I liked very much these passages from Hugh Trevor-Roper’s “Apologia transfugae” quoted at Laudator Temporis Acti:
From our present position there is unquestiably something very arrogant in the old claims of classical humanism to be the necessary centre of our studies. The supposition that the seeds at least of all knowledge, all wisdom, all philosophy, are contained in the brief experience of a chosen people is no more defensible in secular studies than in theology. Why should two ancient cities, minuscule by the standards of our provincial towns, be the repositories of truth, the sources of civilization, any more than a fanatical semitic hill tribe in Palestine? Such a concept, however it may be sophisticated, is repugnant to those who believe in progress; and it had to be defeated before the idea of progress could be denizened in European thought.
[…]
I suppose I really ought to modify my irrational antipathy to Wilamowitz. He did. after all, affect my life. It was because of him that I learned German. Brought up, as I was, in the extraordinary and indeed, it now seems to me the ludicrous belief that one could not be a good classical scholar unless one read the works of this Prussian high-priest of the subject, I obediently set myself, as a first year undergraduate, to master his rebarbative language. After spending the best part of vacations in Germany learning it, I returned to Oxford somewhat disillusioned. With undergraduate confidence, I decided that Wilamowitz, whose works I had now read (or perhaps only tasted) was a fraud and that Nazi Germany was not only very disagreeable itself but also a menace to the world. I therefore used up the linguistic expertise which I had so mistakenly acquired to read Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which was not then available in translation. I found it very rewarding, in a certain sense, and the experience has had some influence on my later career. Since war I have occasionally dipped into Mein Kampf again. I have not found any occasion to reread Wilamowitz. My view of him, however erroneous, was fixed in 1934, and I saw him now only as a salutary warning. He symbolised to me the barrenness of a purely literary and philological approach to the classics, and indeed to literature in general, and the absurd pretentiousness of assuming that so narrow an approach can have any wider meaning. He warned me to turn away from line of study which, within those limits, led nowhere. […]
For whatever my motives in turning away from classical studies, they were not a repudiation of classical literature. Indeed, in a sense, I believe that it was love of that literature which persuaded me to escape from the course which, at that time, seemed likely destroy the passion which had been kindled at school. How vividly I remember each new discovery in that progress! Above all, I member my delight when the vocabulary of Homer, as it were, broke in my hands: when that novel epic dialect, which at first had seemed so strange and difficult, suddenly revealed itself as easy and I found that I could enjoy the poetry. Once that had happened, I would sit up half the night, and had soon read the whole of Homer — indeed, I even won a Homeric crossword puzzle at school, of which I still treasure the prize, and can say with Gibbon that Homer became the most intimate of my friends.
[…]
Above all, they loved to emend those texts. How those famous scholars vied with one another in that esoteric parlour-game! How they conjured with syllables, transposed lines, inverted letters, in the hope of finding themselves immortalised, in the apparatus criticus of their successors, with that noblest of epitaphs ’emendatio palmaris’! When I first read the Greek tragedians, I was adjured to marvel at those brilliant tours de force which had made the names of Bentley and Porson and were still regularly continued, as a ritual exercise, in the pages of the Classical journals. Now (I am afraid) I view these ingenious reconstructions with considerable scepticism. My scepticism began when I had my own writings copied by a typist. The most regular error of any typist, I then discovered, was to jump from one word to the same word repeated a line or so later, omitting the intermediate text and thus making nonsense of the whole passage. Clearly, in such circumstances, no amount of textual tinkering can restore the original text. Assuming, as I do, that a certain common humanity links a modern typist with a monastic copyist of the Dark or Middle Ages, I now assume that such omissions are the cause of many corruptions in ancient manuscripts, and ingenious conjecture is effort wasted.
I am in a similar position with respect to the classical world; I was just yesterday giving an impassioned peroration to my grandson (now at college!) about how we overvalue people like Hesiod because they happened to write in Greek or Latin, while at the same time I found myself praising Homer and Herodotus and pressing on him my old Penguin translation of Lucian (“You’ll like him, he’s very snarky about philosophers and prophets”).
Trevor-Roper was a smart guy who wrote well; it’s too bad he’s so often remembered primarily for his idiotic statement that Africa had no history prior to European colonization and for his authentication of the so-called Hitler Diaries. (And I note with a pang that back in 2010 the late lamented AJP “Ramsbottom” Crown said “I’m currently reading a biography of the Scots-baiter Hugh Trevor-Roper, and I will soon be able to reveal the extent of his dealings with the German language.”)
H. T.-R.’s Hermit of Peking grabbed me like no other book ever had, right from the start of the preface. I glanced at it at a bookstore, not having any idea what the book would be about, and had to buy it. I didn’t figure out what it was about until quite a way into it.
