Tag Archives: jokes

The Cleverness of Karl Kraus

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Humor, Philosophy

≈ Comments Off on The Cleverness of Karl Kraus

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Karl Kraus

“It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.”

“When someone has behaved like an animal, he says: ‘I’m only human!’ But when he is treated like an animal, he says: ‘I’m human, too!’”

“There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.”

“If I return some people’s greetings, I do so only to give them their greeting back.”

“Nothing is more narrow-minded than chauvinism or race hatred. To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all. No petty prejudices!”

“We are sacrificing ourselves for our ready-made goods; we are consumers and live in such a way that the means may consume the end.”

“An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.”

“The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.”

“My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.”

“War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that the enemy too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.”

“Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.”

“There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.”

“Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.”

“I don’t like to meddle in my private affairs.”

“Many share my views with me. But I don’t share them with them.”

“I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping something might improve if I viewed all sides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and be able use one’s prejudice as an excuse.”

“I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don’t say what it wants to hear.”

“Many things I am experiencing I already remember.”

“Only he is an artist who can make a riddle out of a solution.”

“Today’s literature: prescriptions written by patients.”

“Hate must make a person productive; otherwise one might as well love.”

“Sound opinions are valueless. What matters is who holds them.”

“The real truths are those that can be invented.”

“The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them.”

“Education is what most people receive, many pass on, and few have.”

“One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.”

“Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which regards itself as therapy.”

“How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”

“The immorality of men triumphs over the amorality of women.”

“I am not for women but against men.”

“Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.”

“A ‘seducer’ who boasts of initiating women into the mystery of love is like a stranger who arrives at a railroad station and offers to show the sights to a tourist guide.”

“Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible.”

“A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.”

“Women at least have elegant dresses. But what can men use to cover their emptiness?”

“The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner.”

“Solitude would be an ideal state if one were able to pick the people one avoids.”

“Family life is an encroachment on private life.”

“Life is an effort that deserves a better cause.”

“The development of technology will leave only one problem: the infirmity of human nature.”

“You don’t even live once.”

“Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein.”

“Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!”

“There is no doubt that a dog is loyal. But does that mean we should emulate him? After all, he is loyal to people, not to other dogs.”

__________

Selections from the brilliant collection of Kraus quips Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths: Selected Aphorisms, compiled and translated by Harry Zohn.

There’s more:

Karl Kraus 2

Partying with the Greeks

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by in History

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Greek Symposia

“Banquets of like-minded friends were called symposia. (The singular, symposium—the Greek original is symposion—means ‘a drinking together,’ that is, a drinking party.)…

There was plenty of tension in Greek life, since the Greeks, however many parties they threw, became as time went on even more bellicose than they had been in Homer’s day. These symposia may have been, as much as anything, occasions to release the pent-up anxieties of a society always at war—’the father of all, the king of all,’ ‘always existing by nature,’ as the Greek philosophers expressed it. Enough wine and one could forget about the war of the moment or, if not forget, reduce its importance at least temporarily. Thus this ditty attributed to Theognis, an early-sixth-century songwriter of airy facility who believed in good breeding, great parties, and lively romance, the Cole Porter of ancient Greece:

Strike the sacred strings and let us drink,
and so disport ourselves ’mid sounding reeds
that our libations gratify the gods—
and who gives a shit about war with the Medes

But as tends to be the case when drunkenness substitutes for thoughtfulness, the hilarity often ended badly… There’s sadness beneath the merriment. It is as if, no matter how much these revelers sing, dance, howl, recite their jokes, and screw one another, a constant, authoritative note of pessimistic pain sounds beyond all their frantic attempts not to hear it. Even Archilochus, a sensational athlete in his time and a master of the revels if ever there was one, cannot deny that none of these nighttime activities makes good sense. In his most thoughtful lines, he seems to remove the mask, denuding himself of his gruff and rollicking persona, and to counsel himself in the clear light of day not to excess but to sobriety—to balance, modesty, and even resignation:

O heart, my heart, no public leaping when you win;
no solitude nor weeping when you fail to prove.
Rejoice at simple things; and be but vexed by sin
and evil slightly. Know the tides through which we move.

The last sentence is quietly ominous. The tides through which we move—the highs and the lows, the peaks and the troughs—tell us repeatedly that nothing lasts… Let us temper our excitement and agitation, whether for the ecstasy of battle or the ecstasy of sex, whether over great achievement or great loss, and admit to ourselves that all things have their moment… If we live according to this sober knowledge, we will live as well as we can.”

