La Rochefoucauld

Nothing came when I sat down to write something of my own. I think I have too much on my mind to let myself go. Instead, I’ll spend the evening translating and discussing aphorisms written by the 17th century moralist La Rochefoucauld. I have a weakness for writers cynical about their fellow humans. Am I cynical about other people? Yes and no! I hate people as much as I love the paradoxical cop-out! No, I don’t hate people. I often have gloomy thoughts about the fate of our species as a whole, especially when I waste time reading the newspapers. But I also have moments where I feel proud to be human, to belong to this intrepid band of carry-on’ers inhabiting our little pebble somewhere in the depths of space! Alright, enough about me! What does this guy have to offer us?

197. Il y a des gens de qui l’on peut ne jamais croire du mal sans l’avoir vu ; mais il n’y en a point en qui il nous doive surprendre en le voyant.

There are people whom one can never believe capable of evil without catching them in the act; but there are none who should surprise when caught.

So, don’t doubt someone’s good faith simply because you’ve heard stories about them. Stories come from people who are just as capable of dastardly deeds. However, never put so much faith in someone that you would be surprised if they let you down. Beautiful! I suppose I changed it a little with that last line of my exegesis, “never put so much faith…”: that’s more of an order, or a recipe for action, whereas he could simply be suggesting that there is no way to know, to really know, whether someone is trustworthy. He’s not necessarily telling us not to gamble.

196. Nous oublions aisément nos fautes lorsqu’elles ne sont sues que de nous.

We easily forget our faults when they are only known to ourselves.

I think it was aphorisms such as this one that got Nietzsche hooked on the moralists. It reminds me of some aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil:

76. Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself.

and

78. He who despises himself still nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

Here’s mine:
Misanthropy without self-criticism is empty snobbery.

Mine’s got a bit less psychological nuance, and seems brutish next to the others, but nonetheless it seems true to me.

Back to La Rochefoucauld:

199. Le désir de paroître habile empêche souvent de le devenir.

The desire to appear clever often prevents one from becoming it.

The “it” sounds clumsy at the end. A less literal translation is needed here:

The desire to appear clever is often an obstacle to cleverness.

Or I could universalize it and make it absolute:

The desire to appear will always lead to disappointment.

Here’s one I don’t quite get:

200. La vertu n’iroit pas loin si la vanité ne lui tenoit compagnie.

Virtue would not go far if vanity didn’t keep her company.

First of all, the verbs are in the imperfect. I actually think it’s the second “ne” that is confusing me. I don’t think its supposed to negate; I think it’s the “ne explétif” or non-negating ne. Usually this gramatical construction is used with the subjunctive, but perhaps he’s using it with the imperfect. As you can see, I’m no scholar of the vagaries of 17th century French grammar. If I am correct, the translation would rather read:

Virtue does not travel far when her company is Vanity.

Rather banal.

There’s the 17th century Sun King courtisan geist! “Rahthah banalll, wouldn’t you saaaayy?” I inquire as I twirl my waxed moustache…

It’s strange how “vertu” is a feminin word in French, when it comes from the latin word “vir”, meaning man, virtue in antiquity being considered the masculin ideal. Actually, now that I check “virtus” in my latin dictionary, it too is feminin. So there you go. Don’t go trying to guess the genders of romance language or latin nouns! After all, guerre (c’est la guerre!), is also feminin, and vagin (I’ll let you guess the meaning of that one), is masculin. This could be interesting for theory, as the signifier seems to defy the signified.

304. Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient, mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux que nous ennuyons.

We often pardon those who bore us, but we cannot pardon those bored by us.

This sounds awkward. Take 2:

It is easier to forgive those who weary us than those who find us dull.

Or,

We sooner forgive one who bores us than one who finds us uninteresting.

To bore can also mean to burrow! Yes, a translation is often both more and less than the translated.

Next!

Oh, I found another Nietzsche and one of his contemporaries, Flaubert, would have savored!

