Aphorisms and Observations – Page 47

One Thing You Won’t Blog About

Nothing is not fodder for the omniloquacious blogger. Nothing but one thing: his being dead.

The Grim Majority Maker

Whatever minorities we belong to in life, in death we join the greatest of all majorities, ever swelling, never diminishing, unconquerable, affiliation with which, once begun, never ends.

Dogmatism as Willfulness

What willfulness is in the sphere of action dogmatism is in the realm of belief.

It can happen that as a man becomes weaker, he is better able to weaken the grip of his weaknesses. Having less energy for their implementation, he now masters what mastered him. Vices vitiate until the body they have vitiated vitiates them in turn.

Toeing the Party Line

He who toes the party line will sometimes be kept from error. It depends on the party.

(Note on usage: one toes the party line; one does not tow it!)

Thinking for Oneself

Thinking for oneself, one ought eventually to arrive at the conclusion that so doing can lead one into a ditch as surely as thoughtlessly adhering to the dogmas of a sect.

The Advice of Others

Given how bad the advice of others can be, one is well-advised to keep one's own counsel.

Keeping One’s Own Counsel

Keeping one's own counsel, one realizes that sometimes two heads are better than one.

Intellectual Maturity

A mark of intellectual maturity is the ability to tolerate uncertainty without fleeing to dogmas that make false certainties of objective uncertainties, but also without falling into a self-vitiating relativism. The ideal is a love of truth that does not flag but also accepts no substitutes.

Reminded of the Eternal

We are 'reminded' (Plato) of the eternal both by the most transient and the least transient of things. The most transient teaches the ultimate ephemerality of all things finite. The least transient teaches that it is no substitute for the eternal.

Realpolitik

The weak invite attack. That is a law of nature. Nations are in the state of nature with respect to each other. Talk of international law is empty verbiage without an enforcement mechanism. There is none. Or at least there is none distinct from every extant state. The same goes for diplomacy. There needs be a hard fist behind the diplomat's smiling mask. There had better be iron and the willingness to shed blood back of that persona.

Or as Herr Blut-und-Eisen himself is reported to have said, "Diplomacy unbacked by force is like music without instruments."

Measurement by Regrets

We are measurable by the nature of our regrets. What do you regret? Not having drunk enough good wine? Not having amassed more wealth? Not having given in to the temptation to commit adultery with willing women or men in faraway places? Or is it rather your intellectual mistakes and moral failures that you regret?

We can be measured by the nature of our regrets as much as by the altitude of our aspirations.

Category: Aphorisms and Observations