Archilochus

__________

From the closing of chapter 3 of Thomas Cahill’s Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.

I wrote some comments about the above bust of Archilochus in a post yesterday. Check it out, as well as the sources (brought to my attention by Ted Rey) of the lines from Archilochus cited above.

Sidney Morgenbesser’s Sense of Humor

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Humor, Philosophy, Psychology

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sidney Morgenbesser

Sidney Morgenbesser was a prominent figure at Columbia University throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. As the University’s John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, he taught classes on epistemology and the philosophy of science which were consistently packed with students eager to hear him lecture — but not because of his academic prestige or reputation as a generous grader.

Morgenbesser was widely known as one of the wittiest men of his age. His caustic irreverence and razor-sharp tongue produced an unmistakable — and inimitable — sense of humor. Through freewheeling intellectual banter that could be compared to sportive Socratic dialogues, he influenced generations of students, among them the philosopher Robert Nozick, who once claimed that he “majored in Sidney Morgenbesser.”

Harry Frankfurt, professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton, struggled to find the words to describe Morgenbesser, resorting to an image from nature: “You don’t ask what the wind does. It’s just power and self-sustaining energy.”

Noam Chomsky called him, “One of the most knowledgeable and in many ways profound thinkers of the modern period… a philosopher in the old sense — not so much what’s on the printed page, but in debate and inspiring discussion.”

The New York Times called him, “Socrates with a Yiddish accent”; I suggest Groucho Marx with a PhD in philosophy.

Here are some of his most famous rejoinders:

  • In the early 1950′s, the esteemed Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin came to Columbia to present a paper about the structural analysis of language. He pointed out that, in English, although a double negative implies a positive meaning (i.e. “I’m not unlike my father…”), there is no language in which a double positive implies a negative. “Yeah, yeah,” scoffed Morgenbesser from the back of the auditorium.
  • In the 1970′s, a student of Maoist inclination asked him if he disagreed with Chairman Mao’s saying that a proposition can be true and false at the same time. Dr. Morgenbesser replied, “I do and I don’t.”
  • Morgenbesser became something of a legend at the time of the 1968 student uprising for being beaten up when he joined a human chain protesting the police. When confronted about the incident, Morgenbesser was asked whether he had been treated unfairly or unjustly. His response: “It was unjust, but not unfair. It’s unjust to hit me over the head, but it’s not unfair because everyone else was hit over the head, too.”
  • Once during a heady philosophy lecture, Morgenbesser was asked to prove a questioner’s existence. He shot back, “Who’s asking?”
  • A colleague once challenged Morgenbesser’s tenure at Columbia, saying he had not published enough material to deserve a tenured position. Morgenbesser responded: “Moses wrote one book. Then what did he do?”
  • Morgenbesser was leaving a subway station in New York City and put his pipe in his mouth as he was ascending the steps. A police officer told him that there was no smoking on the subway. Morgenbesser pointed out that he was leaving the subway, not entering it, and hadn’t lit up yet anyway. The cop again said that smoking was not allowed in the subway, and Morgenbesser repeated his comment. The cop said, “If I let you do it, I’d have to let everyone do it.” Morgenbesser replied, “Who do you think you are, Kant?” Due to his accent, the word “Kant” was mistaken for a vulgar epithet and Morgenbesser was hauled off to the police station. He won his freedom only after a colleague showed up and explained the Categorical Imperative to the unamused cops.
  • In response to Heidegger’s ontological query “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Morgenbesser answered “If there were nothing you’d still be complaining!”
  • A central subject of Morganbesser’s investigations was the independence of irrelevant alternatives. Once while ordering dessert, Morgenbesser was told by the waitress that he could choose between apple pie and blueberry pie. He ordered the apple pie. Shortly thereafter, the waitress came back and said that cherry pie was also an option; Morgenbesser responded: “In that case I’ll have the blueberry pie.”
  • When asked his opinion of the philosophy of pragmatism, Morgenbesser said, “It’s all very well in theory but it doesn’t work in practice.”

__________

I found several of these quips and many other gems in Jim Holt’s stunningly clever and often very funny book Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.

