I have this signature line that is appended to my posts on a writer's forum that I frequent, and it goes like this: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." That just about sums up my most important philosophy. Now, when you quote somebody it's just polite to give the author some credit. So here is the credit line that I use for that quote: "lots of people."
This afternoon a helpful member of that forum dropped me a line to point out that Mark Twain was the actual author of the aphorism I have been using in place of my own wit. But I'm not too sure my correspondent is correct.
My research has shown conclusively that Mark Twain said just about everything that has ever been said. He must have said so much that his acquaintances frequently had to ask him to "just shut up, Mark; just shut the f*** up!" I surmise that he was very boring at parties, always yammering on with some kind of folksy wisdom or other and never giving a fig for what anybody else had to say. (I am very sorry if you are a big Mark Twain fan or something, but the truth is the truth -- as Mark Twain said.)
You can be pretty sure that Samuel Clemens once said, "Pass the gravy." But that doesn't mean he was the original author of that phrase, either, under his own name or his assumed one. That's why I don't give him credit in my signature: that he deserves that credit is something (one of many things) I don't know for sure.
You will read that Twain said, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." But you won't find those words or any like them in anything he ever wrote. A friend of his, Charles Dudley Warner, an editorial writer for the Hartford, Connecticut Courant newspaper, wrote that "A well known American writer once said..." the remark. But he did not name the well-known writer so we have no idea who he was talking about and everybody just ASSUMED that Mark Twain MUST have been the guy because he was, well, a well-known author and he was known to be clever and it sure sounded like something that the guy who wrote about celebrated jumping frogs might say. And there's no proof either that Twain remarked that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer day here in My City of San Francisco.
You will also find references to Twain writing that, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." He did write that, but he was quoting the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli and took no credit for the witticism (or is it "criticism?").
Now, most folks will swear that Mark Twain is indeed the author of the line about what you know that ain't so, but I suspect none of them have taken the words to heart in the very matter of who said the thing or who deserves the credit for the saying of it.
See, Mark Twain was a writer (and a very good and very prolific one). But if you have a look at all 20,400 citations that Google will dish up for you, not a single one of them tells you WHERE or WHEN Twain uttered, wrote, or thought up this little tidbit. And that's the sort of thing that makes me just a bit suspicious about his authorship. You'd think if Twain wrote it down -- or if somebody heard him say it and reported it somewhere -- somebody would have by now gone to the trouble to find out just when and where and by what motivation he made the remark.
I am the proud owner of an entire fleet of respected scholarly books of quotations, from which I borrow ideas often and without shame. I have looked through every one of those books and, not very much to my amazement, the "what you don't know" quote appears nowhere in any of them. I must assume that the reason the editors of these weighty tomes have ignored one of the best-known witticisms of America's most renowned humorists is that they're not too sure themselves that he actually said it. They are completely mum on the matter, not even printing the saying with the note: "apocryphal."
Perhaps Twain did say or write the words, or something like them. Closest I can find is in Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." But that's not quite the same thing, is it?
In any event the sentiment of the aphorism we are talking about is certainly not original to Mark Twain. A few other people have been credited with the observation that there is more danger in our holding beliefs that aren't true than there is in outright ignorance. Better to be dumb than wrong.
No less a philosopher than Satchel Paige is said to have observed: It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so that gets you into trouble." Too many "troubles" in that version to make for a good aphorism, so Satchel Paige strikes-out once again.
And speaking of baseball, Yogi Berra has also been credited with the remark. He's one of those people that it's easy to pin weird sayings on; you can credit him with some dumb remark and folks will go, "Yeah, that sounds like ol' Yogi, alright."
As far as INTENTIONALLY funny people (that is, not Yogi Berra), the "cowboy philosopher" Will Rogers is another reputed speaker of the line that got this started but, once again, nobody's been able to find the saying in any of his works.
A lesser-known humorist and semi-contemporary of Twain named Josh Billings (whose real name was Henry Wheeler Shaw, (what is it about humorists that makes 'em want to write under assumed names?)), is credited with saying "It's not ignorance does so much damage; it's knowin' so derned much that ain't so." Now EXACTLY those words have not been found in any of Billing's/Shaw's writings but similar ideas are in his 1874 book Everybody's Friend, or Josh Billling's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, to whit: "I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so." So... did one of them-Twain or Billings-borrow the idea from the other? Did they come up with it independently? Did each of 'em overhear it somewhere separately? Did they use the same joke book? I suppose we'll never know. And that's my point.