308. On a fait une vertu de la modération pour borner l’ambition des grans hommes, et pour consoler les gens médiocres de leur peu de fortune et de leur peu de mérite.

A virtue was made of moderation in order to limit the ambition of great men, and to console mediocrities for their lack of fortune and merit.

Ouch.

Moving right along..

This one goes out to all the lovers…

324. Il y a dans la jalousie plus d’amour-propre que d’amour.

In jealousy there is more self-love than love.

Here’s a kind of anti-Machiavellianism:

320. Louer les princes des vertus qu’ils n’ont pas, c’est leur dire impunément des injures.

To flatter a prince for virtues he has not is to insult him with impunity.

A good portion of the aphorisms of another moralist, La Bruyère, is devoted to lambasting all the flattery that went on in the French court, particularly that of Louis XIV. I just started reading La Rochefoucauld tonight, but so far I prefer him to La Bruyère. La Rochefoucauld seems more polished, more concise. Most of his aphorisms are a few lines long, whereas those of La Bruyère are almost unwieldy. I remember them reaching down 10 or so lines, exquisitely written, but one has to read them over and over before being able to grasp what he’s getting at, whereas with La Rochefoucauld, his point hits you like a bat, after the first or second reading. That said, here’s an aphorism that comes to mind:

Run-on sentences are often more concise than those constructed according to the laws of grammar.

Back to La Rochefoucauld #320: One can flatter, to insult! Only you and the prince will be conscious of the stab (or, even better, he will wonder if you know or not), and he won’t be able to do anything about it: he would look rediculous if he punished someone for praising him. However, princes have ways to justify their actions, so this path is a tightrope. You better be a damn habile courtisan if you’re going to put this theory into practice..

This has to do with #329:

On croit quelquefois haïr la flatterie, mais on ne hait que la manière de flatter.

Sometimes one believes one hates flattery, but one only hates the manner of flattering.

323. Notre sagesse n’est pas moins à la merci de la fortune que nos biens.

Our wisdom does not depend less on our fortune than do our riches.

Materialism rears its lovely head! Continuing on…

321. Nous sommes plus près d’aimer ceux qui nous haïssent que ceux qui nous aiment plus que nous ne voulons.

We love those who hate us more than those who love us more than we would like.

This reminds me of a quote I came across on The Nietzsche Family Circus (where I go to get my Nietzsche fix when I wake up in the early morning, blinded by the light), which comes from Ecce Homo:

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

322. Il n’y a que ceux qui sont méprisables qui craignent d’être méprisés.

Only contemptible people fear being held in contempt.

That is all, for tonight, La Rochefoucauld seems to be a mine that I have neglected heretofore. There may be more to come.

No mullets were harmed in the making of this post.

Today I cleaned out my apartment’s bathroom. Actually, I didn’t just “clean the bathroom”. I went to town on the motherfucker. Literally. I rode my bike into town, walked into my local drug store, purchased several bottles of my favorite brands of cleaning products, as well as sundry sponges and a brush, returned to my apartment, entered my bathroom and proceeded to wreak havoc on the place. This was a TKO, and were Hunter S. Thompson still with us, he would have written a piece comparing my performance to that of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential debates. Hell, I would have made Norman Bates proud. If we were to compare the before and after shots of my bathroom to haircuts, my bathroom as it was before the supreme annihilation of every trace of uncleanliness would be the kind of ragged, untamed mullet revelling in its own glorious savagery that you would find should you venture into North Carolinian towns sporting names such as Tarboro, Burnsville, Clyde, Huntersville, Faith, Grifton, Dudley, Grimesland, Marvin, Jonesville, Tobaccoville, Earl, La Grange, Troutman, East Arcadia, Waynesville, and last as well as least, Dunn. Where the hell was I? Haircuts. The only haircut which could possibly represent my bathroom in its current state of hyper-purity would be the virgin crewcut of an army recruit on the first day of boot camp, just as he’s getting out of the barber’s chair. No, that would be too late. Imagine the crewcut just before the barber’s foot hits the hydraulic peddle.