Sidney Morgenbesser

Alexander Hamilton the Bachelor

19 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in History

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Alexander Hamilton

In December of 1779, a twenty-four year-old Alexander Hamilton wrote to his friend John Laurens, asking Laurens to find for him a wife in South Carolina:

“She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape), sensible (a little learning will do), well bred, chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness); of some good nature, a great deal of generosity (she must neither love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagant and an economist). In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of. I think I have arguments that will safely convert her to mine. As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me: she must believe in God and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger stock of that the better…”

__________

From a December 1779 letter from Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens. You can find more of Hamilton’s words, from adolescence to adulthood, in the definitive Alexander Hamilton: Writings.

In December 14th of the following year, Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler of Albany. Schuyler, whose mother Catherine Van Rensselaer was from one of New York’s most powerful and privileged families, and whose father, Philip Schuyler, was a decorated general of the Revolutionary War, eventually bore eight children before Alexander was killed in a duel in 1804.

Elizabeth, or Betsy as she was known, survived a half century after her husband’s untimely death, during which time she dedicated herself to helping dispossessed widows and founded New York’s first private orphanage, the New York Orphan Asylum Society. She is pictured below.

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

P.S. In closing this same letter, Hamilton wrote:

You will be pleased to recollect in your negotiations that I have no invincible antipathy to the maidenly beauties, and that I am willing to take the trouble of them upon myself.

If you should not readily meet with a lady that you think answers my description, you can only advertise in the public papers, and doubtless you will hear of many competitors for most of the qualifications required, who will be glad to become candidates for such a prize as I am. To excite their emulations it will be necessary for you to give an account of the lover—his size, make, qualities of mind and body, achievements, expectations, fortune, etc. In drawing my picture you will no doubt be civil to your friend, mind you do justice to the length of my nose, and don’t forget that I——

After reviewing what I have written, I am ready to ask myself what could have put it into my head to hazard this jeu de folie. Do I want a wife? No. I have plagues enough without desiring to add to the number that greatest of all; and if I were silly enough to do it I should take care how I employed a proxy. Did I mean to show my wit? If I did, I am sure I have missed my aim. 

I believe I can pick up most of the innuendo in this. Maidenly is a euphemism for virgin, while size and nose are substitutes for… well, you get the point. And at that, one’s tempted to just shrug boys will be boys, and put away the Hamilton letter for another day; that is, until the recognition hits you that it’s the author of Federalist No. 84 who’s making the lurid emails sent amongst your college buds look tame.

Yet there’s something warmly reassuring to these words. They’re a reminder that history is both linear and cyclical, that lives pass but that the pressures and preoccupations (and in this case the puerile sex jokes) repeat in each generation. Shakespeare’s horn and lance gags and even the snake imagery of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling betray the fact even our greatest geniuses were thinking and laughing about the same stuff you and I do.

To read a condensed but daunting biography of Hamilton, and see how his story contrasts with that of his political rival Thomas Jefferson, click below:

Alexander Hamilton

Jefferson, Hamilton, and the Art of Power

Churchill in the Restroom

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Humor

≈ Comments Off on Churchill in the Restroom

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Winston Churchill

One day shortly after the Second World War ended, Winston Churchill and the newly elected Labour Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee encountered one another at the urinals in the House of Commons men’s washroom. Attlee had arrived first, and was standing at one of the stalls closest to the door.

Although Attlee was the only other man in the room, Churchill entered and walked to the farthest urinal — ten or twelve stalls away from Attlee. With a smug grin, Attlee said, “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?”

Churchill replied: “That’s right. Every time you see something this big, you want to nationalize it.”

__________

This anecdote and scores of other hilarious incidents between Winston and Attlee can be found in Martin Gilbert’s definitive biography Churchill: A Life.

At Wednesday’s Bradley Symposium here in Washington, Charles Krauthammer mentioned Churchill in the restroom during his keynote address. He followed it with the proviso that it may in fact be apocryphal, though I’m inclined to believe it — and not just because I want it to be true. Churchill had a razor-sharp wit which he wasn’t afraid to brandish when needed, especially against political adversaries like Attlee. In fact, it’s just as hard to picture someone making this story up than it is to imagine Churchill actually living it.

In another classic, Churchill once referred to Attlee as, “a sheep in sheep’s clothing,” and later as, “a modest man with much to be modest about.”

Lady Astor, the American-born socialite and first female Member of Parliament was once so agitated by Churchill at a dinner party that she belted out, “Winston… if I were your wife, I’d poison your soup.” Churchill’s reply: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

You can find these and other epic epigrams from Winston in the essential Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations.