Conspicuous

Smbc. Danes who haven’t already done so can get a good laugh reading along here (Danish stuff), if they like this kind of stuff.

When people engage in discussions such as those at the link (‘who’s the smarter professor?’/'who get’s to say who’s the smarter professor?’/'how do we decide who’s the (highest status) professor’), I like to imagine in my head a small group of male monkeys posturing, trying to figure out who’s the stronger one; the one that gets to mate with the females in the tribe. I find it quite cute when very smart and hardworking people engage in status games with the people they consider their peers. They behave like children but don’t realize it. (I would have said …we, but I don’t belong to that group. Though it’s probably cute too to some other people when I do similar stuff..)

Also, academics in countries like Denmark like to point out that they’re not in it for the money. That’s probably true. They’re in it for the status. The kind of status that money can’t easily buy. Even if they like to think so, their motives are not somehow fundamentally different, somehow more ‘pure’, than the motives of people who are ‘in it for the money’. Everybody like to think that the kind of status they have relatively much of is the most important kind of status there is, or maybe even ‘…the only kind of status that matters’.

The Devil’s Dictionary II

Second – and likely last installment – in the series, here’s the first. If you decide not to read the book, it’s not my fault. (‘Info’ can skip this post as well if he likes… – and so can everybody else; but remember that there’s no need to skip it just because you’re uncertain if you’ll like the post. On my blog, I have recently implemented this really fair and good policy that you get all the money back if you’re unsatisfied with what you’ve read. I have to agree that the 50 percent off policy probably was a bit of a rip-off). Anyway, selected quotes (d-e):

1) “DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.”

2) “DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.” …

3) “DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.”

4) “DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.” …

5) “DESTINY, n. A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.”

6) “DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician’s forecast of the disease by the patient’s pulse and purse.”

7) “DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.”

8 ) “EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

“I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,” said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. “What!” interrupted Rochebriant; “eating dinner in a drawing-room?” “I must beg you to observe, monsieur,” explained the great gastronome, “that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before.” (sometimes the entries/’explanations’ are written in a deliberately abstruse style, but in my opinion this but adds to the reading experience)

9) “ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.”

10) “ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.”

11) “EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”

12) “EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.” …

13) “ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.”

14) “EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.”

15) “ENCOMIAST, n. A special (but not particular) kind of liar.”

16) “EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. Following are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:

We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To
serve oneself is economy of administration.

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a
nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal
activity.

There are three sexes; males, females and girls.

Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this:
they seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be
ashamed of.

While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands
you are safe, for you can watch both his.”

17) “ESOTERIC, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, — exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time.”

18) “ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.”

19) “EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. “The exception proves the rule” is an expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of its absurdity. In the Latin, “_Exceptio probat regulam_” means that the exception _tests_ the rule, puts it to the proof, not _confirms_ it. The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears to be immortal.”

20) “EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.”

The Devil’s Dictionary

I’ve quoted from it before, but although I recommended the book at that point, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve felt that I really should quote a lot more of that stuff. I’ll take this post and at least one more, then I’ll reevaluate. I’ll start with A-C:

1) “ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.”

2) “ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.”

3) “ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.”

4) “ALONE, adj. In bad company.”

5) “BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.”

6) “BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters.” …

7) “BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”

8 ) “BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.”

9) “BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”

10) “CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance — against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven — a judgment that would be entirely conclusive if Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs, and (b) something about arithmetic.”

11) “CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.” [this 'angle' is quite similar to that of Richard Adams' books, which I love (at least the ones I've read)].

12) “CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead.”

13) “COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.”

14) “COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.”

15) “CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by him to C.”

16) “CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.”

17) “CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

18) “CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.”

19) “CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do me?”

A lot of this is just pure gold, I love that book! Read it!