Maybe we'd be better off following the wisdom of Confucious: "To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge." Or, before him, of Socrates: "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." What kind of world is this when even famous dead philosophers crib stuff from one another?
Somebody once said, "Good lines become great ones when presented as the utterances of those whom we already hold in high esteem for their wit." That somebody was Barbara Mikkelson, writing recently for Snopes.com. That I know. But I don't know where she got it.
***
UPDATE: Please see this more recent post.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Too Much Sex
So the other day Lizzy sees on a teevee entertainment show called "Good Morning America" that there's a whole lot of kids coming up in the latest generation that are not going around having sex and that don't intend to have sex until they are incarcerated behind the bars of marriage.
According to Lizzy, the teevee personality who talked about this bit of shocking information said some social pseudo-scientists had cleverly dubbed this cohort "Generation Pure."
I guess that's a play on the designation "Generation X" which was given to the gang of youths who were becoming socially active in the 1960s and who, according to a 1964 British study, "sleep together before they are married, don't believe in God, dislike the Queen and don't respect parents." Sounds about right, as I remember those days.
Many of my peers back then didn't believe in God, and while quite a few might have had some respect for their own parents not many thought much of parents as a species. As for the Queen of England, I suspect that was more a concern in the British Isles, but on the sleeping-together-out-of-wedlock thing, most of us, both here and abroad, did not feel it happened quite often enough.
Anyway, Lizzy's report of the teevee's report of the pseudo-scientists' report got folks down at the Bar & Grille talking about this whole sex thing and some of the patrons offered up some doubt that very many young folks had been bit by the purity bug and further surmised that the whole thing was just a bit of teevee sin-sationalism. Then one of them went so far as to raise the contrary proposition that there was just too much sex going on these days so any movement toward purity, any movement at all, was a good sign.
Kenny's big head wobbled around a bit and his walrus body slumped back with a thud against the brass rail that demarked the never-used cocktail waitress station and when everybody looked over in his direction he plopped his shot glass down, slapped his other hand on the bar and bellowed, "Too much sex!" And waited for a response.
Everybody got real quiet and checked around to see what might stand between themselves and the door, then scanned one another's faces for advice on whether this might not be a good time to go home for dinner. After a moment or two I raised my glass to Kenny and offered a loud toast, "You are right there, Kenny, boy. Here's a toast: To Much Sex!"
After a few "here-here's," the night's stool-side seminar drew to a close with some rude comments whose purpose was to prove the commentators' virility, and ultimately ended with the general agreement that teevee was mostly horse-leavings anyway but there wasn't much harm in people thinking that folks were having too much sex these days.
Well since that night I have given some thought to what little I remember of that conversation down at the Bar and Grille and, while I sure don't want to cross Kenny or any other large and inebriated people who might agree with him, I have come to the conclusion that most people don't have sex often enough.
I think whenever they are moved by the impulse people ought to just go right ahead and have some. The more the better. Just so long as they don't do it in such a place or such a manner as might bring embarrassment to observers who are not in a position to derive benefit from the act themselves. (I do make another exception regarding people who are not sufficiently mature to understand and handle the emotional consequences of their activities, but only in the case of performances involving more than one person.)
For those who don't get moved by the impulse often enough (say, less than a few times a day), there are cures for that and I believe people ought to be encouraged to seek them, use them, and get on with the getting on of it.
I've found that sex is the sort of thing that improves dramatically with practice and with a modicum of dedication to its perfection. I have read professional opinions in ladies magazines and elsewhere that support that finding. So folks should know that the doing of it can lead, with not a great deal of effort or inconvenience, to the greater enjoyment of it and, thence, to the doing of even more of it. And I think that's a very excellent idea and the perfect outcome.
Of course there are natural limits arising from conflicting human needs for sleep and food and from social and economic necessities, but heck, not many people are going to exceed those limits to the point of fornicating to death.
