Remember those 1980’s car commercials, “You can learn a lot from a dummy” which showed crash test dummies in unbelted crashes, etc.? I believe these preceded the plethora of books for dummies. Even a 19th century poet who seems to have led a crazed life and died in what most charitably can be called “suspicious circumstances” can be learned from. In my mind he gets some “Christian” cred, if that’s even a thing, for having died this away according to a 1992 biography: “’Having become enfeebled from exertion he became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time, then gently moving his head he said, “Lord help my poor Soul” and expired’’” (Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy (Paperback ed.). New York: Cooper Square Press). I didn’t read this book but he appears to be quoting a 1987 source. To sum up, even though, his life was ribald, fallen, and his death dubious, he died crying to the Lord for mercy.
But I think we can learn something from his short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, at least from the last line of it which is in French. I think I’ve observed elsewhere that if in the mid-19th century you could print a book and sell it in America with the last line in French, it must be that many if not most had a working knowledge of that langue. The last line is “‘de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas.’”
You can look up for yourself the arguments about how this is to be translated – they don’t seem all that compelling to moi. WordRefernce.com says “It means deny what is, and to explain what is not.” This book is the first, to my knowledge, featuring the detective who by paying attention to small details sees what others cannot. This last French line explains how the average gumshoe proceeds.
Well this blog has nothing to do with detectives, but with what my Confessional Lutheran pastor observed in a 2023 Bible class. He said – I can’t remember if he was quoting or referencing someone else – “Liberals complicate the simple and simplify the complex.”
These are my examples not his. Think what a mess, an absolute mess, they have made with the simple, most basic distinction between male and female? And think how they treat the very complex issue of climate by saying that just one less plastic bottle can do so much?
This is a form of denying what is and explaining what is not, and it’s definitely not a creation of postmodernism, but a facet of fallen humanity. And to paraphrase Alabama, the group not the state: The closer we get to the end the further we fall. We’ll be over the edge now in no time at all. We ‘re falling faster and faster with no time to stall. The closer we’re getting to the end the further we’re falling.
We’re to the 1984 point of denying 2 + 2 = 4 and explaining that it equals 5. Most are okay with that, and see nothing wrong with it, they think this is real progress.
