Creative Muses 01
"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. Samuel Butler" Discuss.
When I was a student I used to know a man who, when asked what he did for a living, said he was in the business of redistributing scarce resources. He was a burglar, of course - and he was telling the truth, although with a certain … slant. I was still young and I found it amusing, at the time. I suppose one might say that it was truth-telling with style.
I did not quite realise the corruptive nature of that form of truth until one of the Bledloes broke the news that,
“Someone has given your little gaff a tickle.” My room had been turned over and someone had taken every valuable item, included treasured photographs in a silver frame and a Dryche of Mestala - I sometimes hope that the latter ate the thief, but had the thing still been capable of holding a charge it would not have been in my hands. Not at that age.
I understood much more about the actual, hands-on reality of burglary during and after that experience, and I understood much more about telling the truth with wit, charm and the intent to mislead.
It doesn’t always take wit or charm, either. The Biology and Munitions teacher did not refer to experimental creatures as tortured, frightened animals (or demons.) He called them “Preparations”. Was that a lie or the truth?
I enjoy reading and I perhaps think about language more than most. I study - labelling theory. Putting a de-humanising label on someone to objectify them. For instance - is it murder to kill a vampire? Of course not, the creature is dead already. Is it murder to kill a demon? Is it murder to kill a psychopath? Is it murder to kill an enemy soldier? Is it murder to burn a witch? Many generations said that it is not.
The dehumanisation of the victim, re-classification under labels and the semantic distortion of the outrages that follow. Right. For various reasons I gave this a lot of thought - not least because I was involved with a group that were interested in deconstructing the concepts of right and wrong, when I was Ripper young.
Buffy could have fought Glory the Hell-Goddess to her last breath. Glorificus looked human - and I suspect that she was becoming more humanised by the minute - but Buffy knew that she was not. The extent to which Glory was a danger to Dawn would have motivated her, too.
Ben was another matter. Was it truth or lie to think that Ben was human? No matter. It wasn’t a moment for quibbling. It was a moment for action, and there was only one person who could take that action, at least, without being opened to further corruption. My soul scarred years ago. I said later that it didn’t trouble me at all.
Samuel Butler’s statement is a glib distortion of the truth, worded to sound sophisticated and to appeal to the credulous - much like the comment of the burglar whom I once knew.
Muse; Rupert Giles,
Fandom BTVS
words; 518
When I was a student I used to know a man who, when asked what he did for a living, said he was in the business of redistributing scarce resources. He was a burglar, of course - and he was telling the truth, although with a certain … slant. I was still young and I found it amusing, at the time. I suppose one might say that it was truth-telling with style.
I did not quite realise the corruptive nature of that form of truth until one of the Bledloes broke the news that,
“Someone has given your little gaff a tickle.” My room had been turned over and someone had taken every valuable item, included treasured photographs in a silver frame and a Dryche of Mestala - I sometimes hope that the latter ate the thief, but had the thing still been capable of holding a charge it would not have been in my hands. Not at that age.
I understood much more about the actual, hands-on reality of burglary during and after that experience, and I understood much more about telling the truth with wit, charm and the intent to mislead.
It doesn’t always take wit or charm, either. The Biology and Munitions teacher did not refer to experimental creatures as tortured, frightened animals (or demons.) He called them “Preparations”. Was that a lie or the truth?
I enjoy reading and I perhaps think about language more than most. I study - labelling theory. Putting a de-humanising label on someone to objectify them. For instance - is it murder to kill a vampire? Of course not, the creature is dead already. Is it murder to kill a demon? Is it murder to kill a psychopath? Is it murder to kill an enemy soldier? Is it murder to burn a witch? Many generations said that it is not.
The dehumanisation of the victim, re-classification under labels and the semantic distortion of the outrages that follow. Right. For various reasons I gave this a lot of thought - not least because I was involved with a group that were interested in deconstructing the concepts of right and wrong, when I was Ripper young.
Buffy could have fought Glory the Hell-Goddess to her last breath. Glorificus looked human - and I suspect that she was becoming more humanised by the minute - but Buffy knew that she was not. The extent to which Glory was a danger to Dawn would have motivated her, too.
Ben was another matter. Was it truth or lie to think that Ben was human? No matter. It wasn’t a moment for quibbling. It was a moment for action, and there was only one person who could take that action, at least, without being opened to further corruption. My soul scarred years ago. I said later that it didn’t trouble me at all.
Samuel Butler’s statement is a glib distortion of the truth, worded to sound sophisticated and to appeal to the credulous - much like the comment of the burglar whom I once knew.
Muse; Rupert Giles,
Fandom BTVS
words; 518