#All is Grist

[theherdofturtles]

On Living for Posterity

by G.K. Chesterton

WE all remember the story of that excess of aspiration, in the sense of the use of aspirates, which led somebody to say of somebody, ‘If you give him a Hinch, he’ll take a Hell.’ Some recent extensions of social liberty have made the accident of the last word sound strangely like an omen. But what strikes me as even more curious is this: that there are some people who are perpetually demanding an ell but cannot be persuaded to accept an inch. They demand certain forms of social liberty in the large, but refuse them in the small, and especially in the solid. They are like people who should furiously demand a hundred head of cattle, and then flee in terror at the first appearance of a cow. Or they are like a king who should claim to rule the waves and be afraid to have a well or a pond in his own garden. The little more, and how little it is and how lightly they will take the larger responsibility! The little less, and what miles they will run in order to be worlds away!

For instance, I read in any number of New Leaders and Labour weeklies, and all sorts of papers supposed to be both progressive and popular, that the working-classes will now take over the government of the country; that the majority of manual workers will have their proper proportional right to rule in all matters of education and humanitarian reform; that the poor will at last inherit the earth. But if I say that one workman is capable of deciding about the education of one child, that he has the right to select a certain school or resist a certain system, I shall have all those progressive papers roaring at me as a rotten reactionary. Why the workman should be clever enough to vote a curriculum for everybody else’s children, but not clever enough to choose one for his own children, I cannot for the life of me imagine. If I say that a decent costermonger is to be trusted with a donkey, or a decent rat-catcher with a dog, I shall be denounced as an obstacle to humanitarian legislation. But there is no objection to trusting a crowd of costermongers and rat-catchers to decide about the humanitarian legislation. And what is true of these particular cases of proprietorship is true of the whole ease of property. When the meek inherit the earth, it must only mean that the mob inherits the earth. It must not mean that the man inherits even the smallest portion of the earth. The mob is meek enough, certainly, when it is thus herded to its pastures by its sociological and educational pastors. It does not really mean that the many sheep, but that the few shepherds, will rule over all the meadows. And when the nomadic shepherd finds himself confronted with the static or domestic peasant, with the man who is actually ruling his own small meadow like a realm, there is always a collision and a sort of civil war in the country-side. In any case, the original paradox remains: that it was regarded as a simple thing that all the meadows should belong to all the men, but a frantic and fantastic thing that any man should own any meadow.

But there is another ease that is even more curious. In the works of Mr. Wells, and all the typical Utopias and futuristic world-systems of recent times, it is incessantly and impressively repeated that we must live for the Future, for the Young, for the Rising Generation or the Babe Unborn. The traditional obligations of the past are nothing, and even the temporary contracts and compromises of the present are comparatively little; but we really do have a duty to the future generations. It is apparently the only duty that remains. While we are kicking our grandfather downstairs, we must take care to be very polite to our great-great-grandson, who is not yet present; and if a more enlightened ethic should ever justify us in painlessly poisoning our mother, it will be well to distract the attention by dreaming of some perfect Woman of the Future who may never need to be poisoned. These examples are quoted but lightly and from memory, but nobody will deny that current culture is in fact full of this notion of living for posterity. It is preached as a democratic doctrine in the democratic organs to which I have referred. But it is always the People as a whole that is to live for the Posterity as a whole.

But if we present precisely the same idea, in a present and practical form, it is called antiquated. Its practical form is called Marriage or the Family. It really does demand that a man and a woman should live largely for the next generation. It does demand that they should, to some extent, defer their personal amusements, such as divorce and dissipation, for the benefit of the next generation. And whenever we suggest that, a wail goes up about the wickedness and cruelty of depriving the poor dear parents of the innocent gaieties of divorce. How can a poor father get any real fun out of being divorced, if his enjoyment is to be dashed by a morbid memory of the existence of his own son? Nay, can we even be certain that the mother will keep up her high standard of dancing all night and every night, if there is a new-born baby who (with curious taste) is crying for her all night long? When the problem of Posterity is presented in this practical form, poor old Posterity gets the knock pretty badly. The Present suddenly becomes much more important than the Future; and the rising generation is a mere drag on the risen generation, which intends to dance until it drops. In this case also, the new thinkers are only thinking of the general, and are afraid to think of the particular. Just as the Socialist must not confront a peasant with one concrete piece of land, so the Sociologist must not confront the parent with one concrete piece of Posterity. Otherwise the new parents will fly screaming, and in some cases adopt measures to ensure that there shall be next to no Posterity at all.

