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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson Consistency is not a primary value. It's important, but it shouldn't be the only driver to do

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson Consistency is not a primary value. It's important, but it shouldn't be the only driver to do something.

RC_ITR 3y ago
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- hammock 3y ago
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  - RC_ITR 3y ago
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    - hammock 3y ago
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- dang 3y ago
  "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." Please don't do this here. You can make anyone look terrible by cherry-picking something garish, but it is not the curious conversation we want on HN. Moreover it gets trivially easier the further back in time you go. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    I wholeheartedly disagree. First of all, that quote was pulled to insult me - it's specifically a quote about individuals' minds, not ideas. That is in fact the one of the strongest criticisms of Emerson - he grounded idea-based discourse in commentary on the people who hold those ideas. I'd even go so far as to say 'English Traits' is the perfect example of that failure. Secondly, When a premise is supported only by a quote from an individual, it is completely acceptable to post a separate quote from that individual in response. Why should I believe Emerson about consistency when (hopefully) all of us here disagree with him about Norsemen? Maybe it would be flamebait if that was part of an argument, but his entire argument was "Emerson said this thing so it's true" and my argument was "Emerson also said this patently false thing." I know it feels bad to look at the whole gorey corpus of otherwise really cool historical figures, but encouraging people to believe anything they say without critical analysis is the true anti-curiosity stance. Thirdly, I agree it's easier to make people from the past look morally bad morally and that is precisely why we should not base our worldview on their quotes alone.
    - dang 3y ago
      I agree with you that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38222537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38222537 invoked Emerson as a cliché, which was neither interesting nor helpful. I think you took it too personally if you felt like it was specifically insulting you though. People regurgitate these things out of their own mental associations. It's not personal.
      - RC_ITR 3y ago
        Yeah this is an anonymous forum (which inherently requires a false persona) so it literally can’t be personal. BUT my point is that a common trope here is laundering bad behavior through quotes and revered historical figures - it’s something people often pick up when doing forensics in their youth. I’m fine being told I’m small minded (we all are, significantly more than we’d like to believe), but it feels weird to have it happen on here without people supporting the argument. For example, “How far do you extend the demand for consistency RC_ITR - should we allow the government to install cameras on public land facing our homes? in that case they’re simply capturing photons that exist in public areas.” That at least would have made me look foolish in a way that requires critical thinking.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson Consistency is not a primary value. It's important, but it shouldn't be the only driver to do something.

RC_ITR 3y ago

[flagged]

hammock 3y ago
[flagged]
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hammock 3y ago
    [flagged]
dang 3y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." Please don't do this here. You can make anyone look terrible by cherry-picking something garish, but it is not the curious conversation we want on HN. Moreover it gets trivially easier the further back in time you go. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree. First of all, that quote was pulled to insult me - it's specifically a quote about individuals' minds, not ideas. That is in fact the one of the strongest criticisms of Emerson - he grounded idea-based discourse in commentary on the people who hold those ideas. I'd even go so far as to say 'English Traits' is the perfect example of that failure. Secondly, When a premise is supported only by a quote from an individual, it is completely acceptable to post a separate quote from that individual in response. Why should I believe Emerson about consistency when (hopefully) all of us here disagree with him about Norsemen? Maybe it would be flamebait if that was part of an argument, but his entire argument was "Emerson said this thing so it's true" and my argument was "Emerson also said this patently false thing." I know it feels bad to look at the whole gorey corpus of otherwise really cool historical figures, but encouraging people to believe anything they say without critical analysis is the true anti-curiosity stance. Thirdly, I agree it's easier to make people from the past look morally bad morally and that is precisely why we should not base our worldview on their quotes alone.
  - dang 3y ago
    I agree with you that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38222537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38222537 invoked Emerson as a cliché, which was neither interesting nor helpful. I think you took it too personally if you felt like it was specifically insulting you though. People regurgitate these things out of their own mental associations. It's not personal.
    - RC_ITR 3y ago
      Yeah this is an anonymous forum (which inherently requires a false persona) so it literally can’t be personal. BUT my point is that a common trope here is laundering bad behavior through quotes and revered historical figures - it’s something people often pick up when doing forensics in their youth. I’m fine being told I’m small minded (we all are, significantly more than we’d like to believe), but it feels weird to have it happen on here without people supporting the argument. For example, “How far do you extend the demand for consistency RC_ITR - should we allow the government to install cameras on public land facing our homes? in that case they’re simply capturing photons that exist in public areas.” That at least would have made me look foolish in a way that requires critical thinking.