Aphorisms, Selection from Reading, etc
"Honesty is not just the best morality, it is also the best policy."
Ahh, indeed! These are the words of wisdom offered by Dr. David Starr (my father) on quite a regular basis: indeed, he is a wealth of aphorisms, and usually they are offered in quite amusing contexts that aid in their memorization. I shall never forget the first time I heard the saying, "It is like closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out," due to the context in which it was stated: My father and I were going to a restaurant on University in Georgetown, and he was commenting on the anti-growth constituency in the local government that constantly gives him trouble when he tries to develop land for commercial use. At our town square, we have a jiffy lube, a seven-eleven, and a pawn shop, all ranty looking, surely killing any historical feel to that area, yet all were allowed to be constructed, while my father claims that the local government crucifies him for trying to perform beneficial industrial development. And it was in this stage of his rant that he made the barn-door closing analogy.
Aphorisms, however, are in most cases items of rhetoric and not of logic: The obstensible wisdom of "good things come to those who wait," can easly be dispelled by its enemy, "strike while the iron is hot." So while they can add weight to an argument in that they might explain already present logic in terms that someone might be able to understand better, they do not add anything in and of themselves. I am sure you are 'appreciative' of this detailed explanation of something as trivial as aphorisms, but you'd be surprised how few people understand the distinction ..
On another note, I am currently reading a book on American Revolution-era Concord, a small (by today's standards), New England town; the book is called "The Minutemen and Their World." I offer you the following excerpt:
"Devotion to constituional princple alone did not push men straight into revolution. Indeed, it could and did prompt many colonists to condemn all violent opposition to British measures and to urge peaceful submission to law while more petitions were forwarded to Parliament. Political leadership was also needed to formulate strategy, to organize tactics, and most important, to supply an energizing vision that would transform legalistic protests into a revolutionary movement."
Restated: It took more than just the 'unconstitutional' political moves of the English Parliament to bring about the revolutionary war, it also required the leadership of a charismatic, talented, and political adept group. Indeed, in the book, the people of Concord seem quite reluctant to adopt the radical ideas of "governing by the consent of the people" and those ideas eventually adopted during the course of the revolution; instead, they seemed to have taken a much more moderate or conservative approach initially: they just merely wanted no "taxation without representation." The revolution, as we think of it today, wasn't born in one dramatic event, but slowly and somewhat painfully evolved over the course of the war. This language can be debated endlessly; however, I wish to only convey the idea that our pre-conceived ideas of what happened during the time before, during, and after the Declaration of Indepedence from Great Britain in 1776 might not necessarily reflect reality, and this book tries to capture the essence of that reality through a detailed analysis of documents and records of this era from this small, New England town.
On this note, I would like to end this said second blog post. Also, I will do my best to post a picture here as soon as possible.
Ahh, indeed! These are the words of wisdom offered by Dr. David Starr (my father) on quite a regular basis: indeed, he is a wealth of aphorisms, and usually they are offered in quite amusing contexts that aid in their memorization. I shall never forget the first time I heard the saying, "It is like closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out," due to the context in which it was stated: My father and I were going to a restaurant on University in Georgetown, and he was commenting on the anti-growth constituency in the local government that constantly gives him trouble when he tries to develop land for commercial use. At our town square, we have a jiffy lube, a seven-eleven, and a pawn shop, all ranty looking, surely killing any historical feel to that area, yet all were allowed to be constructed, while my father claims that the local government crucifies him for trying to perform beneficial industrial development. And it was in this stage of his rant that he made the barn-door closing analogy.
Aphorisms, however, are in most cases items of rhetoric and not of logic: The obstensible wisdom of "good things come to those who wait," can easly be dispelled by its enemy, "strike while the iron is hot." So while they can add weight to an argument in that they might explain already present logic in terms that someone might be able to understand better, they do not add anything in and of themselves. I am sure you are 'appreciative' of this detailed explanation of something as trivial as aphorisms, but you'd be surprised how few people understand the distinction ..
On another note, I am currently reading a book on American Revolution-era Concord, a small (by today's standards), New England town; the book is called "The Minutemen and Their World." I offer you the following excerpt:
"Devotion to constituional princple alone did not push men straight into revolution. Indeed, it could and did prompt many colonists to condemn all violent opposition to British measures and to urge peaceful submission to law while more petitions were forwarded to Parliament. Political leadership was also needed to formulate strategy, to organize tactics, and most important, to supply an energizing vision that would transform legalistic protests into a revolutionary movement."
Restated: It took more than just the 'unconstitutional' political moves of the English Parliament to bring about the revolutionary war, it also required the leadership of a charismatic, talented, and political adept group. Indeed, in the book, the people of Concord seem quite reluctant to adopt the radical ideas of "governing by the consent of the people" and those ideas eventually adopted during the course of the revolution; instead, they seemed to have taken a much more moderate or conservative approach initially: they just merely wanted no "taxation without representation." The revolution, as we think of it today, wasn't born in one dramatic event, but slowly and somewhat painfully evolved over the course of the war. This language can be debated endlessly; however, I wish to only convey the idea that our pre-conceived ideas of what happened during the time before, during, and after the Declaration of Indepedence from Great Britain in 1776 might not necessarily reflect reality, and this book tries to capture the essence of that reality through a detailed analysis of documents and records of this era from this small, New England town.
On this note, I would like to end this said second blog post. Also, I will do my best to post a picture here as soon as possible.
posted by Jonathan Starr at 3:52 PM
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