(no subject)

[bunnyjadwiga]

"The old idea of the intellectual as the one who speaks truth to power is still an idea worth holding on to." -- Salman Rushdie

I can't help thinking that clinging too tightly to this ideal is what gets me into hot water. :)

Thomas Moore, in Utopia gives an eloquent example why someone who has good advice to give that goes against the grain of the ruling powers shouldn't bother to give it:

"No doubt, very deaf," answered I; "and no wonder, for one is never to offer at propositions or advice that we are certain will not be entertained. Discourses so much out of the road could not avail anything, nor have any effect on men whose minds were prepossessed with different sentiments. This philosophical way of speculation is not unpleasant among friends in a free conversation, but there is no room for it in the courts of princes where great affairs are carried on by authority."

"That is what I was saying," replied he, "that there is no room for philosophy in the courts of princes."

"Yes, there is," said I, "but not for this speculative philosophy that makes everything to be alike fitting at all times: but there is another philosophy that is more pliable, that knows its proper scene, accommodates itself to it, and teaches a man with propriety and decency to act that part which has fallen to his share. If when one of Plautus's comedies is upon the stage and a company of servants are acting their parts, you should come out in the garb of a philosopher, and repeat out of 'Octavia,' a discourse of Seneca's to Nero, would it not be better for you to say nothing than by mixing things of such different natures to make an impertinent tragi-comedy? For you spoil and corrupt the play that is in hand when you mix with it things of an opposite nature, even though they are much better. Therefore go through with the play that is acting, the best you can, and do not confound it because another that is pleasanter comes into your thoughts. It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth; for the same reasons you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their
road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression upon them. You ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that if you are not able to make them go well they may be as little ill as possible; for except all men were good everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not at present hope to see."

"According to your arguments," answered he, "all that I could be able to do would be to preserve myself from being mad while I endeavored to cure the madness of others; for if I speak truth, I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a philosopher can do it or not, I cannot tell; I am sure I cannot do it. But though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not see why they should seem foolish or extravagant: indeed if I should either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his commonwealth, or as the Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment, which is founded on property, there being no such thing among them, that I could not expect that it would have any effect on them; but such discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning of what may follow, have nothing in them that is so absurd that they may not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are resolved to run headlong the contrary way. . .

. . . But I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is all the success that I can have in a court, for I must always differ from the rest, and then I shall signify nothing; or if I agree with them, I shall then only help forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you mean by your casting about, or by the bending and handling things so dexterously, that if they go not well they may go as little ill as may be; for in courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do. A man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels, and consent to the blackest designs: so that he would pass for a spy, or possibly for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices: and therefore when a man is engaged in such a society, he will be so far from being able to mend matters by his casting about, as you call it, that he will find no occasions of doing any good: the ill company will sooner corrupt him than be the better for him: or if notwithstanding all their ill company, he still remains steady and innocent, yet their follies and knavery will be imputed to him; and by mixing counsels with them, he must bear his share of all the blame that belongs wholly to others.

"It was no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government. If a man, says he, was to see a great company run out every day into the rain, and take delight in being wet; if he knew that it would be to no purpose for him to go and persuade them to return to their houses, in order to avoid the storm, and that all that could be expected by his going to speak to them would be that he himself should be as wet as they, it would be best for him to keep within doors; and since he had not influence enough to correct other people's folly, to take care to preserve himself."

-- Utopia by Sir Thomas More.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Now that you are a "Peer", you may have the rude awakening that I once got. Because, you see, you are the authority to which people speak their truth to...

authority

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

That sort of authority I already had, before the Peerage, inside my areas of expertise. I didn't like it, but I had it.. I've strived not to take the attitude that other people are wrong in matters of opinion, and in some ways my years of being slapped down for being rude for disagreeing with authorities, whether they outranked me or just preceded me, helped me there.

The difference is that people of good will, who are interested in what I have to say and are not caught up in authority issues or control issues, will listen to what I have to say, and speak back to me as equals, for that is what we are. If they strike at me as an authority, either I am abusing my status/engaging in control behavior or they are attacking authority. I am always quicker to suspect myself than others.

The easy way to test this-- which I have done on multiple occasions- is to offer bait. If I offer the person a point of shared weakness, do they attack or do they use it to further the conversation. If they turn it into a weapon, I try not to take them seriously.

Re: authority

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I hear everything you are saying here... Nevertheless, you shall be surprised, as I was. At least you are well fore-warned, which I was not.

Re: authority

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

I was suprised the first time it happened-- over a year ago. And the first time I got attacked for merely holding an award-- 3 years ago.
But now I'm used to it.

That people of good will attack me for arguing or merely disagreeing with idiots, that still bothers me, but it doesn't surprise me.

But I've learned that there is no point in trying to discuss Democrats rationally in a Republican bar. When a small group holds the bully pulpit and I have opinions that vary from theirs, there is no point in trying to have useful conversation about them. But when a small group is merely filibustering, sometimes a quiet word will be heard. An argument never will, for it just gives them an excuse to attack those who disagree.