Another good quote along those lines is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Ralph Waldo Emerson. http://www.bartleby.com/100/420.47.html
This is a very fluid and chaotic situation so I'd be more concerned if he said one thing and stuck to it
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?
- John Maynard Keynes
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do I contradict myself? / Very well then, I contradict myself. / (I am large, I contain multitudes)
- Walt Whitman's “Song of Myself”
> My moral system is organized around a utilitarian principle of greatest good for the greatest number — that which adds value cannot be wrong. It did not bother me therefore when I was handed consulting reports that had been stolen from our competitors. If the information in those reports would help us improve our client, then who could say we were doing wrong? Like downloading MP3s, it was a victimless crime.
My reply is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson [1]:
> A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do. Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool’s word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Where does that leave us? Where does that leave Emerson? I guess one could be an apologist and focus on "foolish," but that turns the quote into, "Consistency is bad, except when it isn't."
Why do people even care about random quotes from a crazy transcendentalist? Just because something is old and sounds profound doesn't mean it's correct.
When I was younger this quote didn't even make sense to me- I had no idea what Emerson was trying to express. As I've gotten older, not only did it start to make sense, but I honestly think this quote is one of the few examples of true wisdom that humanity has acquired.
I think of this whenever I see the (many, many, many) examples of people who latch onto an abstract philosophy, then proceed to drive it into the ground without a hint of skepticism or devil's advocacy as they try to apply it every aspect of the world around them. People can become so enamored of an idea that they'll go to great lengths to warp their view of the world to conform to that idea, rather than update the idea based on what they see around them. Religious fundamentalists are easy targets here, but I'm thinking more of the extreme devotees of the various political perspectives.
Frequently these ideas/philosophies/etc. are very good ones, but when the philosophy becomes so enshrined and calcified that it ceases to evolve, it can become something that might guide you near the truth but prevent you from ever actually attaining it.
This is actually what I think of every time someone defends RMS by citing his consistency over the years. Without getting into the rightness or wrongness of his beliefs, his consistency is not a virtue. The flip side of this is the monologue in Diamond Age about hypocrisy- the tendency people have to use an example of apparent hypocrisy or inconsistency to discredit everything a person says or does.
TL;DR consistency is not necessarily a sign of truth and hypocrisy is not necessarily a sign of falsehood. Neither the world nor the minds of the people in it are perfect, so neither perceived consistency nor perceived hypocrisy are 100% accurate indicators of truthiness. Nothing absolves us of our responsibility to think for ourselves and maintain a healthy skepticism about the world around us at all times.
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