F

First, an a priori: I will not be the kind of writer who writes about what kind of writer he’s not going to be. The words on the screen form a brick when I look at the group of words I’ve thrown together, without focusing on individuals, without reading, sort of like how a crowd of people when looked at from afar form an entity that seems to be more than an accumulation of individuals, or the line of cars on the other side of the highway which seems to form one long serpentine force moving unremittingly on. Who is controlling this force? Surely none of the drivers, for if one driver pulls over, the show goes on. Even if there is an accident, the debris is pushed off the road and the show goes on, as it must. Is Capitalism the driving force? Literary space is a subterranean cave. It happens inside, where no one can see, in the darkness of the human mind which has yet to be illuminated by neuroscientific activity. My writing grows down, slowly but surely, stalactite-like. Water evaporates from larger bodies of water, such as Lake Michigan. It is pulled up into the depths of the atmosphere, and vagabonds over the earth until the Fall, onto the surface of the world which we inhabit, where most of it finds its way into the subterranean space we walk over without ever contemplating. The water then seeps down through the ground until it reaches a crevice of the upper surface of a cave. A drop crawls along the ceiling, until it reaches a point where there is no more declination. Here it begins to stretch down, while water continues to accumulate. It reaches, longs for that which attracts it, the earth’s mass, until, piff! Away she goes!

The water has collected calcite during its travels through the soil. As it shoves off into the space opening up before it, it leaves in its wake a tiny amount of this calcite, which agglomerates with each drop coming after the first (the first mentioned here–water has of course been falling in the cave for millenia), eventually forming a protuberance which grows, as more and more sediment collects on the end of what has become a stalactite. This word was once the last word, but is now relegated to the status of one word among others. The drops of water are the conscious or unconscious thoughts of the writer who midwifes the words onto the page, thoughts which are of course unknown to s/he who reads, as well as to the “writer”. I am not trying to be Freudian, I am only claiming (not pointing out, because that would be to assume that I am pointing to some evident truth, whereas I am only taking a position among others, I am creating truth as I go along, as we all do whenever we talk or write) that a lot more goes on inside my head than a stream of consciousness. Where exactly does the “writer” situate him or herself in all of this? The subconscious of the writer is the water which carries the calcite. The calcite-laden water drips to the floor, the first drop creating a thin ring of deposit where it lands. Succeeding drops build the deposit up, forming another protuberance, which reaches up and solidifies itself. Correction: “It” does not reach up, it is built up by an outside force, by the word or calcite from the writing activity or stalactite detritus, or even, the Fall. It is therefore a passive activity which may appear upon first reflection as active. This stalagmite is the readerly experience, whereas the stalactite is the writerly experience. Both reach toward each other. There is a space between the two, which may only be bridged after a colossal amount of time: It is rumoured that stalactites have met stalagmites, forming a column. There is however no evidence for this reunion. There are only words, only residue.

From one memory another springs

As I woke up this morning, I found myself thinking about my post from the night before, and another memory, poof, sprung up from the apparently fertile soil of my past memories. Thinking of the ill-fated quiz in first grade made me think of another experience with Mrs. Strickland. It was nearing the end of a school day, and I was stoked. The last hour of every school day is always magic. Well, I can’t remember what I did, whether I talked too loud, talked when I wasn’t supposed to talk, pushed another student, or said something mean. Whatever it was, Mrs. Strickland was not amused. She brought me to the corner of the classroom, pointed at me and told me “Don’t you DARE move an INCH until I tell you you can!!!!” I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something to this effect. I was terrified of her in general, and after such a diatribe, I wasn’t about to attempt any funny business. It must have been around 2:45 by then, and school was out at 3:00. Mrs. Strickland left me in the corner and went back to the other kids, until a few minutes before 3:00, when everyone lined up in front of the door to go to the school buses which would ferry us home. Only she didn’t tell me I could leave, and I was too afraid to ask. Now when I think back, it seems so obvious, school is school, but at the end of the day, the teacher can’t keep students after school’s out, at least not in first grade, no one in first grade has detention. When it’s time to go home, it’s time to go home. But I thought she was so angry that she was going to keep me after, and bring me to the principal’s office, which I found a way to earn an annual trip to, no more, no less. It was fate that I would go to the principal’s office once a year. Perhaps I will delve into this phenomenon in later posts. So the students filed out, and I stayed in the corner of the classroom. They had been gone for a while, probably 10 minutes, and there I was, in the corner, thinking about what deep shit I’d gotten myself into, and I don’t think I ever regretted anything, but this may be because when I think back, it becomes a kind of film, with no feelings attached to it, its no longer in first person, I remember standing in the corner, but it’s no longer first person, maybe because now I understand the context. When I was younger I would find myself in this kind of situation often enough, with one authority figure or another angry with something I’d done. After 10 minutes, Mrs. Strickland returned. She hadn’t noticed that I was still in the corner when she assembled all the other kids in the class and left for the buses, and she’d forgotten about her commandment. Which is understandable, considering she had 25 first graders to look after for seven hours a day. She looked at me and was horrified. Danny! But.. And then it connected! She grabbed my hand and we ran out the door! We ran down the hallway, hand in hand, Mrs. Strickland and I, and burst out the main entrance, still running! Think The Graduate, only a middle-aged teacher-looking woman and a six year old boy running after a schoolbus, instead of Katharine Ross as erstwhile bride and Dustin Hoffman, who still looks like he’s in his early-twenties. The bus still hasn’t quite made it out of the parking lot! Wait! The bus stopped! We ran all the way, she repeating my name over and over, “Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny…” I got up on the bus, and off it went, bus #200. The End.

A la recherche du quiz diabolique

This is a memory from first grade. I drew devil pitchforks on a quiz instead of answering the questions. I put the little arrows on the points to distinguish them from farmer pitchforks. Mrs. Strickland brought me into her office, in the back of the room where the other students wouldn’t hear what we were talking about, and she looked at me in my eyes, and asked me why I drew devil pitchforks on my quiz. I remember her being very upset. I am not totally certain of this, but as the event comes back to me after all these years, I have an image of her looking at me with tears in her eyes, dabbing them with tissues that she pulled from her purse. I think she had a certain idea of who she thought I was, that was destroyed when she found pitchforks in the place of answers to math or grammar questions or whatever kind of quiz it happened to be. Imagine being a first grade teacher in Durham, North Carolina, and one of your students, instead of writing 3, 4 or 5 after 2 + 2 = ____, writes HAIL SATAN!!! It would be a frightening as well as frustrating experience, would it not? I am now certain that I remember correctly. I remember her pulling those tissues from her purse, and I felt bad, even though I didn’t quite know what for. I remember her asking me, “Why?” I didn’t know why I drew the devil pitchforks. I suppose I had a fascination with evil, but I didn’t want to be evil. When I was drawing them, it wasn’t because I wanted to become evil, it was a “let’s see what happens if I..” sort of drawing. It wasn’t premeditated. I just started drawing them as I went along and I thought, can I really draw devil pitchforks on my quiz instead of answering the questions? Maybe I won’t erase them! And I didn’t! I turned in my quiz with the other students, and forgot about it. I believe it was the next day that she called me into her office for the interrogation. I think she may have been afraid I was possessed by the devil! Or perhaps mentally deranged, but this is less Faustian, so I’ll stay with the first idea. I had sold my soul to the devil by age six, in exchange for super-human dodgeball skills. Of course I couldn’t tell her why I had done what I did. What is a six-year-old supposed to say to such a question: Why? And now that I am here, what do I know about my motivations when I was six? My speculations most probably have nothing to do with what actually went down. I mumbled whatever came to my mind, I can’t remember what I told her, all I remember was that she wasn’t satisfied. She kept pointing to the pitchforks, asking me “Why, Danny, why?” I was just trying to figure out why what I had done was so important. I didn’t even remember what I had done until she showed me. “Oh yeah…” I think I gave Mrs. Strickland a lot to think about.