central Rain' video back in '84 and he also lip-synced 'Shiny Happy People'; can't remember when that came out, but it pre-dates 'Losing My Religion'.
Do agree with you about him being one of the founders of Hipsterism.
I have been sorely distressed by the idiocy exhibited by my Facebook friends in these unusual times. Whether it's claiming Trump is pushing hydroxychloroquine because he's profiting by it or fearing Bill Gates wants to inject us all with microchips in his brainwashing vaccine, there appears to be no conspiracy theory too outlandish for people to believe in.
This is because people feel out of control. Theories, no matter how marginal, give them a handle to help them deal with the circumstances. That, and people are driven to think of themselves as the exalted possessors of exclusive information.
Personally I have always lived by the maxim that you shouldn't believe in conspiracy theories even if they are true. The reviewer's observation is apt: spend too much time pondering conspiracy theories and you will wind up in one of the two categories, credulous or cynical. Just leave them be and tend to your own garden.
For example, take the assassination of JFK, the conspiracy theory non pareil. Ask yourself, how does this affect my day-to-day existence? It doesn't. Let it go.
The Argentines friends that we know have dual citizenships with family in Europe and Canada too.. And they say their family is wealthy, BUT they work for a living here because they cannot get their money out of Argentina. If they want family money they have to return to where the money is. But Since they are very intelligent and loyal friends we believe them.
It was funny to read Bethel, Connecticut described as poor. I suppose it was in the early 19th century.
Barnum's Wiki page indicates that his parents and relatives were comparatively well off (P.T. owned a newspaper when he was 19), and if so, the line about "survival demanded cunning, wit, and ruthlessness" was just BS. And it's in the NYeT, so of course it's just BS.
I tend to prefer to believe ALL conspiracy theories, the same way I prefer to believe everything that politicians say about their opponents.
But seriously, what has humanity ever been but a web of competing, overlapping, and intersecting conspiracies, with more or less plausible cover stories?
Narr
And that's just the ones we know about.
Ann Althouse said...
I kind of like my version.
This is my shocked face 😐
I too thought the Bethel reference was funny. It was the prototypical tony bedroom community in the 70s and 80s and it's wealthy enclave now. I bought my first ten speed in the bike shop in town
Maybe when Barnum was there they were still pulling the rocks out of the fields for all those stone walls.
traditionalguy said...
their family is wealthy, BUT they work for a living here because they cannot get their money out of Argentina.
Buy a boat.
Miles & beryl Smeeton had a fair amount of money in England after the war and wanted to buy a farm in Vancouver. The govt would not let them take their capital out of England.
Neither had any boating experience so they took all their money, bought the biggest sailboat they could find 46', hired a guy to teach them to sail then hired him to crew for them.
They sailed east around cape horn and to Vancouver with a lot of adventures along the way including a rollover and dismasting off Chile.
The intention was to sell the boat in Canada, use the proceeds to buy a farm and then tell england "molon labe" if they found out about it.
They liked sailing, kept the boat, did more world cruising and wrote several great books about their ecperiences.
Nevil Shute met them in Australia in the 50s and used the buying a boat to smuggle capital as the key to his last and best novel "Trustee From the Toolroom"
John Henry
If the GKC quotation is "misattributed," it can only be b/c someone else said it first, certainly not because he didn't say it at all. I don't have my Father Brown to hand (it's buried behind fourteen cellos and a bass at the moment, a circumstance having to do with my husband having to clear out all of his own instruments -- not the school's -- from the school orchestra room), but I'd say there's a close analogue of it, at least, in more than one story. The tale about Warren Wynd, for example, has it essentially word for word; the tale about Arnold Aylmer and John Straik has a variant, where "Aylmer" (who is really Straik) says "Yo do believe it; you do believe everything," and Fr. Brown replies "Well, I do believe some things, of course, and therefore I don't believe other things."
More generally, it's the central theme of most of the Father Brown stories, as well as chapters of "Orthodoxy" and many other shorter essays, that there is the knife-edge of the one true way and that all around it are literally innumerable false ones; that within the Truth you are absolutely free and secure (yes, even if you use that freedom to damn yourself), but outside it you are quite prosaically lost.
It's a really fine credo for a writer of detective stories, btw, of which there are many more than the Father Brown ones; "The Poet and the Lunatics," "The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond," "Four Faultless Felons," "The Club of Queer Trades," and various uncollected tales all demonstrate its virtues, even when they aren't literally about Christian orthodoxy.
"If you believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything" is literally a consequence of logic. Formally, it's known as Ex falso quodlibet.“
Yes, like vacuous proofs, Like those used, say, To show that all sets contain the null set.
I prefer a paraphrased Mark Twain:
It’s not what you don’t know, but what you know that is not true.
Belief means nothing, what good is it to believe something you don’t know? Belief is part of our animal brain that lets us survive by making heuristic choices based on prejudice, like... always run away from hippopotamuses, etc.
The word"nothing" has two distinct meanings, and seeming paradoxes can be generated. Nothing is better than Mom's pie. A crumb is better than nothing. This, a crumb is better than Mom's pie.
Some of Shakespeare's funniest riffs play on the word nothing. The riffs are made more hilarious by the circumstance that, in Elizabethan English, the word nothing was slang euphemism for female pudenda.
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