I grieve to say that I am not moved to a profound respect or admiration for this intellectual compromise. If the social idealist would take his inch I might be ready to trust him with his ell. If he could trust a poor man with the care of a cow or a cottage, or a common or garden child, I might believe he was sincere in wishing to trust all poor men with the destiny of all cottages and cows. As it is, I suspect that he is not going to trust that destiny to a democracy of poor men, but to an official or oligarch appointed to organize the poor men. Similarly, if the new social philosophies fervently encouraged people to think more about domesticity and less about divorce, I might believe that they really were preferring the future generation to their own. As it is, I think they want to procure all possible pleasures and amusements for their own, including the mild amusement of prophesying some Utopia that can only come long after they are dead. If their novels and newspapers were less filled with the sublime spiritual liberation of eloping with the chauffeur, and more filled with the duty and dignity of remaining with the baby, I might admit that their faces are set towards the Future and their souls full of the song of ‘A Good Time Coming’. As it is, it seems to be an impatient and even pessimistic lyric about ‘A Good Time Now’.

I am not at all pharisaical about these weaknesses considered as weaknesses, but I am rather bored with the pretence that they are strong with the strength of vigilant Watchers for the Dawn. And I am increasingly tired of the whole tone of that inverted idealism, which is terrified when told to make use of a single talent, but quite confident of its fitness to rule over ten cities. But I suspect, if I may describe the fashionable mood in terms of old-fashioned sentiment, that these people are only filling the Castle of Indolence with the Pleasures of Hope.

[weirdmageddon]

what is the best panel in homestuck and why is this one of the top contenders. like its funny with no context but its even funnier with the context that prior to this dave exploited the hell out of time travel to monopolize their stock exchange and make bank

[time-is-restored]

btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.

it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'

and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.

and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.

like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.

hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.

[shredsandpatches]

Sometimes when you're having a slow week at work because you have a backlog of digitized materials and you're by yourself in the office you end up finding delightful things on JSTOR. Bottom!Faustus is totally canon.

Also, this read on the "talk not of a wife" exchange, from the same article, is not groundbreaking (nor is meant to be) but is extremely well articulated:

[mariocki]

The Brothers Rico (1957)

"Okay, okay, so nobody's blaming you! Let's just say something happened way back, huh? So maybe I am gonna die. But, Eddie, you've got even bigger troubles. You're gonna live."

[kite33]

been playing minestuck with wife (she's never heard of homestuck) and it's fun seeing her confused about all the random complicated bullshit like the alchemy system or captchaloging things

also she put a cruxtruder on my roof

[gothyanki]

thinking about her (Gith the Liberator)

Thinking about how much I wish she were the deliciously messy, morally complex, and believably motivated protagonist of a Space Lesbians vs. Empire trilogy instead of a flat villain/historical footnote in the Fiend Folio. Unfortunately, DnD.

[fabiansociety]

“emerich dreadway, am i a machine?”

emerich, stuttering: i- i’m not sure- i’m not the best person to ask that—

*adds another notch to the Emerich Is Hardlight column*

[allcheers-allfears]

All faith restored! Just finished Rift War. It has a excellent plot, good art(Paul Grist my beloved) and accurate characterisation. The pacing was done well and I could even follow when characters were on different timelines! It had (for the most part bc of course it was one whole story) each comic part focusing on a different Rift related shenanigan which I enjoyed. A good, predictable enough*, plot twist and plenty tension to keep you happy. All in all would definitely recommend if you're wanting to buy some EU this is a good start. (It is a full team story have no clue why the compiled graphic novel has only Ianto, Jack and Gwen on the cover...)

[deviant-nomad]

There is no “track.” This is your life. It ebbs and flows and twists and halts and speeds up. It all belongs.

You’re a human. Be alive to it all.

