Walter and Matt discuss Twain’s masterpiece fable about a town that too loudly trumpeted its progressive virtue, only to see its hypocrisy ruthlessly exposed
On September 8, 2022, Oberlin College announced that the Trustees had determined the college "would not pursue the matter further" and had agreed to pay Gibson's Bakery the sum of $36.59 million representing the judgement with interest.
I vaguely remember that. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a terrible thing, but it is zero surprise that Oberlin College embraced it with enthusiasm.
It's long been an expensive, very liberal, very progressive, very intellectually trendy for the upper middle class PMC. Oberlin makes sure they send plenty of students of color and no doubt different gender identities to join the ranks of righteous oppression along with their white students.
I admit I'm biased by personal experience. I met two graduates of Oberlin, and they were both insufferable liberals who really believed that the rest of us had a duty to bow down to their righteous intellects. Came right out and said if you didn't you were no better than a bigoted Republican.
I'm a Marxist who inherited the berserker gene from my Viking ancestors. My response was colorful enough neither ever spoke to me again. Mission accomplished.
I believe that. These guys graduated in the late 80s or early 90s. Academia did its best to purge anything resembling philosophical materialism from the curriculum starting in the late 70s, and it was replaced by idealism, which includes postmodernism and all this woke nonsense.
One of many fantastic quotes from the Twain story is "a proof once established is better left so." One of the characters decides that, even if new information comes along, he's proven to himself that HE must be the good guy, and he's not going to change his mind. This really resonates for me with how people handle moral dilemmas. No reason to question your own goodness, you've PROVEN it to yourself. Just because there are these inconvenient new facts showing you're probably wrong about something, it doesn't mean you should listen.
Outstanding choice of story, and again, really wonderful discussion about it.
“A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice…..Then he made school boards.”
Thanks Matt and Walter for all the background regarding Mark Twain!! I had seen the title as to this town of Hadleyburg but had never read it. Feel sorry for those that have never encountered Mark Twain's stories as you both indicate they are brilliant.
Thank you for adding the literary twist to the podcast. I always find your comments on the events of the week interesting, but the literary discussion is refreshing. I think it is healthy for our brains to ponder something other than the mind-numbing news of the day.
Twain’s genius was trained and tempered during his stint in Virginia City, Nevada as a young editorialist. He learned a thing or two regarding true humor well served and understood by the everyman, his great mentor Artemis Ward is considered to be the first stand up comedian, these two were almost instant friends (Twain was prepared to roast Ward) as Ward’s delivery and sense of timing overwhelmed Twain’s funny bone. Interestingly it was Ward (well known in the East) who submitted The Celebrated Leaping Frog of Calaveras County to the NYT. Ward died young of TB.
These days I think lies and hypocrisy are the very foundation of society. The "justice" and "fairness" and "truth" concepts were made to confine these natural tendencies within some kind of bound. As sayeth Carlin, "Society is based on bullshit. Without bullshit it couldn't function." Sort of like an automobile needs oil.
I dunno. Maybe hypocrisy is better than revelling in evil. I often imagine Prez Biden appearing in television in full military uniform, a chestful of medals clinking. He grasps the lectern and bellows, "I will drink blood from the skull of Putin. This I swear!" The crowd goes crazy. He continues, "the world will bow down before us, forever!" Wild cheering, fistfights break out controlled by cops with truncheons.
Yes, it would be effective, but only if Biden loses his balance, tips the lectern over while trying to steady himself and tumbles off the stage into the laps of reporters from the New York Times.
I am a graduate of Oberlin College (1961, chemistry), and was an announcer and then director of the college radio station as a senior. We would have loved to have a discussion like this on our station. Thank you!
I went to Oberlin for two years, 1967 - 1969. In those days it was a hotbed of drug use, anti-war activity, and general craziness. It was very left leaning, but in those days leftism stood for free speech, anti-war, question authority. Today it's the opposite.
Some of my ex-dorm mates and I have stayed in contact, and most have been disgusted with Oberlin's behavior in this issue with Gibson's Bakery.
The crux of the issue was that because the shoplifter was a POC the students, encouraged and assisted by the college, accused the bakery of racism. The college also cancelled, or severely cut back on its food service contract with the bakery. Those actions caused the bakery to almost go bankrupt. The reward did seem a bit excessive. I think it was reduced slightly on appeal, but it was still substantial. I hope Oberlin learned a lesson, though I doubt it.
I heard that Oberlin is now suing its insurance company over this issue. Not sure why. Maybe they didn't insure against willful stupidity.
Thank you for your information and comments, which I agree with.
The Gibsons in fact visited the current President when she took office and said they would like to settle the dispute, but she refused, and hence the court-ordered payment of ~$36 million to the bakery.
