I saw it in print, it must be right!

Posted on Sunday, September 28, 2008 by nosleepingdog

Exercise your ear for language. Of these quotations, which was not written or uttered by Thomas Jefferson? [some irregular spellings are contained, they aren’t typos but represent the flexibility of orthography in earlier centuries.]

“An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.” 1

“But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.” 2

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” 3

“A mind always employed is always happy…The idle are the only wretched. In a world which furnishes so many emploiments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is, or if we are ever drive to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our disposition, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.” 4

Probably you had no difficulty in identifying #3 as the one that doesn’t fit. It seems to stick out like a wrong note in music: inappropriate to the man and his time, both in sentiment and expression. For me, being old enough to recall the human potential movement, it clearly has a connexion to that school of folly. Spontaneity, individualism, do whatever feels right to you (regardless of consequences to others, or even yourself), were exalted above all else. Impulse over reason. All self-expression is good. Learning, self-restraint, and practice are by implication unnecessary, and a cruel blow to one’s inner child.

“…you just get stoned, get the ideas in your head and then do ’em. And don’t bullshit. I mean that’s the thing about doin’ that guerrilla theatre. You be prepared to die to prove your point.”
Abbie Hoffman 5

“I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.”
Frederick E. Perl 6

But all over the net, I found that laissez–faire quotation #3,

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

attributed to our third president, author of the Declaration of Independence, a man of such parts that John F. Kennedy famously remarked, upon the occasion of a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize Winners, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet.” [Please indulge me while I point out the obvious, that Thomas Jefferson did not acquire any of these abilities by simply expressing himself and “doing his thing.”]

The mis-attributed quotation came to me a few weeks ago from some newsletter list I got on, and it seemed so anachronistic to me that I started looking for who really said it. Well, according to most websources, it was Thomas Jefferson. Google it and see. I did find another person credited with it, but the Jefferson attributions were far more numerous. But truth isn’t established by majority vote, so I kept looking.

Finally I discovered The Jefferson Encyclopedia which has a page of “Spurious Quotations” but I did not find “Don’t ask. Act!” there, so I wrote to them. This, now, is a reliable source, part of the foundation which protects and restores Jefferson’s estate at Monticello and sponsors educational and research programs. The encyclopedia site is described as “Trustworthy information on Thomas Jefferson and his world by Monticello researchers and respected Jefferson scholars.” I got a prompt reply; the experts there have had more than one inquiry on the subject, and mine must have been the last straw, as they decided to add a page concerning the “Do you want to know who you are?” quotation to their informational wiki-encyclopedia.

The true author of those words? Witold Gombrowicz, of course! He was (1904-1969 ) a Polish novelist and dramatist. As Anna Berkes, the Monticello researcher who kindly answered my email query, put it:

“Also, most people would much rather put “Thomas Jefferson” on their signature line or plaque or bumpersticker than, say,
Witold Gombrowicz; so it’s often an uphill battle to try to
dis-associate Jefferson from quotations like these.”

This painting is a copy of the second life portrait of Jefferson (1805) by Rembrandt Peale. Source.

The web is the best example to date of how something can get written once, and then copied by dozens of others who rely on the authority of the first.

The late Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay on the phenomenon, about how someone’s questionable comparison of the size of the earliest horses (Eohippus, when I was in school) to the size of a fox-terrier, was repeated by textbook publishers from 1904 to 1988 when Gould’s “The case for the creeping fox terrier clone” appeared in Natural History Magazine. (You can also find it in Bully for Brontosaurus, a collection of Gould’s essays, and in Google’s online digitization of same.) Gould’s point was the failure of textbook writers (compilers?) to consult original sources and use fresh material, instead of doing what, in a student, would be condemned as plagiarism. The only fox-terrier familiar to very many people is Asta in the Thin Man movies, but probably few people born after 1950 would know about William Powell’s debonair canine sidekick. Thus, as an aid to understanding, the metaphor has outlived its effectiveness.

And copying blindly leads also—as in the case of the Jefferson mis-attribution—to just plain wrong information. The Eohippus/fox-terrier comparison may be such a case. The AKC standard for the Wire(haired) Fox Terrier prescribes a height of 15.5 inches at the withers—roughly the shoulder—for the male. Wikipedia states that Hyracotherium (formerly Eohippus) “averaged 8 to 9 inches (20 cm) high at the shoulder.”

And why did I write this post? I admire Jefferson, and I wanted to help set the record straight. So, Google, find this: Thomas Jefferson did not say or write “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” It was Witold Gombrowicz.

Procrastination

Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 by nosleepingdog

My lifelong habit of procrastination has gotten worse in the 20 years I have had fibromyalgia. The pain and fatigue limit one’s activities, both physical and mental. So I was intrigued by references to Structured Procrastination. John Perry, an academic, says it works for him:

the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact.

Just add non-urgent but seemingly more important tasks to your list, then in avoiding them you will do some of the others.

But there are some problems with this. One is that it requires a disciplined prioritizing method where finally all the projects you really intend to do get done, if only by adding another more formidable project to push others to the top of the list.

However,

• the real procrastinator lacks discipline, ipso facto.

• the real procrastinator knows that there is no top of the list.

• and the real procrastinator is adept at doing things not on any list in order to avoid things on the list. I can spend a whole afternoon researching fascinating things on the web, which have very little to do with anything I’m actually doing or planning to do. It’s fun, educational, and can always end up as part of a blog post, but it really doesn’t do anything for the list. It may even add things to the list: now I need to read a book/do more research on this new topic I have become interested in.

An even more serious objection is that every day of procrastination adds to the chances of unforeseen events occurring. These can range from life-threatening (I meant to replace my tires months ago, now I’m sliding sideways after a blowout) to merely project-threatening (I’m finally going to take care of this right now––but the person I need to talk to is out for a month on bereavement leave). In the real world things change all the time; in the procrastinator’s world, things only change for the better (If I wait, maybe tires will go on sale again, because I missed last week’s sale.) Even if you really can finish that task in the 24 hours left before it must be completed, what if you come down with the flu, have to concentrate on a lost wallet or a sick dog, your spouse or children require your time, someone steals your laptop or it has a fatal crash, and so on. And there you are, left defending yourself with the words of Jake in the Blues Brothers:

I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

But I had other plans for today!

Locusts in Australia. Source.

Full disclosure: I wrote this as soon as I had thought about it, honest––but there certainly were other more important things I should have been doing!

In China, some things never change

Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by nosleepingdog

Even with the world’s attention upon their country during the Olympics, the Chinese hive leaders can’t successfully pretend to be other than what they are.

In its effort to look good, the government named 3 parks in Beijing as demonstration zones. To demonstrate there, one needed to apply for a permit. Not only have no permits been approved, but some applicants—including two women in their late 70s—have been punished. A grassroots activist who applied for a permit was last seen being taken away in a car by officials.

Here’s part of the report from the Guardian:

Chinese authorities have sentenced two women in their 70s to a year’s “re-education through labour” after they applied to protest during the Olympic games, a relative said today.

This week, officials said they had not approved a single permit for a demonstration, despite designating three parks as protest zones….

Wu Dianyuan, 79, and her neighbour Wang Xiuying, 77, sought to protest about their forced eviction from their homes in 2001. They went to the Beijing Public Security Bureau four times this month to request permission to demonstrate in the new zones — created for the Olympics to counter criticism of the limits to political expression in China.

Their applications were neither granted nor denied, but on their first trip PSB officers interrogated them for 10 hours, Wu’s son, Li Xuehui, told the New York-based group Human Rights in China.

On August 17, the two women received an order dated July 30 from Beijing’s “re-education through labour commission” sentencing them to one year for “disturbing the public order”. It placed restrictions on their movements and warned that if they breached any of the requirements they would be sent to a labour camp. The system does not require formal hearings or allow appeals.

Li told the Associated Press the women were at home under the observation of a neighbourhood committee. He said no cause had been given for the order.

These are two resolute and stouthearted old women; they made three more visits even after being interrogated for ten hours the first time, and apparently went back again after their sentence of a year’s re-education through labor. At that final visit, “officers said they could not apply to protest because of their sentence.”

What a foolish illusion (or vicious pretense), to think (or say) that allowing China to host the Olympics would result in any substantive positive change there. China has put on a big show in Beijing while earthquake victims in Sichuan are still homeless, and multi-national corporations made money. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Left, He Kexin, one of China’s allegedly 16-year old gymnasts, performs on the uneven bars. Kexin won the gold medal. The Associated Press/Amy Sancetta. Source.

Below, An elderly woman mourns her grandson buried under the debris of a collapsed building after the Sichuan earthquake. Daily Mail. Source.