[theherdofturtles]

On no Longer being Very Young

by G.K. Chesterton

THERE are advantages in the advance through middle age into later life which are very seldom stated in a sensible way. Generally, they are stated in a sentimental way; in a general suggestion that all old men are equipped with beautiful snowy beards like Father Christmas and rejoice in unfathomable wisdom like Nestor. All this has caused the young people to be sceptical about the real advantages of the old people, and the true statement of those advantages sounds like a paradox. I would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know. It is a true proverb, no doubt, which says ‘There is no fool like an old fool’. Perhaps there is no fool who is half so happy in his own fool’s paradise. But, however this may be, it is true that the advantages of maturity are not those which are generally urged even in praise of it, and when they are truly urged they sound like an almost comic contradiction.

For instance, one pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be. We begin to see significance, or (in other words) to see life, in a large number of traditions, institutions, maxims, and codes of manners that seem in our first days to be dead. A young man grows up in a world that often seems to him intolerably old. He grows up among proverbs and precepts that appear to be quite stiff and senseless. He seems to be stuffed with stale things; to be given the stones of death instead of the bread of life; to be fed on the dust of the dead past; to live in a town of tombs. It is a very natural mistake, but it is a mistake. The advantage of advancing years lies in discovering that traditions are true, and therefore alive; indeed, a tradition is not even traditional except when it is alive. It is great fun to find out that the world has not repeated proverbs because they are proverbial, but because they are practical. Until I owned a dog, I never knew what is meant by the proverb about letting a sleeping dog lie, or the fable about the dog in the manger. Now those dead phrases are quite alive to me, for they are parts of a perfectly practical psychology. Until I went to live in the country, I had no notion of the meaning of the maxim, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’. Now it seems to me as pertinent and even pungent as if it were a new remark just made to me by a neighbour at the garden gate. It is something to come to live in a world of living and significant things instead of dead and unmeaning things. And it is youth in revolt, even in righteous revolt, which sees its surroundings as dead and unmeaning. It is old age, and even second childhood, that has come to see that everything means something and that life itself has never died.

For instance, we have just seen a staggering turn of the wheel of fortune which has brought all the modern material pride and prosperity to a standstill. America, which a year or two ago seemed to have become one vast Eldorado studded with cities of gold, is almost as much embarrassed as England, and really much more embarrassed than Ireland. The industrial countries are actually finding it difficult to be industrial, while the old agricultural countries still find it possible to be industrious. Now, I do not pretend to have prophesied or expected this, for a man may cheerfully call a thing rotten without really expecting it to rot. But neither, certainly, did the young, the progressive, the prosperous, or the adventurous expect it. Yet all history and culture is stiff with proverbs and prophecies telling them to expect it. The trouble is that they thought the proverbs and history a great deal too stiff. Again and again, with monotonous reiteration, both my young friends and myself had been told from childhood that fortune is fickle, that riches take to themselves wings and fly, that power can depart suddenly from the powerful, that pride goes before a fall, and insolence attracts the thunderbolt of the gods. But it was all unmeaning to us, and all the proverbs seemed stiff and stale, like dusty labels on neglected antiquities. We had heard of the fall of Wolsey, which was like the crash of a huge palace, still faintly rumbling through the ages; we had read of it in the words of Shakespeare, which possibly were not written by Shakespeare; we had learned them and learned nothing from them. We had read ten thousand times, to the point of tedium, of the difference between the Napoleon of Marengo and the Napoleon of Moscow; but we should never have expected Moscow if we had been looking at Marengo. We knew that Charles the Fifth resigned his crown, or that Charles the First lost his head; and we should have duly remarked ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’, after the incident, but not before it. We had been told that the Roman Empire declined, or that the Spanish Empire disintegrated; but no German ever really applied it to the German Empire, and no Briton to the British Empire. The very repetition of these truths will sound like the old interminable repetition of the truisms. And yet they are to me, at this moment, like amazing and startling discoveries, for I have lived to see the dead proverbs come alive.

This, like so many of the realizations of later life, is quite impossible to convey in words to anybody who has not reached it in this way. It is like a difference of dimension or plane, in which something which the young have long looked at, rather wearily, as a diagram has suddenly become a solid. It is like the indescribable transition from the inorganic to the organic; as if the stone snakes and birds of some ancient Egyptian inscription began to leap about like living things. The thing was a dead maxim when we were alive with youth. It becomes a living maxim when we are nearer to death. Even as we are dying, the whole world is coming to life.