So just let 'em be. Let 'em at it. Far better to be giving and/or deriving physical pleasure than to be inflicting pain and suffering on others. If all those I-raqy terrorists and Palestinian suicide bombers would spend more time with their pants down maybe there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to strap on a vest-full of explosives. Or maybe they would be grinnin' so much they would not feel the kind of free-floating animosity that brings one to that kind of act. Or maybe if they had enough virgins (or otherwise) in the here and now they wouldn't consider the rumored (and most likely fictitious) rewards of martyrdom to be so darned attractive.
I say we should all go for it as much as possible and without the slightest tickle of guilt. The world would be a much better place and folks would be more relaxed and the only ones to suffer might be the pharmaceutical companies that make anti-depressants and sleeping pills. And even those outfits could just switch over to cures for erectile dysfunction so that virile men could do something more than fling footballs through tire-swings, or cures for whatever the female equivalent is. Or—during the transitional period—smelling salts for the suffering religious fundamentalists who probably get laid plenty at home or the office or behind the pulpit but faint dead away when they hear about consenting unmarried adults doing whatever it is they might do in the privacy of their own homes, cars, or recreational vehicles. Big money potential in that last one.
Just Do It! That's what I say. Do it PLENTY, and encourage all your friends to do the same, with or without your generous assistance. But if they need help, why, step up and volunteer like a real friend. Give 'em a hand, if that's the part they want. Help folks out, because believe me people just don't get enough sex and they ought to have a great deal more of it.
Now, on the other hand, what people have too much of is babies.
According to Lizzy, the teevee personality who talked about this bit of shocking information said some social pseudo-scientists had cleverly dubbed this cohort "Generation Pure."
I guess that's a play on the designation "Generation X" which was given to the gang of youths who were becoming socially active in the 1960s and who, according to a 1964 British study, "sleep together before they are married, don't believe in God, dislike the Queen and don't respect parents." Sounds about right, as I remember those days.
Many of my peers back then didn't believe in God, and while quite a few might have had some respect for their own parents not many thought much of parents as a species. As for the Queen of England, I suspect that was more a concern in the British Isles, but on the sleeping-together-out-of-wedlock thing, most of us, both here and abroad, did not feel it happened quite often enough.
Anyway, Lizzy's report of the teevee's report of the pseudo-scientists' report got folks down at the Bar & Grille talking about this whole sex thing and some of the patrons offered up some doubt that very many young folks had been bit by the purity bug and further surmised that the whole thing was just a bit of teevee sin-sationalism. Then one of them went so far as to raise the contrary proposition that there was just too much sex going on these days so any movement toward purity, any movement at all, was a good sign.
Kenny's big head wobbled around a bit and his walrus body slumped back with a thud against the brass rail that demarked the never-used cocktail waitress station and when everybody looked over in his direction he plopped his shot glass down, slapped his other hand on the bar and bellowed, "Too much sex!" And waited for a response.
Everybody got real quiet and checked around to see what might stand between themselves and the door, then scanned one another's faces for advice on whether this might not be a good time to go home for dinner. After a moment or two I raised my glass to Kenny and offered a loud toast, "You are right there, Kenny, boy. Here's a toast: To Much Sex!"
After a few "here-here's," the night's stool-side seminar drew to a close with some rude comments whose purpose was to prove the commentators' virility, and ultimately ended with the general agreement that teevee was mostly horse-leavings anyway but there wasn't much harm in people thinking that folks were having too much sex these days.
Well since that night I have given some thought to what little I remember of that conversation down at the Bar and Grille and, while I sure don't want to cross Kenny or any other large and inebriated people who might agree with him, I have come to the conclusion that most people don't have sex often enough.
I think whenever they are moved by the impulse people ought to just go right ahead and have some. The more the better. Just so long as they don't do it in such a place or such a manner as might bring embarrassment to observers who are not in a position to derive benefit from the act themselves. (I do make another exception regarding people who are not sufficiently mature to understand and handle the emotional consequences of their activities, but only in the case of performances involving more than one person.)
For those who don't get moved by the impulse often enough (say, less than a few times a day), there are cures for that and I believe people ought to be encouraged to seek them, use them, and get on with the getting on of it.
I've found that sex is the sort of thing that improves dramatically with practice and with a modicum of dedication to its perfection. I have read professional opinions in ladies magazines and elsewhere that support that finding. So folks should know that the doing of it can lead, with not a great deal of effort or inconvenience, to the greater enjoyment of it and, thence, to the doing of even more of it. And I think that's a very excellent idea and the perfect outcome.
