Daily Post September 5, 2022
A few maxims from La Rochefoucauld, a quote from Walter Lippmann, and a link to an article on the YouTube algorithm pushing false election claims.
Daily Text
Reflections Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims by Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
We will be continuing with the aphorisms from Baltasar Gracián this week, but I thought I would start by introducing some from La Rochefoucauld. La Rochefoucauld was a French moralist who lived from 1613 to 1680. His literary works include Reflections, Memoirs, and Letters. You can find a complete copy of the text here on Project Gutenberg.
What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and diverse interests, which fortune, or our industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valor or from chastity that men are brave and women chaste.
"Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies." Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. line 115.
Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many unexplored territories there.
[This is the first hint of the system the author tries to develop. He wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not suffice for him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his system and to confound pride, vanity, interest, and egotism with self-love. This confusion destroys the unity of his principle.—Aimé Martin.]
Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
The duration of our passions is no more dependent upon us than the duration of our life. [Then what becomes of free will?—Aimé; Martin]
Quote
Each of us lives and works on a small part of the earth's surface, moves in a small circle, and of these acquaintances knows only a few intimately. Of any public event that has wide effects we see at best only a phase and an aspect.
Walter Lippmann
I think this quote is an important one for us to keep in mind. Even though our world has expanded with the reach of technology, we are still getting the information secondhand. We need to be aware that we only see parts of things.
Link
This article from ars Technica discusses the online echo chamber and how the YouTube algorithms pushed election fraud claims.
While the article is based on one side of the political spectrum, this issue impacts us all, no matter our beliefs. We must realize that what we see online isn’t always the truth and isn’t even an accurate portrayal of the issue's significance.