Yesterday, I wrote an acrostic verse to a short quote by Johann Lavater implying that by defeat we become enlightened. Now each of us, if entirely honest, would have to agree that we do indeed learn by failure. It can be life changing when in an extreme. There are millions of people blindly following the most dysfunctional of people imaginable, with a devotion which is quite frightening to observe. One can only hope for their eventual defeat which might bring a degree of enlightenment. That was the entire idea behind this verse. Here it is:
I searched X with the word “wrong,” hoping to find examples of the wrongness on the far political right at this time. At this point, rational explanations of why they are wrong seem to not matter. It might be best just to say they are wrong from now on.
I found a few quotes under the heading of ‘wrong’ from Forty Thousand Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts which seemed to fit at least my mood in this discussion.
“It is vain to trust in wrong; it is like erecting a building upon a frail foundation, and which will directly be sure to topple over.”
- Hosea Ballou.
Hosea Ballou D.D. (April 30, 1771 – June 7, 1852) was an American Universalist clergyman and theological writer. Originally a Baptist, he converted to Universalism in 1789. He preached in a number of towns in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. From 1817, he was pastor of the Second Universalist Church of Boston. He wrote a number of influential theological works, as well as hymns, essays and sermons, and edited two Universalist journals. Ballou has been called one of the fathers of American Universalism.
“It is vain to trust in wrong: as much of evil, so much of loss, is the formula of human history.”
- Theodore Parker.
Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810 – May 10, 1860) was an American transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church. A reformer and abolitionist, his words and popular quotations would later inspire speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. In 1837, Parker had begun attending meetings of the group later known as the Transcendental Club. Ralph Waldo Emerson's Divinity School Address that year had been deeply arresting to him, and he welcomed the opportunity to associate with Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, and several others. Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau and Parker wrote of the world as divine, and of themselves as part of this divinity. Unlike Emerson and other Transcendentalists, however, Parker believed the movement was rooted in deeply religious ideas and did not believe it should retreat from religion. All shared a conviction that slavery should be abolished and social reforms should take root.
“He who commits a wrong will himself inevitably see the writing on the wall, though the world may not count him guilty.”
- Tupper.
Sir Charles Tupper, 1st Baronet, GCMG, CB, PC, M.D. (July 2, 1821 – October 30, 1915) was a Canadian Father of Confederation who served as the sixth prime minister of Canada from May 1 to July 8, 1896. As the premier of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867, he led Nova Scotia into Confederation. He briefly served as the Canadian prime minister, from seven days after parliament had been dissolved, until he resigned on July 8, 1896, following his party's loss in the 1896 Canadian federal election. He is the only medical doctor to have ever held the office of prime minister of Canada and his 68-day tenure as prime minister is the shortest in Canadian history.
“The multitude is always in the wrong.”
- Wentworth Dillon
Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–1685), was an Anglo-Irish soldier and poet. Roscommon's reputation as a didactic writer and critic rests on his blank verse translation of Horace's Ars Poetica (1680) and his Essay on Translated Verse (1684). The essay contained the first definite enunciation of the principles of poetic diction, which were to be fully developed in the reign of Queen Anne. Roscommon, who was fastidious in his notions of dignified writing, was himself a very correct writer, and quite free from the indecencies of his contemporaries. Alexander Pope, who seems to have learnt something from his carefully balanced phrases and the regular cadence of his verse, says that "In all Charles's days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays"; in his An Essay on Criticism, when Pope lists poets he admires, beginning from the classical age, Roscommon is one of two British poets he includes (William Walsh is the other).
“Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.”
— Thomas Paine.
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English-born American Founding Father, political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he helped to inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of human rights.
I have been quite busy with several writing projects proceeding. I perhaps made my point in what I’ve written here. I did find an article stating that great political thoughts can be changed if you can make it seem like it’s their idea. This from Scientific American. Otherwise we must manipulate the people who have long been manipulated by others to come up with their faulty choices. It seems almost too revolting to partake in. But perhaps I’ll have a change of heart.
85th posting, September 2, 2023