Of course there are natural limits arising from conflicting human needs for sleep and food and from social and economic necessities, but heck, not many people are going to exceed those limits to the point of fornicating to death.
So just let 'em be. Let 'em at it. Far better to be giving and/or deriving physical pleasure than to be inflicting pain and suffering on others. If all those I-raqy terrorists and Palestinian suicide bombers would spend more time with their pants down maybe there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to strap on a vest-full of explosives. Or maybe they would be grinnin' so much they would not feel the kind of free-floating animosity that brings one to that kind of act. Or maybe if they had enough virgins (or otherwise) in the here and now they wouldn't consider the rumored (and most likely fictitious) rewards of martyrdom to be so darned attractive.
I say we should all go for it as much as possible and without the slightest tickle of guilt. The world would be a much better place and folks would be more relaxed and the only ones to suffer might be the pharmaceutical companies that make anti-depressants and sleeping pills. And even those outfits could just switch over to cures for erectile dysfunction so that virile men could do something more than fling footballs through tire-swings, or cures for whatever the female equivalent is. Or—during the transitional period—smelling salts for the suffering religious fundamentalists who probably get laid plenty at home or the office or behind the pulpit but faint dead away when they hear about consenting unmarried adults doing whatever it is they might do in the privacy of their own homes, cars, or recreational vehicles. Big money potential in that last one.
Just Do It! That's what I say. Do it PLENTY, and encourage all your friends to do the same, with or without your generous assistance. But if they need help, why, step up and volunteer like a real friend. Give 'em a hand, if that's the part they want. Help folks out, because believe me people just don't get enough sex and they ought to have a great deal more of it.
Now, on the other hand, what people have too much of is babies.
Friday, May 16, 2008
"Fact" Finding
Here is an example of how you can find support on the Internet for virtually any belief you may hold. After an argument with my brother-in-law, with whom I share a residence, I found several articles on the important topic of our discussion: the proper way to install a roll of toilet paper.
Most of the Web "experts" declared that the proper way is the "over the top" method, supporting the B-I-L's stance on the subject. My preference though, due to years of habit, is the "under" method—the way my Mama taught me.
Undaunted, I continued researching until I landed on an article by Brian Mathis on his blog. I now consider Brian, who writes about technology, to be a renowned authority on this vital subject. And I consider myself fully vindicated, even though one site I viewed had surveyed its users and reported they preferred the "over" method by about 10:1.
Most of the Web "experts" declared that the proper way is the "over the top" method, supporting the B-I-L's stance on the subject. My preference though, due to years of habit, is the "under" method—the way my Mama taught me.
Undaunted, I continued researching until I landed on an article by Brian Mathis on his blog. I now consider Brian, who writes about technology, to be a renowned authority on this vital subject. And I consider myself fully vindicated, even though one site I viewed had surveyed its users and reported they preferred the "over" method by about 10:1.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Story Fishin'
This item appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 30, 2008:
"The Chronicle is interested in speaking with people who are now seeking or have just bought residential property in the nine-county Bay Area. We're particularly interested in talking with first-time home buyers who think the real estate slump makes homes more affordable to them, as well as investors who see this as a good buying opportunity. If you'd like to talk, please e-mail a brief description of your situation to realestate@sfchronicle.com." (Italics mine.)
Well, now, it seems the writer at the Chronicle ("reporter" would be too generous a description), already has his or her mind made up about what the story is. "Story-fishing" has always been a part of journalism, and this request for quotable quotes and supportive anecdotes exposes the practice pretty clearly. So when you read the newspaper, be sure to ask yourself if the "news" it carries is dependable. Might just be a reflection of the writer's personal opinions, preconceptions, or a not-so-well hidden agenda.
"The Chronicle is interested in speaking with people who are now seeking or have just bought residential property in the nine-county Bay Area. We're particularly interested in talking with first-time home buyers who think the real estate slump makes homes more affordable to them, as well as investors who see this as a good buying opportunity. If you'd like to talk, please e-mail a brief description of your situation to realestate@sfchronicle.com." (Italics mine.)
