Aphorisms

[El_Mariachi]

Hello people!

The titled of this thread, as I'm sure you can read, (most of you anyways) is aphorisms.

An aphorism is a brief statement of a principle.

So this is how the thread will work.

Someone will post an aphorism. We will debate the merits of the statement until someone feels the time is right to post a new aphorism. Sound good?

Note: you can add a new aphorism after the thread has been unanswered for 12 hours, unless the aphorism truly brings NO debate at all. And in the words of Ron White, "Next time you have a thought... Let it go." Heh, not really, but just try and make sure that all your posts contain new ideas or defend old posts in a new way. As I've learned, trying to hit someone over the head with the same hammer in the same way, won't change their mind.

So here are few aphorisms, some my own, others not, pick one!

"Technology is a means with the end to shorten the means towards another end." - Me

"In heaven all the interesting people are missing." - Nietzsche

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." - Thoreau

"Action is eloquence." - Shakespeare

"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." - Ghandi

There, two Americans, a German, an Englishman, a Chinese man and an Indian. Pick one and have at it!

(And remember, the next person to post essentially picks the quote, stick with it until it is dead. Once it is, post a new quote, or one of the one's above. A good site for famous aphorisms is here (http://www.quotationspage.com) And you can always create your own)

[Darkscull]

"In heaven all the interesting people are missing." - Nietzsche

before anyone gets into the religious connotations of this, i would like to say that i think this is best interpreted as: those who live 'good' lives are boring. or at least uninteresting, which is slightly different.

this aphorism is stating one of the aspects of human nature, which is that we are almost always attracted to things that we have been taught to believe are 'wrong'.
it's always tempting to be a rebel, the dark side is always attractive (it would be, they have cookies :) ). this means that anyone who gets into heaven (leads the common idea of a 'good' life) is not going to be interesting in any way, because there is nothing to attract us to it.
well, actually it doesn't mean that, it means that the people who do attract us are the 'bad' ones, who won't be in heaven. that doesn't necessarily mean that the good people are unattractive, just the others are more so.

that was kind of stream of consciouness, but thats what i think about this particular aphorism

[El_Mariachi]

I think the quote is hard to understand without understanding all of what Nietzsche thinks.

Which means that I won't even pretend to understand all of what he thinks; however, on the topic of religion, Nietzsche thinks that it is an outmoded construct that should be overcome. Essentially its like a crutch that we needed a long time ago, but we have now learned to walk.

As such, people who go outside of religion, do not go to heaven. Thus all the interesting people, or people who in Nietzsche's mind broke away from the constraints of religion, won't be in heaven as the Church would like to think of it.

It doesn't mean that they're bad, just that they didn't play by the Church's rules.

[Darkscull]

It doesn't mean that they're bad, just that they didn't play by the Church's rules.

that's why i put 'good' and 'bad' in quotations. i meant 'good' and 'bad' according to the rules of whichever religions heaven you are talking about.

all things have several meanings, whether intentional or not.
yours is in the context of what he might have meant as he was saying it, mine is looking underneath that. lets see if anyone else can find more layers for this one.

[Purple Wabbit]

Religion aside, it's a fact that those who behave 'well' are generally seen as boring - why? Becuase they don't attempt in any way to argue with the 'law' or 'rules' that they live by.

Example: in a school, who is most likely (in general) top be the person with the lkeast friends? (I'm sorry iof this sounds nasty, it's just what I've observed) - the poerson who gets high marks all the time, who never talks in class, who's the teacher's pet - basically, the one who follows all the rules to a 'T'. There's really not much to make them stand out.

And I think that's what Nietzsche is getting at here. Those who live by the rules set down by their society, or their religion, or whatever, without ever even thinking about deviating, are good people and also probably perfectly nice. And they fully deserve to end up in heaven. But they're not the most interesting of individuals, because they do nothing to make themselves so.

[Hagar]

It all sounds a bit "Tortise and the Hare" to me.

And frankly, even knowing as little about Philosophy and Nietsche as I do, I don't think I'd like to be counted by him as "interesting".

[Roxsie]

Bump - okay lets try again :)

I disagree with what you say. but i would fight to the death to defend it - Voltaire

But would we really, i wouldn't want to die just to defend what someone says but i would for freedom of speech. Did he mean literally what they were saying or their right to say what they want?

[Darkscull]

the quote is actually

i disagree with what you say, but i would fight to the death to defend your right to say it

which answers your question.

i don't really have much to say about this particular aphorism, it's pretty clear what it means.

[Roxsie]

Ever thought about the difference between directly quoting what he said and what was later published.

[Darkscull]

well the famous saying is the one with 'your right to say it' in, and that is what the aphorism is, and it makes more sense.

things like this don't have to be accurate to what was said, they're phrases.

[Roxsie]

Well pick another one then you pedant.

[Darkscull]

i was just answering your question:

Did he mean literally what they were saying or their right to say what they want?

[evan223]

I'm new at this sort of thing but ill give it a go

"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."-Aristotle

I think what he's trying to get across is that the lower paid people do all of the 'Grunt' work, while the higher paid and higher in power people do hardly anything and they have evrything done for them by the lower ranked leaving them almost useless and just a figure of authority, which can be good to keep the lower ranked in line. This 'chain of command' can be seen evrywhere:
Ant collinies
Army
business'
and even in the home with parents being the higherarky (sp?) and the children left to do stuff around the home such as cleaning, and cooking. (well i have to)

[Darkscull]

i'm not sure i quite agree with that, evan223...

it does, after all, say all paid jobs. that would include higher paid jobs.

i think it could be interpreted as paid jobs meaning routine jobs; jobs where you have set working hours, every day, you do similar work each day. these are stable jobs that you need in order to get money in order to survive.
but doing such drudgery, whether physical or mental would become almost automatic with time. you would no longer be using your mind to its full extent to do things, and as we all should know, if you don't use something, you lose the ability to use it.
so through a life-time of this drudgery, you would eventually not have half the thinking power you had before.

[evan223]

You do have an excilent point Darkscull.

As you said it becomes 'almost automatic' could be the absorbed part in what Aristotle was saying however if a task did become 'automatic' and the need to think about what you are doing lost then you have the thinking power to do a second task while still doing the first that you are now 'programmed' to do, leaving you with not less thinking power as you said but compresing the power needed to one activity and use the rest for another.

I don't think im putting my point across as clearly as i would of hoped, but i think you can understand where im coming from.

[El_Mariachi]

I'm glad to see this thread bumped a bit.

In regards to your quote evan223, I believe the key words are "paid," "absorb," and "degrade."

It isn't so much as the "day" job that we've come to know, because Aristotle wouldn't know much about the "day" job.

I believe that what he meant by "paid" jobs are jobs where you earn money in return for your service.

Due to that, you become a "wage slave" or you work only for money and your energy is directed completely toward making money and toward doing much else.

I offer a contradiction to Darkscull. Teachers continuously use their mind all the time. And through interaction, which is part of their job, they become exposed to new thoughts daily. But then you've got teachers who teach because they want to, and teachers who teach because it pays well.

[Roxsie]

No teachers teach for the money.
Its not worth it, they get paid so little.

[Darkscull]

Teachers continuously use their mind all the time. And through interaction, which is part of their job, they become exposed to new thoughts daily. But then you've got teachers who teach because they want to, and teachers who teach because it pays well.

there are always exceptions, but i would argue that many teachers don't use their mind all the time. or rather, they use it, but not for original thought.
examples being teachers who teach with a copy of the curriculum in front of them at all times, following it faithfully, no matter what happens. or teachers who teach subjects like english, where there are no set answers, but who refuse to budge from their own opinions and actually tell students that they are 'wrong' when they put forward a new interpretation.

so although there are always exceptions, i say that they take the form of individuals rather than whole groups.


anyway, the "wage slave" idea is similar to the one i put forward.

oh, and roxsie: teachers get paid quite a bit, but they still complain.... just like they complain about how little holiday they get.
(for those who don't know, in Britain teachers get more holiday than almost all other occupations, apart from possibly university professors)

[mooatr]

I was under the impression that teachers got paid quite a lot, after all, that's what our incompetent and 'superior' teacher thinks.

[evan223]

As you pointed out "degrade" being one of the key words, How is becoming a "wage slave" degrading El_Mariachi? When you work hard to live a decent life.

And with the teacher's thing i believe that they do have there own original ideas its just they arn't aload to put there ideas across, as Darkscull said they follow the curriculum. Exams are marked on the cirriculum and not what the teacher thinks of the subject in hand. This should go somewhere but im not quite sure where: My history teacher didn't know anything she was teaching us she just followed from a book and if someone asked a question that wasn't covered in the curriculum she would just say "Im not supposed to teach you that" or "I don't know"

[Roxsie]

Our school follows the curriculum so well they have P.E and food teachers teaching french G.C.S.E. Naturally they're awful at it but it saves the pennies.

[evan223]

Most teachers have upto three subjects they teach, some better than others. My P.E teacher is an excilent I.C.T teacher. Your school isn't saving them any pennies they have to pay the teachers for the two lessons they teach, so there forking out the same amount of money just to less people

EDIT: I'm not too sure but do teachers get goverment pensions?

[Roxsie]

everyone gets a government pension however it's not much which is why they encourage people to have private ones and bosses to fund pension schemes.

These are the low end of teaching e.g a coujple of friends of mine were taught in year 8 that voiture meant cow - imagine their confusion in year nine when they go onto lavé la voiture.