Another paradox is this: that it is not the young people who realize the new world. The moderns do not realize modernity. They have never known anything else. They have stepped on to a moving platform which they hardly know to be moving, as a man cannot feel the daily movement of the earth. But he would feel it sharp enough if the earth suddenly moved the other way. The older generation consists of those who do remember a time when the world moved the other way. They do feel sharply and clearly the epoch which is beginning, for they were there before it began. It is one of the artistic advantages of the aged that they do see the new things relieved sharply against a background, their shape definite and distinct. To the young these new things are often themselves the background, and are hardly seen at all. Hence, even the most intelligent of innovators is often strangely mistaken about the nature of innovation and the things that are really new. And the Oldest Inhabitant will often indulge in a senile chuckle, as he listens to the Village Orator proclaiming that the village church will soon be swept away and replaced by a factory for chemicals. For the Oldest Inhabitant knows very well that nobody went to church in the days of his childhood except out of snobbishness, and that it is in his old age that the church has begun once more to be thronged with believers. In my capacity of Oldest Inhabitant (with senile chuckle), I will give one instance of a kindred kind. A man must be at least as old as I am in order to remember how utterly idiotic, inconceivable, and crazily incredible it once seemed that any educated or even reasonably shrewd person should confess that he believed in ghosts. You must be nearly the Oldest Inhabitant to know with what solid scorn and certainty the squire and the parson denied the possibility of the village ghost; the parson even more emphatically than the squire. The village ghost was instantly traced to the village drunkard or the village liar. Educated people knew that the dead do not return in the world of sense. Those who remember those times, and have lived to see a man of science like Sir Oliver Lodge founding quite a fashionable religion, are amused to hear a young man say the world is moving away from the supernatural. They know in what direction it has really moved.

[steponleaf]

Helloo music questions! 1, 23, and one of your choice!

1 - a song you like with a colour in the title

Greenpath (Hollow Knight Soundtrack)

hollow knight my beloved

23 - a song you think everybody should listen to

picking another one for this since someone else asked it too! ↓

De Selby (Part 2) by Hozier

this rewrote my brain chemistry and I feel everybody should have this same opportunity

my choice - 21 - persons name in the title

Francesca by Hozier

this was also a contender for 23 - I am so feral about this song it's actually not healthy

music ask game!

[bite-the-bloody-hand]

The heavy 'I thought doing this would bring you into Iomedae's light' overtones of Galfrey recruiting a non-Iomedaen Knight Commander is delicious to me.

So much of the Crusade (like many wars, naturally) is about the Propaganda and the legitimization of Iomedae's church. I wonder if Galfrey sees it as something of a personal failing if the KC chooses any path other than Angel, more than just the frustration and jealousy she admits to later. She is Iomedae's first Paladin, after all. She's staked so much on her new Goddess being what they need, what is necessary, and what is good for her people; for ALL people! The idea that she'd be unable to inspire one of her own vanguard to convert to her Goddess must be maddening.

It’s the way all ontological wars are waged, the insistence that if you aren't already a part of or willing to convert to the singular 'correct path' then failure is imminent. It's the fallacy that Only (unquestioned) Good Can Triumph Over (unexamined) Evil.

[crowscrafts707]

I WILL GET DIAMOND OR DIE TRYING GJFBDIDBD

gristTorrent+

A Homestuck suika game

I made this in a weekend, I am not good at this game LMAO

[mariocki]

New Scotland Yard: Shadow of a Deadbeat (2.6, LWT, 1972)

"Anything wrong?"

"Anything wrong? She knows how to contact Eddie Moffett, you can bet your life on it!"

"I'm betting Lee Collins' life on it."

"She's gonna go to the nearest phone and she's gonna tell Eddie just where Collins is."

"That's right."

"It's too dangerous."

"Oh, it's been dangerous ever since Moffett pulled that trigger!"

[datubooty]

lost the original poll post collecting data on monotropism score vs autism diagnosis but your girl sure scored higher than 99% of neuroboring people [even trying to give "I think know what this question is testing for so I'll go for my neuroboring setting" leeway] what could that mean