That’s one of those books I really should get around to reading.
The participle “denizened” in “before the idea of progress could be denizened in European thought” caught me short. It seems after some investigation to be a metaphorical extension of a technical/legal usage which was never particularly common on the American side of the Atlantic and may by now be largely archaic on the British side.
Do classicists read Chadwick’s `Decipherment of Linear B?’ I think it’s beautifully written…
[I had forgotten about `Hermit of Peking’; it’s probably the only thing by H T-R I’ve read]
I agree re Chadwick.
Disagree with Hat re Trevor-Roper, but that probably goes without saying. I expect my opinions on the man can be accurately surmised by Hatters on first principles.
I prefer his brother
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Trevor-Roper
Oh, I’m sure his brother was a far better human being. But good writing always disarms me.
Emphatically agree about Chadwick. I know nothing of T-R, but those passages don’t appeal to me in the slightest, except for the talk about necessary centers, which I no more believe in than he did. The center of learning, as I have said many times, is wherever you happen to be.
The WP article on denization is short and to the point.
Denizens paid a fee and took an oath of allegiance to the crown. [wp]
He he, when I became a NZ Citizen, I was required to swear allegiance to the Crown. Those born here are not so required. Neither was I required to in U.K.
Ironic: part of my reasons for leaving U.K. were the overbearing class structure, pinioned by the worthless shits at the top — and this was before the one with the sticky-out ears. I believe you guys across the Atlantic (or Pacific from here) had some similar beef(?)
The recent U.S. one at the top with the sticky-out ears was O.K. The one 60 years ago was a mixed bag.
Those born here are not so required. Neither was I required to in U.K.
That’s because when you reached the age of 12 (in the UK, anyway; I don’t know what the age is in NZ) you are as a natural-born British citizen constructively sworn to the Queen. When you moved, you didn’t actually need to be resworn, since the two Queens are the same natural person, but you swore to uphold the laws of NZ at that time, and that’s what counts.
you swore to uphold the laws of NZ at that time, and that’s what counts.
Sure. The laws and constitution (not that we have one, like the U.K., but whatever non-natural-person proxy they nominate) I’m happy to swear allegiance to. It was and especially is ‘the Queen and all her heirs’ — that is, the ‘natural persons’ — I object to.
Am I right to infer that an emendatio palmaris is a “correction worthy of the palm”, a winning and convincing settlement of some thorny textual crux? I find quite a few uses of the phrase in learned discourse, mainly concerning Greek, Latin, or Hebrew texts. But not one definition. Can any Hatter cite an authoritative account of this term?
Dear Hat, Laudator Temporis Acti is indeed a marvellous blog, but there is really no need to post links to it here, because I’m sure most of us here look at it or subscribe to it. Why not just move it further up your list of links on the right-hand side?
The point of posting it is not the linked stuff itself but Hat’s and our comments arising from it.
Including the actual link is just a courtesy.
Your argument would lead to Hat never posting anything at all which could actually be found by searching with Google.
(Actually, I don’t look at Laudator spontaneously. Non omnia possumus omnes.)
There’s a lot of good stuff on the Web that I don’t take the time to follow, so I need somebody else to point me there. Hat is very good at that.
Maybe this no longer describes the actually-existing U.K. or Aotearoa, but historically it’s not like a non-vestigial monarch was simply the culmination of an overbearing class structure – rather there was often conflict and competition among various upper strata. The czar might wish to aggrandize himself at the expense of the traditional powers of the boyars and purport to be doing so to selflessly protect the peasantry etc. from the depredations of the boyars. (The boyars might then contend in turn that only the defense of their own prerogatives could constrain the czar from becoming an absolute despot, an outcome which might not ultimately work out well for the peasantry etc.)
If you have more than one Trevor-Roper under discussion (whether they be brothers or cousins or what have you), do you have Trevor-Ropers? Trevors-Roper? Something else?
@Noetica
The palm leaf was awarded to victorious gladiators, and I believe that the competition of academics, although somewhat less deadly, can be equally savage, bloody and protracted, permitting ample opportunities fot the competitor to display appropriate skills and for the aficionado to enjoy appropriate thrills.
JWB: Trevōrēs Roperi, I believe.
If you have more than one Trevor-Roper under discussion (whether they be brothers or cousins or what have you), do you have Trevor-Ropers? Trevors-Roper? Something else?
The Trevor-Roper Gang.
Dear Hat, Laudator Temporis Acti is indeed a marvellous blog, but there is really no need to post links to it here, because I’m sure most of us here look at it or subscribe to it. Why not just move it further up your list of links on the right-hand side?
As David Eddyshaw says, your argument would lead to my never posting anything but personal ruminations and perhaps quotes from obscure Russian novels that had never been translated. I assure you that there are a great many people who never look at LTA (or indeed anything else linked in the margin).