Well, now, it seems the writer at the Chronicle ("reporter" would be too generous a description), already has his or her mind made up about what the story is. "Story-fishing" has always been a part of journalism, and this request for quotable quotes and supportive anecdotes exposes the practice pretty clearly. So when you read the newspaper, be sure to ask yourself if the "news" it carries is dependable. Might just be a reflection of the writer's personal opinions, preconceptions, or a not-so-well hidden agenda.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Movies about Movies
I chatted this morning with a colleague about a plan to use additional audio tracks on a DVD we're working on about technology. The conversation turned to how that feature of DVDs has been used in funny ways on some Hollywood releases.
"Incident at Loch Ness," for example (20th Century Fox, 2004) is a very funny mockumentary about Werner Herzog's troubles in making a documentary about the Loch Ness monster. The movie is hilarious, especially to people who are into documentary filmmaking, even though it is flawed (according to some reviewers). Werner is a great sport about his reputation as a director and gives a terrific performance. The movie raises a lot of disturbing questions about how "real" documentary films are and pokes a lot of fun at the industry. The special features on the DVD, though, are to my mind the most outstanding thing about it. They include a joke commentary soundtrack by the director (Zak Penn) and Werner that is an extremely funny send up of director's commentaries.
If you haven't seen the 1985 movie "Blood Simple" (Universal Studios) by the Coen brothers (or even if you saw the original), you should get the new DVD version that was released in 2001 -- just for the mock introduction to the film in which the fictional Mortimer Young, pompous CEO of the equally fictitious "Forever Young Film Preservation," discusses how the company restored the film and removed the "boring bits" from the original release.
The DVD also features an optional audio commentary by the fictional artistic director of the movie. He offers several "facts" about how the movie was made: a scene with characters driving in the rain was acted out in reverse and upside down, he claims, in order to accurately synchronize the headlights passing the car with lines of dialog. (Because the actors were upside down they had to use a lot of hairspray to keep their hair from looking like it was standing on end.) He reveals that in scenes with both dialogue and music, the actors just mouthed the words and recorded them in post-production, so their voices wouldn't interfere with the music that was playing on the set; that a dog is really an animatronic robot; that the sweat on the actors is fake "movie sweat"; and that a fly buzzing about in one shot is not real, but was done in CGI. Etc., etc. It's a very clever take on the typical DVD "commentaries" that purport to reveal the secrets of filmmaking and which largely consist of directors and others patting themselves on the back -- along with everybody involved in the project.
Now as I think about these some other movies come to mind that ought to be interesting to filmmakers -- one in particular.
Probably one of the funniest films about screenwriting is director Spike Jonze's 2002 "Adaptation," starring Nicolas Cage in the double role of screenwriting brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Chris Cooper is particularly wonderful, as is Meryl Streep. The plot, about Kaufman's struggle to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction book "The Orchid Thief," takes a very weird turn or three, but the satire on screenwriting -- and Hollywood movie-making -- is a hoot. A screenwriting seminar "expert" advises, for example, "God help you if you use voice-over in your work... That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character." Of course, much of the film is voice-over narration in which Cage relates his thoughts. It's brilliant, quirky, and original.
"Incident at Loch Ness," for example (20th Century Fox, 2004) is a very funny mockumentary about Werner Herzog's troubles in making a documentary about the Loch Ness monster. The movie is hilarious, especially to people who are into documentary filmmaking, even though it is flawed (according to some reviewers). Werner is a great sport about his reputation as a director and gives a terrific performance. The movie raises a lot of disturbing questions about how "real" documentary films are and pokes a lot of fun at the industry. The special features on the DVD, though, are to my mind the most outstanding thing about it. They include a joke commentary soundtrack by the director (Zak Penn) and Werner that is an extremely funny send up of director's commentaries.
If you haven't seen the 1985 movie "Blood Simple" (Universal Studios) by the Coen brothers (or even if you saw the original), you should get the new DVD version that was released in 2001 -- just for the mock introduction to the film in which the fictional Mortimer Young, pompous CEO of the equally fictitious "Forever Young Film Preservation," discusses how the company restored the film and removed the "boring bits" from the original release.
