{"id":18537,"date":"2016-11-11T08:54:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T13:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18537"},"modified":"2016-11-11T08:54:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T13:54:11","slug":"believing-in-what-cannot-be-believed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/believing-in-what-cannot-be-believed\/","title":{"rendered":"Believing in What Cannot Be Believed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: one of <\/em>30 Ways to Shock Yourself<\/a>, a Flickr album by Bre Pettis<\/a> (used here under a Creative Commons license). The images in this album apparently come from an old (1931) German book, <\/em>Elecktroschutz in 132 Bildern; this was an illustrated guide to the hazards of electricity in everyday life. The illustrations all feature these curvy red lines and arrows, indicating the path the electricity takes and the dangerous points of contact which make the path possible. The caption on this one — one of the more fanciful images — might be, “Do not milk a cow with its tail wrapped around a light pole, especially if you may end up sitting in the milk you spill.” This does seem like sound advice.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Credo<\/strong><\/p>\n

What good is poetry
\nif it doesn’t stand up
\nagainst the lies of government,
\nif it doesn’t rescue us
\nfrom the liars that mislead us?
\nWhat good is it
\nif it doesn’t speak out, denounce what’s going on?
\nIt’s nothing
\nbut harmless wordplay
\nto titillate and distract—
\nthe government knows it,
\nand can always get rid of us if we step out of line.<\/p>\n

That I believed in poetry,
\neven when I betrayed it,
\nthat I came back to its central meaning
\n—to save the world—
\nthis and only this
\nhas been my salvation.<\/p>\n

after C. Milosz<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Edward Field [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is—what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G. K. Chesterton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them—that he did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed, entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted pumpkinity<\/span>. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car<\/a> with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume that the same thing would happen again. I should not invest largely in pumpkins with an eye to the motor trade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G.K. Chesterton [ibid<\/em><\/a>.])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use<\/strong><\/p>\n

All these great barns out here in the outskirts,
\nblack creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.
\nThey look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.
\nYou say they look like arks after the sea\u2019s
\ndried up, I say they look like pirate ships,
\nand I think of that walk in the valley where
\nJ said, You don\u2019t believe in God?<\/em> And I said,
\nNo. I believe in this connection we all have<\/em>
\nto nature, to each other, to the universe.<\/em>
\nAnd she said, Yeah, God.<\/em> And how we stood there,
\nlow beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,
\nand spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,
\nwoodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.
\nSo instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,
\nits clouds in simple animal shapes we could name
\nthough we knew they were really just clouds—
\ndisorderly, and marvelous, and ours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ada Lim\u00f3n [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: one of 30 Ways to Shock Yourself, a Flickr album by Bre Pettis (used here under a Creative Commons license). The images in this album apparently come from an old (1931) German book, Elecktroschutz in 132 Bildern; this was an illustrated guide to the hazards of electricity in everyday life. The illustrations all feature […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Shocks of the fantastic, shocks of the real: 'Believing in What Cannot Be Believed'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,223,250,5,50,36,251,3477,4159],"tags":[66,185,3195,4439,4440,4441,4442,4443,4444,4445],"class_list":{"0":"post-18537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-books-as-books","11":"category-art","12":"category-06_writing","13":"category-language-writing_cat","14":"category-reading","15":"category-poetry-writing_cat","16":"category-fantasy-06_writing","17":"category-essays","18":"tag-gk-chesterton","19":"tag-electricity","20":"tag-suspension-of-disbelief","21":"tag-edward-field","22":"tag-ada-limon","23":"tag-safety","24":"tag-belief","25":"tag-bre-pettis","26":"tag-the-shock-of-the-fantastic","27":"tag-the-shock-of-the-real","28":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/elektroschutz132_cowandmilkmaid_brepettis_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C809&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4OZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18537"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18547,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18537\/revisions\/18547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}