Speaking of allegiance to the Crown — when becoming a US citizen, one swears to “renounce all foreign princes and potentates.” So I did, except I didn’t. I still have my (much less useful, thanks to Brexit) UK passport, although the current one expires later this year and I am not at all sure I will bother to renew it.
When discussing Simon the psychologist and his cousin Sacha the entertainer, the correct plural is “Barons-Cohenim.”
Norway introduced a ceremony with a promise of allegiance for new citizens in 2006. Participation in the ceremony is voluntary, and the promise is seen as a personal rather than a public matter.
The promise goes:
“As a Norwegian citizen I promise allegiance to my country Norway and the Norwegian society, I support democracy and human rights and will respect the laws of the country.”
No kings or queens or crowns or potentates are mentioned.
(Still not written by the Poet Laureate, I can safely say.)
I don’t know why they demand allegiance to anything. Why not just ask people not to go around blowing things up? Or just invite them in and deal with any trouble they might cause as they would with the trouble caused by natural-born citizens? The whole thing is some kind of magical thinking.
I agree. It’s of course no coincidence that the Norwegian promise of allegiance was introduced in 2006, after parliamentary negotiations at the very height of Post-9/11 islamophobia. But I think you can see from both the wording and the fact that it’s voluntary that it’s a compromise between those who wanted a much stronger oath — and harsher consequences of perceived breaches — and those who didn’t want any demand of allegiance at all.
Oh, I wasn’t talking about the Norwegian situation in particular, just grousing about all such allegiance theater.
I mean, if somebody swears allegiance to the monarchy, gets admitted, and then blows up the king, what are they going to do, wag their fingers and say “But you promised!”?
I might add that I personally know immigrants who have made a celebration out of the day, so some sort of public welcome ceremony was clearly in demand.
Why not just ask people not to go around blowing things up?
Could be tricky. There would have to be exceptions for people who demolish skyscrapers and dams, not to mention those who join the military. “I promise not to blow things up, unless for legitimate professional reasons or as required by appropriate federal authorities.”
so some sort of public welcome ceremony was clearly in demand.
Good lord, I think public welcome ceremonies are great — it’s just the demand for “allegiance” I’m objecting to. It’s childish and meaningless.
I think we agree. Meaningless at best, I’d say. At worst it can be a tool for totalitarianism.
Some people do seem to feel the oaths they’ve sworn restrict them from conduct they’d otherwise take part in. It may just be a trope…
https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1598043155907358721?lang=en
I don’t really understand why Pence had to wrestle with what would be the right action. But he did, and he has mentioned more than just that time that thinking about the oath that bound him was a part of that decision.
Principles are crutches for those without a conscience. I guess a public oath can be a crutch for those without principles.
I don’t really think the oath was part of Pence’s decision, but it’s important to how he wants it to be understood and appreciated in his political movement.
Solemn oaths are a pretty common anthropological institution cross-culturally. Perhaps many of the denizens of the hattery are such advanced and enlightened creatures as to have outgrown the need for such seemingly superstitious rituals. But it might be naive to assume that such an overwhelming majority of your fellow human beings are so equally advanced and enlightened that societies may safely dispense with such traditional and anthropologically-functional observances.
I do find it personally irksome that the U.S. retains a nicely phrased old-timey naturalization oath whereby the oathtaker foreswears his prior allegiance even though it has been clear for maybe the last sixty years that there are as a general matter no practical negative consequences for taking the oath but not actually foreswearing those allegiances and indeed continuing to derive practical benefit from them. When one of my great-great-grandfathers back in the 1850’s abjured his former allegiance to the then-King of Prussia (whose military-conscription bureaucracy he may have crossed the Atlantic to evade, on some versions of the story) it *meant* something, goshdarnit.
I find the oath much less problematic in the case of e.g. an inauguration to office. It’s also nice that democratic systems have ceremonies to celebrate the peaceful change of power. I just don’t think the public oath actually matters for a decisionmaker, be it one informed by conscience, greed, or any other strong motivation.
I just don’t think the public oath actually matters for a decisionmaker
Exactly. It’s for the suckers watching the ceremony, not the people who matter.
And that’s how it should be. If the inaugural oath was meant to limit the president’s executive powers by inducing self-restraint, that would be the ultimate abdication of duty by the legislative branch. A functioning democratic system will have strong checks on the executive (and a legislative process efficient enough that it doesn’t need to give the executive branch that kind of power in the first place).
No, how it should be is that people are elected for limited terms to do limited jobs with little enough pay and power that nobody is tempted to game the system. But that requires that people give up their addiction to following and rewarding Big Men, and that’s not gonna happen for millennia (if we’re lucky and have millennia to spare).
Or that. But (playing the devil’s anarchist) I don’t think there is such a thing as a system one can’t be tempted to game and no such thing as a power vacuum one can’t be tempted to fill. Anarchy takes strong institutions (in the hands of small people of limited powers).
And yes, the pessimistic note is chiming stronger.
Oh, sure, there are assholes always and everywhere, all you can do is construct a system that will minimize their likelihood of success. We live in hope…
“perhaps quotes from obscure Russian novels that had never been translated”
But I read obscure Russian novels anyway!
(I’m kidding. I once described you to my freind as a person who read a dozen times more Russian novels than she or myself. At first she did not believe, but then she tried to estimate how many Russian novels she has read and agreed that “dozen times more” is entirely possible)
I should make a rough count sometime.
The whole thing is some kind of magical thinking.
Of course it is. It’s a remnant of a time when oaths meant something, and their violation was seen as more heinous than simple lying or breaking of promises, and it was believed that breaking them would punishment from some higher power. But I am with JWB on this – these things link us to our past, and there still are people to whom a promise or assertion under oath mean more than one without. And I’m not convinced that a world without such people would be a better place.
Even those not concerned about punishment from some “higher” power may be mindful of the fact that lying under oath remains a specific crime of interest to the secular power (perjury); lying while not under oath might or might not under the specific circumstances turn out to be some other crime (some species of fraud, for example), but the presence of an oath will typically make the prosecutor’s job more straightforward and less challenging.
“I support democracy and human rights”
I support human rights, but I don’t know what I think about forms of government.
Good that it is voluntary…
One motivation Norwegians and other Europeans could have in mind – especially after 2015 and all those discussions around refugees (years after this text was composed, that is) – is “we value this and that, and other countries may value something else, so if you disagree with us, maybe you should consider emigrating to elsewhere?”.
But this will only work with people like me (not refugees), and… not always. “Norway” is not a club. Most of its citisens did not join Norway voluntarily based on shared anything (but ancestry).
I presume Pence does suppose that breaking an oath taken in the name of God is actually Very Bad in its own right, and that therefore this is a thing that should be taken into account in carefully weighing up whether it is your duty to support a treasonous lying forniicating semifascist rapist racist blasphemer out of a sense of Sacred Loyalty – or not.
Personally, I have a different take on these things (I actually always refuse to take oaths at all* – on religious grounds, a long-standing Dissenter tradition specifically condemned in the Thirty-Nine Articles. History!)
* So that’s my dream of becoming a New Zealander kiboshed, then?
On account of the United States being founded by (as the man said) “the Protestants of Protestantism, the Dissidents of Dissent,” the right of the oddly scrupulous to affirm rather than swear is enshrined in the Constitution (at least for federal office-holders, but the principle is more broadly recognized). I have over the course of my professional career encountered a handful of witnesses who opted to affirm rather than swear before testifying. In written “testimony,” by contrast, it is almost always better to affirm rather than swear when feasible under the relevant law, because that obviates the need for a notary public.
Note also this guidance provided to those within the U.S. naturalization bureaucracy re the option of citizens-to-be to “solemnly affirm” their new allegiance rather than declare it by oath. https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-j-chapter-3
I think affirming-rather-than-swearing is pretty much a non-event in the UK (most people, of course, couldn’t be bothered either way.)
When I was on jury duty I and a pious Muslim both refused to take an oath, and nobody batted an eyelid. Similarly during my glorious career as an expert witness. Nobody seemed to feel it undermined my credibility. Might have been different if I’d been the defendant, I suppose.
In Norwegian courts witnesses are obliged to affirm (or so I think. I do have some experience as a witness in my professional capacity, but I’ve never thought of asking what will happen if I refuse). The affirmation is very short (“Jeg bekrefter”) and essentially a confirmation that you’ve understood your duties as a witness as just explained by the judge.
@Trond immigrants who have made a celebration out of the day, so some sort of public welcome ceremony was clearly in demand.
Yes the whole ceremony was very warm an inviting. There were Māori welcoming songs, welcoming performances from other communities in the city, a speech from the Mayor.
@JWB Solemn oaths are a pretty common anthropological institution cross-culturally.
Yes, and in particular an important part of Māori formal culture. New Zealand/Aotearoa is legalistically a partnership between the U.K. Crown and the Māori chieftan/clan system. But notably the oath doesn’t swear anything wrt Māori cultural totems. (You can opt to swear in Te Reo rather than English.)
The only blight was the Queen. Oh, and the “So help me God.” Since I’m not a believer, does that render the whole swearing null and void?
But I am with JWB on this – these things link us to our past, and there still are people to whom a promise or assertion under oath mean more than one without. And I’m not convinced that a world without such people would be a better place.
Both you and JWB evince a touching faith in the prevalence of such thinking among the ruling class. As far as I can see, it is prevalent only among the suckers (the kind of people who vote, not those who solicit votes), and thus preserving traditions that depend on it benefits those who already have too much. If either of you is under the impression that Pence and his like could not find a justification for “breaking an oath taken in the name of God” without even breaking a sweat, you should watch out for people selling bridges.
What I never could understand is how oath as an institution can exist in Christian countries.
Ah, Hat, you are too cynical. I think the truly horrifying thing about Pence is that he is entirely sincere in his professions of faith. He really believes in his gun-loving, diversity-hating, money-loving, oligarch-friendly fascist misogynist anti-human “God.” He’d be a better man if he were a thumping hypocrite, but I reckon he really believes all that shit.
(Sorry. Mention of my American co-religionists always brings out the heretic-burning aspects of my personality. I’ll go and have a nice cool drink of holy water.)
Oddly enough the one time I was involved in testimony as a witness rather than lawyer, I ended up being told I needed to affirm rather than swear. I had many decades ago (long story …) managed to make myself a collateral fact witness in a discovery dispute in a Canadian lawsuit, and was giving my testimony over videolink from a conference room in New York while the barrister/solicitor who was questioning me was in Toronto. Apparently in Canadian practice (unlike American practice), a witness testifying in an out-of-court setting can’t be sworn without the physical presence of a Bible (or perhaps Koran or Bhagavad-Gita or what have you …) to touch while taking the oath. Had we been told this in advance we could have arranged to have one in the conference room, but we weren’t, so I affirmed rather than swore, despite the 39 Articles (I think maybe there are only 36 or 37 in the U.S. redaction?) assuring me there was absolutely nothing wrong with the latter.
What I never could understand is how oath as an institution can exist in Christian countries.
Well, me too: but in fact a lot of theological effort has gone into justifying the practice, and the idea that you really shouldn’t swear oaths is fairly marginal within Christianity (as JWB’s “oddy” tactfully implies.) Associated with untrustworthy anarchist types who want to take things a bit too far … Levellers, that sort of person …
It is a bit harder to see how it could exist in countries historically controlled by what purport to be “sola scriptura” varieties of Christian, but of course once you’re a heretic there’s no reason to expect logical consistency. Although didn’t Chesterton or some similar bozo say that an undue emphasis on logical consistency is what causes heresy to begin with?
In the U.S. historically, the people who had scruples about swearing were usually not proper capital C Calvinists (who had via Genevan/Scottish/Puritan theocracy very definitely made their peace with the exercise of secular power), but Quakers and Anabaptists and suchlike weirdos. The sociological/denominational distribution of the scruple may be otherwise in other times and places.
I have affirmed every time I was asked to take the juror’s oath. No muss, no fuss.
Principles are crutches for those without a conscience. I guess a public oath can be a crutch for those without principles.
Indeed. Elves and Dwarves don’t agree on these things:
======
I think the truly horrifying thing about Pence is that he is entirely sincere in his professions of faith.
I agree. It’s like his refusal to eat alone with any woman save his wife (the so-called “Billy Graham rule”), for fear he will lose his moral compass. For some reason, he is not worried about eating alone with any man.
@JWB:
I think it’s been very much linked historically with “render unto Caesar” doctrines in attempts to justify it. Indeed Article 39 itself reads in the original Old High Anglicanese:
This is the same Magistrate who, we are told, “beareth not the sword in vain”, I reckon. Naturally it tends to be the less docile among us are less inclined to regard this argument as compelling.
Blatant Erastianism, I calls it!
PPaddy:
Yes, concerning academic gladiatorialising, though I think it’s much reduced in our era of instant multimodal communication and face-to-face meetings at often-otherwise-futile conferences. Familiarity does not always breed contempt.
I still want an authoritative explanation (and a citation of first use) for the phrase emendatio palmaris, just as I might want it for palmar improvement if I were to see that phrase anywhere other than in surveys of Dowling–Meara form of epidermolysis simplex cases (ah, that’s a transcolumnar mis-OCRed transcription by Google).
The phrase is not anywhere in OED, for example.
me three
Everything Pence does or doesn’t do, thinking of course included, seems to be motivated by consistent profound cowardice.
Mind you, that includes saying “I’m not getting in that car”, which had a quite similar effect to “I need ammo, not a ride”. In isolation, courage and cowardice are morally neutral.
Henning von Tresckow was confident that, in the very long term, he and the other Valkyrie conspirators would be vindicated by history. However, he really thought that he and the other military officers involved would initially be reviled, even by the victorious Allies, for violating their personal oaths to Hitler:
I remember, when I was about six, being profoundly affected Taran’s statement in The Black Cauldron that he felt no obligation to hold to an oath sworn under threat of death. Taran, like Tresckow, was preparing to sacrifice his own life as he discussed this. I can’t find the original German of the rest of Tresckow’s quote, but he was clear that the true test of morality in difficult cases of loyalty was eillingnesd to die.