The DVD also features an optional audio commentary by the fictional artistic director of the movie. He offers several "facts" about how the movie was made: a scene with characters driving in the rain was acted out in reverse and upside down, he claims, in order to accurately synchronize the headlights passing the car with lines of dialog. (Because the actors were upside down they had to use a lot of hairspray to keep their hair from looking like it was standing on end.) He reveals that in scenes with both dialogue and music, the actors just mouthed the words and recorded them in post-production, so their voices wouldn't interfere with the music that was playing on the set; that a dog is really an animatronic robot; that the sweat on the actors is fake "movie sweat"; and that a fly buzzing about in one shot is not real, but was done in CGI. Etc., etc. It's a very clever take on the typical DVD "commentaries" that purport to reveal the secrets of filmmaking and which largely consist of directors and others patting themselves on the back -- along with everybody involved in the project.
Now as I think about these some other movies come to mind that ought to be interesting to filmmakers -- one in particular.
Probably one of the funniest films about screenwriting is director Spike Jonze's 2002 "Adaptation," starring Nicolas Cage in the double role of screenwriting brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Chris Cooper is particularly wonderful, as is Meryl Streep. The plot, about Kaufman's struggle to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction book "The Orchid Thief," takes a very weird turn or three, but the satire on screenwriting -- and Hollywood movie-making -- is a hoot. A screenwriting seminar "expert" advises, for example, "God help you if you use voice-over in your work... That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character." Of course, much of the film is voice-over narration in which Cage relates his thoughts. It's brilliant, quirky, and original.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Faith and Fanaticism
Doc Searls Web Log brings to our attention a piece by Arthur C. Clarke in Forbes titled "The View from 2500 A.D." in which the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey
One outcome of this--the greatest psychological survey in the whole of history--was to demonstrate conclusively that the chief danger to civilization was not merely religious extremism but religions themselves.. Billions of words of pious garbage spoken by statesmen, clerics and politicians down the ages were either hypocritical nonsense or, if sincere, the babbling of lunatics.Commenting about this on Doc's blog, James Robertson asserts:
"...the problem is less religion than it is fanaticism. Secular fanatics - fascists and communists, for instance - have killed far more efficiently than the religious fanatics have..."
Doc concurs, as do I -- and as history confirms.
But a fanatic is defined as somebody who has extreme and sometimes irrational beliefs, especially in religion or politics. And that would make just about any believer in any major religion something of a fanatic, because the fundamental precepts of religious faith are hardly "rational." God wrote a book? God gives a hoot about what women wear? Jesus in a cracker? But I have to agree with the sentiment in Clarke's piece, which reflects something Sam Harris wrote in The End of Faith
:"(T)heology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings."With any luck people will one day wake up about that.
Back to Mr. Robertson's assertion, though: It seems to me that religious extremism is enabled by -- to quote Harris again...
"the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself. Religious moderates are, in large part, responsible for the religious conflicts in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed."It's dangerous for religious moderates to stand back in a politically correct posture and say, "Well, now, I don't believe what you believe but it's perfectly okay by me for you to believe whatever nonsense it is you want to believe so long as you don't hurt anybody."
"What's wrong with that?" you ask. Well, what's wrong is the implication that religious beliefs are and should remain beyond rational criticism. And that leads to the persistence of clearly antiquated and objectively discredited practices -- to the detriment of individuals and whole cultures. This brand of religious tolerance justifies the lazy habit we have of accepting patently absurd ideas "on faith" -- rather than questioning the things we think we know. ("It ain't what you don't know that hurts you; it's what you do know that just ain't so.") To cite Harris again,
"While religious faith is one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction, it is still sheltered from criticism in every corner of our culture."
To practice the seemingly noble custom of religious tolerance is to enable fanaticism. To admit faith to the arena of human discourse, on equal standing with reason, is to ensure the continuation of discord, hostility and, ultimately, violence. Where do you draw the lines of the "don't hurt anybody" boundary? The suicide bomber fervently believes his martyrdom and murder are for the greater good; it says so right there in the holy book that God wrote. But we can't tell him that some of what's in that book is a lot of hooey, because that would be intolerant.
Tolerance seems, on the surface of it, to be a fine idea. And I sure don't want you to think I believe we ought to go to war to make people come to their senses. But I go along with Sam Harris in thinking we ought not give "faith" a free pass, and with Arthur C. Clarke in the conclusion that religions themselves may be the chief danger to civilization.
In Clarke's fictional account, civilization came to its senses. But I don't have much faith that it ever will.
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