{"id":635,"date":"2024-08-01T19:15:17","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T19:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/01\/sub-distinguishing-the-lie\/"},"modified":"2024-08-01T19:15:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T19:15:17","slug":"sub-distinguishing-the-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/01\/sub-distinguishing-the-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Sub-distinguishing the lie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does "sub-distinguishing the lie" mean in the following passage from A. J. A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography<\/em> (NYRB, 2001, p. 73):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

He [Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. 'Baron Corvo'] was wont to condemn the alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness, and its sub-distinguishing the lie. He himself, brought up a strict Anglican, had all the Anglican horror of lying and equivocation of every description. He seemed to be quite serious about it, which surprised us, as he was universally regarded as about the biggest liar that we had ever met.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What I want to know is what it means to sub-distinguish a lie, and I need examples of this alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paging Dave Lull.  And a tip of the hat to reader Hector C.  for recommending Symons' intriguing book.<\/span><\/p>\n

……………..<\/span><\/p>\n

Addendum<\/em> (8\/2\/24): Dave Lull to the rescue.  Mr. Lull writes, "I wonder whether the author means the distinguishing of the lie from \u201cmental reservation<\/a>.\u201d  That's it, I think; bang on the link and see if you don't agree.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The philosophy of lying is especially germane these days inasmuch as the Biden administration is composed from top to bottom of  serial, brazen liars, bullshitters, and prevaricators of every conceivable stripe, not to mention Orwellian language subverters.  (The Orwellian 180, as I like to call it, goes well beyond lying as I will explain later, and is far more pernicious.) A first-rate example of language subversion was provided by Alejandro Mayorkas, head of — wait for it — Homeland Security (sic!<\/em>), when he said that the border is secure "as we define secure."  Alright buddy, but then you are literally<\/em> a horse's ass as I define horse's ass. What's your game, pal? Are you the head honcho of the Reconquista<\/a>?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now who is this Dave Lull fellow? Here is a tribute of mine from 2011, with links to tributes from others:<\/span><\/p>\n

Who is Dave Lull?<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
\n

If you are a blogger, then perhaps you too have been the recipient of his terse emails informing one of this or that blogworthy tidbit.  Who is this Dave Lull guy anyway?  Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence<\/a> provides an answer<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

As Pascal said of God (no blasphemy intended) Dave is the circle whose center is everywhere in the blogosphere and whose circumference is nowhere. He is a blogless unmoved mover. He is the lubricant that greases the machinery of half the online universe worth reading. He is copy editor, auxiliary conscience and friend. He is, in short, the OWL \u2013 Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For other tributes to the ever-helpful Lull see here<\/a>.  Live long, Dave, and grease on!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does "sub-distinguishing the lie" mean in the following passage from A. J. A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (NYRB, 2001, p. 73): He [Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. 'Baron Corvo'] was wont to condemn the alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness, and its sub-distinguishing the lie. He … Continue reading “Sub-distinguishing the lie?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,40,125,280],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-literary-matters","category-truthfulness","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}