@DE, I am leaning toward Hat’s views of Pence. Unless you live in a bubble, and are well-shielded from the bad contradictory world (as do, e.g., the fundamentalists of my native land), you pretty much need to engender hypocrisy as a second nature to maintain a fundamentalist appearance. Pence was a governor and a VP. He has not been in a bubble.
You may be right. As I say, it would actually be better for Pence if he is a hypocrite, and I suppose one must be charitable. I shall put aside the pitchforks and flaming torches for now. But I’m watching him. Oh yes.
[Actually, I suspect that maintaining a fundamentalist appearance without egregious hypocrisy is a good bit more feasible in the US than in Western Europe, but I would bow to the better judgment of USian Hatters on such points.]
While “eillingnesd” looks like it could be some kind of Teutonic honor concept, but I actually had less than two seconds left in the editing window, and that’s what my phone made of my attempt to spell “willingness.”
Oh, there are plenty of insular places in the U.S. where everyone you know attends similar churches and watches similar TV. A governor (even of Indiana) and a V.P. is not insulated.
The oaths of allegiance to the Irish Republic and the Irish Free State played an outsize role in the Irish Civil War whose centenary has just passed. This gets downplayed in school histories because it seems so silly.
Mike Pence is, above all else, really stupid. One of the first things he did that got him attention on the national stage was talking up the success of the Iraq reconstruction. He went on a trip to Baghdad, as members of Congress sometimes did, and reported back that a street market in Baghdad was as safe as any street in his northern Indiana district.
That’s not stupidity, that’s normal politician’s bullshit. What, you expected him to come back and say reconstruction had failed and the city was degenerating into chaos? (Not saying he’s not stupid, mind, but that’s not evidence of it.)
@languagehat: Yes, he was most likely lying, but that he believed it was a lie he could get away with was telling. In fact, he seemed genuinely befuddled that so many people mocked him about it.
Eh, it’s just the libtard wokigentsia that mocked him. The people he wanted to reach didn’t care, and still don’t. A certain politician closely associated with him was quite correct in saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t harm him politically.
I recall to your mind Donald Rumsfeld’s statement about known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns; he too was mocked (completely unjustly in this case), to no effect among the people he cared about. Compare also the mockery of Warren G. Harding for using the (perfectly good) word “normalcy.” Politics is not the place to look for sensible speech or sensible mockery.
I don’t think anyone can come to a position like that and be really stupid, but they can — for reasons that are perfectly rational — make different public postures and have different ways to talk (or not) about things. Some of that may be calculated, but more likely it’s just habits and personal traits that turned out to be useful (and thus were reinforced). Mike Pence’s posture is that of a devote Christian (which he no doubt is) whose primary loyalty is with God, and all other loyalties are derived from that. He is used to being a moderate voice in a discourse where God and Satan fights over human souls through the American political system and where the American constitution is directly derived from the ten commandments and has been hollowed out over the years by godless activist judges. Suddenly he finds himself having had to take a stance in a situation that shakes his constituents in their most cherished beliefs, and he has to reconcile his own actions and the outcome of the situation with his self-image and that of the constituents. The result is a story of being unbearably torn between upholding his sacred oath and the holy Constitution and being loyal to the chosen leader of God’s political wing, and in the end his oath sworn directly to God had to outweigh the personal loyalty to His earthly representative.
@LH: I don’t think I have many illusions left about politicians. But that they may not take oaths serious is as little reason for me to abolish oaths as their lying and rule-breaking is to abolish the requirement that they tell us the truth or adhere to the rules.
And personally, I like a sprinkling of ceremony, pageantry, and tradition in my life. That’s just my taste.
I have nothing against ceremony, pageantry, and tradition, I just think that they can be used to entrench the unjustified authority of Big Men. I want anarchist ceremony, pageantry, and tradition!
in the end his oath sworn directly to God had to outweigh the personal loyalty to His earthly representative
Exactly.
I used to think that nobody who was authentically dumb could get elected to high office. But while most politicians really are smart, even if their views are terrible (like Nixon, Rumsfeld, or Mohammed Ali Pasha), there are a few who really do seem to be genuinely stupid, and I think Pence was one of those.
Usually, I mean “locally dumb” (is a victim of a specific fallacy) when I call someone “dumb”.
Putin is good at some things and sucks at some other things. If you call him smart (implying those other things) I call him dumb.
@Brett, LH, usually street markets are peaceful places. You need stats to know if it is safe or not. You can’t just look around and see people running from a shelter to a shelter and conclude it is unsafe.
