“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage which emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."
This same article quotes Mark Twain (from his 1906 autobiography:
The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. … How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
The super-charged version of this phenomenon is the Gish Gallop:
The Gish gallop is a term for an eristic technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott; it is named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.[1][2] It is similar to a method used in formal debate called spreading.
Some of my posts are simply to record an idea so that I have a quick way to track it down later. This is one of those posts.
I'm reading Robert Sapolsky's excellent 800-page book, Behave: THE BIOLOGY OF HUMANS AT OUR BEST AND WORST. He tells this story about his wife:
So we’re in the minivan, our kids in the back, my wife driving. And this complete jerk cuts us off, almost causing an accident, and in a way that makes it clear that it wasn’tdistractedness on his part, just sheer selfishness. My wife honks at him, and he flips us off. We’re livid, incensed. Asshole-where’s-the-cops-when-you-needthem, etc. And suddenly my wife announces that w e’re going to follow him, make him a little nervous. I’m still furious, but this doesn’t strike me as the most prudent thing in the world. Nonetheless, my wife starts trailing him, right on his rear.After a few minutes the guy’s driving evasively, but my wife’s on him. Finally both cars stop at a red light, one that we know is a long one. Another car is stopped in front of the villain. He’s not going anywhere. Suddenly my wife grabs something from the front seat divider, opens her door, and says, “Now he’sgoing to be sorry.”I rouse myself feebly— “Uh, honey, do you really think this is such a goo— ”But she’s out of the car, starts pounding on his window. I hurry over just in time to hear my wife say, “If you could do something that mean to another person, you probably need this,” in a venomous voice. She then flings something in the window. She returns to the car triumphant, just glorious.
“What did you throw in there!?”
She’s not talking yet. The light turns green, there’s no one behind us, and we just sit there. The thug’s car starts to blink a very sensible turn indicator, makes a slow turn, and heads down a side street into the dark at, like, five miles an hour. If it’s possible for a car to look ashamed, this car was doing it.
“Honey, what did you throw in there, tell me? ”
She allows herself a small, malicious grin.
“A grape lollipop.” I was awed by her savage passive aggressiveness— “You’re such a mean, awful human that something must have gone really wrong in your childhood, and maybe this lollipop will help correct that just a little.”That guy was going to think twice before screwing with us again. I swelled with pride and love.
This is likely my favorite video of a dachshund and a turtle playing soccer.
I've made a habit of publishing pages of quotes every few months at DI. As one of my many sources, I sometimes visit The Quotations Page. Here are some of my favorites from from QP over the past few weeks:
"Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is."
William James (1842 - 1910)
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902 - 1983), quoted in New York Herald Tribune, May 19, 1946
"If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much."
Donald H. Rumsfeld (1932 - ), US Secretary of Defense
"You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers."
John J. Plomp
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, Introduction
"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
"Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian."
Lee Simonson
"The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy."
Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William G. McAdoo (1863 - 1941)
"Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)
"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things."
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)