Showing posts with label tolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tolerance. Show all posts

Friday, July 9, 2021

Live and Let Live

A column of quotable quotes

Image by Syaibatul Hamdi from Pixabay


This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — A Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. Viewing with a tablet or a monitor is highly recommended for maximum enjoyment.  
Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"My conservatism is fairly avant-garde, and it is a kind of rebuke to conformity." -Roger Scruton


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I'm a collector of quotable quotes. I have a bunch of 'em recorded in a notebook that uses the dead trees format. Nowadays, I save 'em in a computer file. Live and let live is an oft-quoted ancient proverb that I wish all the kids on our modern playground would make a point of observing.

I hope the subtitle of this column will result in Readers Digest sending me a cease and desist letter since they've been running a feature of the same name in their magazine since before I was born.

{Wait-wait-wait. Why would you...}

With a bit of luck, and a well-written press release released on a slow news day, it might turn into my 15 minutes of fame.


Let's begin by pandering to my fellow Citizens of the Republic with a tasteful quote that any right-thinking person will agree with.

"The journey to spiritual awakening is better with french fries." -Bilquis

{Whoquis?}

Bilquis, an ancient goddess as portrayed by a very um, unusual (and now canceled) Starz network show titled American Gods. My fellow fans and I have been left holding the bag and there wasn't even a rushed, half-assed attempt to provide a conclusion of some sort.

{Are there temporarily delicious but now cold McDonald's fries that have morphed into plastic in that bag?}


"The American dream is the pursuit of happiness as each defines it." -I. Dunno

{I. Dunno? Who's that?}

A figment of my lame sense of humor; I can't find the source of the quote. It's from an article I read. I scribbled it down so I'd add it to my collection later but neglected to write down the name of the author.

Once upon a time, I was taught by Sister Mary McGillicuddy that the intention to live and let live was implied by our American experiment even though it has been imperfectly realized, to put it mildly.

"I want the playground to have minimum rules and maximum fun. I want just enough rules to give everyone an equal shot at some swing time and neutralize the bullies." -me

For example, I don't begrudge the Wokies the right to believe whatever they want. "...I will defend to the death, etc." -Voltaire.

However, if I were king, modern-day Piagnoni, followers of multiple modern-day Savonarola's, striving to remain in the good graces of the Intersectional Inquisition so they will have a place card designated, sustainably manufactured seat at the table waiting for them in Heaven Utopia,

And,

Who behave like members of the Westboro Baptist Church who've decided to become transnational Christian Jihadies...

Would have to undergo mandatory cult recovery therapy (yeah, it's a thing) to avoid having their voting privileges canceled. Also, Bonfires of the Vanities would be outlawed, even at mostly peaceful protests.

{Not everyone enjoys your obscure references.}

Merely established history. Follow the links for a free lesson. "...there is nothing new under the sun." -Ecclesiastes 1:9


"Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?" -T.S. Eliot

Mr. Eliot published the poem Choruses From the Rock in 1909. The quote above is from that poem. I don't...

{I had no idea you were a poetry aficionado.}

I'm not. However, I've been threatening to become more than an on-again/off-again dabbler since high school.

I don't know where or when I first encountered the line but I was immediately struck by the way it neatly and simply summed up one of the dilemmas of the Dizzinformation Age although it was written at the beginning of the previous century.

Too much information can easily lead to too little knowledge... and fresh ways and means to con, manipulate, and exploit Joe and Joan Bagadonuts for fun and profit.

I have it on good authority that Eliot was referring to spiritual knowledge, that he was referring specifically to the state of Christianity in his day, but it works in a somewhat different and modern context. I wouldn't describe myself as a Christian, but I wouldn't persecute...

{I see what you did there.}
I wouldn't persecute a Christian baker that takes his faith seriously if he refused to create a cake masterpiece for my — I self-identify as an African-American lesbian (traditional) woman who could pass for Hale Berry's more attractive sister — coming out party. I'd just find another master baker and skip tossing a casual contempt grenade through the door of his bakery.

Live and let live. Sister Mary would be proud.


Addendum: On a related note...
Lookie what I found at a website called Grammarist (.com).

{Lookie?}

"Live and let live is a proverb that is hundreds of years old."

Yada-yada-yada...

"To live and let live means to be tolerant, to live one’s own life in the manner that he [she/they] wishes and to allow the other fellow [person] to live his [her/their] life in the manner that he [she/they] wishes. The philosophy of live and let live does not necessarily embrace or condone the differences of others, but it promotes accepting the differences of others without trying to change them."

Yada-yada-yada...

"The phrase live and let live comes from the Dutch. It is found in The Ancient Law-Merchant, a collection of commercial law compiled by G. De Malynes in 1622. This code of law was written by medieval merchants to govern trade throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor."

Imagine, Pasty Patriarchal money-grubbing capitalists understood what the concept of diversity and inclusion should mean, and made it the law.  

{Yada-yada-yada? And what about equity?}

As to the yada-yada-yada, follow the link. As to equity, entrepreneurs trying to survive in the real world understand that equity (defined as equality of outcome) is an adolescent dream that could easily become/is becoming a nightmare.    


Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


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