I know people from Baghdad, surely they attend those markets daily.
@drasvi: At the time (2007), some of the people who worked in that very Baghdad market said Pence was full of shit.
I know people from Baghdad, surely they attend those markets daily.
We’re talking about the period after the US invaded, not today.
One take on why Pence’s comment was dumb is that regardless of whether it was accurate or not, it put a target on the market for opponents of the American-backe regime. And indeed, a group of 21 vendors were abducted and killed the very next day.
@Brett, aha, thank you! I did not know the context.
Well,
(1) armed guards – expected. Baghdad is also unsafe for Soleimani.
(2) car bombs – I was wrong. This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Marketplace_attacks_in_Iraq
Indeed makes Baghdad markets a dangerous place in 2007.
Actually as I was writing my comment I kept in mind that markets are a frequent target, but I did not remember if it was the case in Baghdad (because since then there was a war, and there is also a war in Yemen and…)
(3) was a scene of sniper fire: well, their wording is suspicious. When I see such constructions I usually want to see details first. But in the part about car bombs they even softened the reality.
It is still possible that the scariest things happened in other markets (and the car bomb in this market was less impressive), but even if “sniper fire” in question was not dangerous for locals here (but was dangerous in some other markets), I still would call the market unsafe.
One take on why Pence’s comment was dumb is that regardless of whether it was accurate or not, it put a target on the market for opponents of the American-backe regime. And indeed, a group of 21 vendors were abducted and killed the very next day.
Well, that depends on how you define “dumb.” The people Pence’s comment was presumably aimed at don’t give a damn about Baghdadi street vendors.
I mean, practically everything Reagan said was dumb in a reality-oriented sense, but it got him elected twice, so who’s the dummy?
(Spoiler: it’s the American electorate.)
@LH, I would not equate success with intelligence.
One can absolutely imagine a political system where they are athletes and electorate votes exclusively for their pretty or handsome looks.
The job of those athletes then is representing certain views, which everyone absolutely can do.
I don’t know.
This aspect of electoral success – what and when you say and your mimic (as you’re speaking to public) – can of course be controlled (unlike the length of your nose) and is known to all sorts of professionals that help you say right things.
Yes, having an attractive face is not a product of your superiour intelligence.
But I don’t think that the above is.
LH, I would not equate success with intelligence.
I’m not doing that, I’m saying it’s wrong to equate saying flagrantly false things with stupidity. I take no position on the question of Pence’s intelligence — I haven’t paid enough attention to him to have an opinion.
@LH, well, I live in Russia.
I do know that absurd bullshit does not make people trust you less.
I do not like lies, I see a number of issues with it (starting from purely cognitive issues) and one of the problems with Putin (as I formulated it some 10 years ago) is that he drowned the country in lies, taught us to lie to each other and in my view it is some sort of spiritual destruction of Russia that would convert into actual destruction.
Which you are observing right now (by ‘destruction’ I just mean serious harm to people, not disappearance of the state of Russia).
I share Hat’s meta-opinion concerning Pence’s intelligence, but also concerning the man himself: “I haven’t paid enough attention to him to have an opinion.”
From this distance he and his like seem so far from rational political discourse and action that they figure as mere noise on the radar. It’s only when one of them achieves serious power – and perhaps looks like achieving it a second time, horror beyond speaking – that I start paying attention.
Putin … drowned the country in lies, taught us to lie to each other and in my view it is some sort of spiritual destruction…
I strongly recommend Fintan O’Toole’s recent book, “We Don’t Know Ourselves,” which is a history of modern Ireland during his lifetime, interspersed with various personal experiences. A central theme is that, owing to the power of the church, the Irish people learned to lie to themselves. Abortion was illegal, but everyone knew someone who knew someone who could supply a phone number; young girls went to England for unnamed health reasons, and when they came back the visit was never mentioned. Charles Haughey, the one-time prime minister, argued vociferously against allowing divorce to be legalized, saying that doing so would corrupt the special moral purity of the country; all the while he swanned about Dublin openly with his mistress, and the press never mentioned the fact. Et cetera. It’s a very sobering read.
The good news is that things get better, eventually.
one of the problems with Putin (as I formulated it some 10 years ago) is that he drowned the country in lies, taught us to lie to each other and in my view it is some sort of spiritual destruction of Russia that would convert into actual destruction.
This of course did not start with Putin, it was a habit ingrained for generations by the time he came along. «Жить не по лжи!»
perhaps looks like achieving it a second time, horror beyond speaking
Since I’m looking on from afar … It’ll be interesting to see if the orange one can find a running mate — presuming he gets the nomination. Pence made an alliance with the devil, to further his agenda. Does criminalising abortion count as furthering? Was anything else God-aligned achieved?
Of course there’s plenty of nutters lining up on the orange ticket. But will any actually bring votes? George Anthony deVolder Santos?
Yes (to what LH said) and as result I’m not sure if I should compare the situation described by David L to Russia or to USSR.
The difference is that Soviet people simply did not trust the regime and were tired.
And the Soviet regime (just like North Korean regime) hid the information of what capitalist countries actually looks like (except that everyone knew the difference*).
Putin, in turn did not block acces to Wikipedia (Russain WP describes the war similarly to English WP, that is, rather from the pro-Ukrainian position).
Now it is some people – and those of them who are patriotic apparently must hold views opposite to mine (namely, that lies will save Russia) – enthusiastically creating a myth, sometimes absurdly incompatible with facts, absolutely ignoring the reality. Other people are enthusiastically accepting, while “sceptical” people who don’t trust the government… When propaganda says there is a flying saucer on the main city square and you are standing in the middle of the square and see no saucers, what do you think if you’re a sceptic?
You think: well, of course there IS a saucer here but everything is not that simple.
In USSR in turn people just knew that there are two realities.
___
* the difference between NK and SK is catastrophic, the NK regime is afraid that people will learn it and in Lankov’s opinion, ordinary people still underestimate the scope, with some family ceasing to believe their daughter in SK when she wrote she has a fridge.
@drasvi [Putin] taught us to lie to each other
As Hat says, Stalin’s purges taught that. I doubt that glasnost was in place for long enough to change anybody’s behaviour or beliefs much.
Now it is some people – and those of them who are patriotic apparently …
I think we in the West would be foolish to think there’s a groundswell of the Russian people on the brink of overthrowing Putin — even though they’re well aware he’s lying. If he falls, it’ll be a putsch of kleptocrats and the Army, their patience exhausted at him ruining the economy. They’ll carry on telling all the same lies. Plus a few extra lies to claim really they did win the war against Ukraine.
One can absolutely imagine a political system where they are athletes and electorate votes exclusively for their pretty or handsome looks.
Alcibiades.
all the while he swanned about Dublin openly with his mistress
There’s nothing inconsistent in being against divorce and in favor of adultery. A man has his wife and that’s that.
… in favor of adultery. A man has his wife and that’s that.
Indeed it seemed to be the mode juste in salon Paris.
I recently discovered that the music played for Listen with Mother at lunchtime on the BBC Home Service when I was a pre-schooler was written by Fauré for his daughter ‘Dolly’ — well that much we knew. the daughter of the composer’s mistress, Emma Bardac. Wasn’t the whole British middle class outraged?
When propaganda says there is a flying saucer on the main city square and you are standing in the middle of the square and see no saucers, what do you think if you’re a sceptic?.
You think: well, of course there IS a saucer here but everything is not that simple.
I suppose that’s why many sceptical people hanker for the old days. They imagine things were simpler then than now. A chicken in every pot, and a hand in every till.
I myself would say the situation is simple. There was NO saucer there, although I was not at that city square at the time of which you speak (having never been in Russia) and cannot possibly know. So I am not a sceptic. I prefer to operate on first principles. It saves so much wear and tear on the psyche.
Well, I’ll try to clarify this point. There are numerous young people who are not interested in politics at all, and don’t really trust the government. I called them sceptics. When someone says “I am good and they are bad”, it is difficult for them to accept the former claim, it is easier to accept the latter (as it is for me).
Maybe I was wrong about flying saucers (the idea was that “the reality” is what “everyone” says, so if everyone says there is a saucer here, it is real).
But our propaganda is built around criticism of “them” (and around some great game of Russia and the West). It tells who are “we” and who are “them” (this division is already different from mine) and purely factual bullshit (the saucers) is meant to explain why them are bad.
There’s nothing inconsistent in being against divorce and in favor of adultery.
I believe that the Pope and his emissaries in Ireland would approve of adultery no more than they would approve of breaking the holy bond of matrimony, which was the essence of Haughey’s argument.
Of course, Catholic priests having children is equally sacrilegious, but that was no obstacle to quite a number of them.
McTaggart.
Also McNab…
@Hat … did not start with Putin, it was a habit ingrained for generations by the time he came along.
Never the less, my jaw is dropping at the revisionist history here [esp from 1:00 onwards].
I don’t mean the rehabilitation of Stalin — which is merely old lies. I mean that the Polish people should be grateful Stalin ‘rescued’ Poland in 1939 when the West had abandoned it. ‘Please explain’ in what sense Soviet repression ‘restored’ independence. (Whether Stalin turned out a worse monster than Hitler would have been is one of those conjectures we’ll never be able to answer. Stalin at least had many more years of monstering.)
Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar:
(Theroux is my favorite asshole.)