What a nice conversation on a fabulous story. Usually I have to brace myself for the weekly review of news and it weighs heavy on me. Thank you for this
Twain had the extremely rare quality of inexhaustibility. No matter how much you have gotten out of his work, there is always more, and his canvas was the entire human condition. He’s bigger than any conceivable reader. The only other artists I know with this quality are Shakespeare and Bob Dylan, who also share with him an absolute perfection of word choice. (There may be others in languages other than English whom I don’t know about….)
His closest modern successor, stylistically, is Vonnegut. Roald Dahl also shares his qualities of extreme accessibility and unsparing vitriolic observation. But they were merely first rank, Twain (and Shakespeare and Dylan) are zeroth-rank.
It is hard to forgive Milton his Paradise Regained but Paradise Lost is America's metaphysical framework and I believe in secular humanist liberal democracy.
There were none of my people in Elizabethan times. We had to wait for Cromwell the blood thirty homicidal maniac to allow us to return to England's fair shore.
"No Man is An Island. " John Donne 1571-1631
Forgive me my impudence but I believe Jesus was a Humanist not a theologian.
Milton felt up to the task of "justifying the ways of God to Man" and probably shouldn't have attempted the sequel. (OTOH, Samson Agonistes is better than most people will ever know.)
One of my favourite events is the Milton /Shakespeare debates and I understand why Milton wrote a sequel. Nobody affirms the joy of serving in Heaven or the agony of ruling in Hell.
Jefferson wrote his American Bible The life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth in 1820.
Milton was secretary to The Lord Protector. Milton understood why Jesus wept.
Milton was a Deist and understood there is no such thing as Divine Justice.
Empathy is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.
I am often told how terrible the world would be without religion. In Quebec religion is banned in our public places. Race, gender and religion are not real in Quebec's secular humanist liberal democracy.
I just got up to answer the phone but my wife had already picked up . It was our Health Department making sure WE were ok and making sure we knew not to go out in this heat.
That is what REAL democracy looks like
In a real democracy the people rule and the Princes serve.
It doesn't detract from Shakespeare's brilliance or his love of Elizabeth.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown."
Milton's Satan and Jesus are two sides of the same coin.
When Elizabeth died the English Civil War became the bloodiest war in English history. The Roundheads and Cavaliers were all Christian Soldiers and Cromwell led because he was most adept at slaying Catholics.
Here in Quebec The Thomas More Institute is a liberal Arts learning center dedicated to lifelong learning.
In America the Thomas More Society is a collection of tyrannical legal pedants dedicated to creating lifelong misery.
It is the same Thomas More and the same Utopia.
It is time for the law to serve justice. The Supreme needs to serve in Heaven not rule in Hell.
I've been working on an essay entitled "Government Sanctifies Nothing" for about 3 years, but litigation demands keep me occupied and I can't get 'round to it. There is no Justice here, only some small measure of justice, some times, when Forgiveness is extended, Grace given, and gratefully received.
On September 8, 2022, Oberlin College announced that the Trustees had determined the college "would not pursue the matter further" and had agreed to pay Gibson's Bakery the sum of $36.59 million representing the judgement with interest.
Here is the report on Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_College
I vaguely remember that. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a terrible thing, but it is zero surprise that Oberlin College embraced it with enthusiasm.
It's long been an expensive, very liberal, very progressive, very intellectually trendy for the upper middle class PMC. Oberlin makes sure they send plenty of students of color and no doubt different gender identities to join the ranks of righteous oppression along with their white students.
I admit I'm biased by personal experience. I met two graduates of Oberlin, and they were both insufferable liberals who really believed that the rest of us had a duty to bow down to their righteous intellects. Came right out and said if you didn't you were no better than a bigoted Republican.
I'm a Marxist who inherited the berserker gene from my Viking ancestors. My response was colorful enough neither ever spoke to me again. Mission accomplished.
I know an Oberlin grad but that was the 1978 variety so not like that.
Her ex-husband though has been bitten good by the woke bug. He was an old friend but I couldn't stand it. Cut him out of my life completely.
I believe that. These guys graduated in the late 80s or early 90s. Academia did its best to purge anything resembling philosophical materialism from the curriculum starting in the late 70s, and it was replaced by idealism, which includes postmodernism and all this woke nonsense.
I was a grad student at UC Santa Cruz in about 1992 so I experienced this. I never dreamed it would become so pervasive.
It was the handing out of leaflets by students & profs that the Bakery was racist because it pursued a shoplifting incident - is that right Kathleen?
Pretty much and a dean (now gone elsewhere) who pushed that narrative.
I remember that dean now, quite the expensive hire. Wonder if insurance or endowment pays...
Thanks
One of many fantastic quotes from the Twain story is "a proof once established is better left so." One of the characters decides that, even if new information comes along, he's proven to himself that HE must be the good guy, and he's not going to change his mind. This really resonates for me with how people handle moral dilemmas. No reason to question your own goodness, you've PROVEN it to yourself. Just because there are these inconvenient new facts showing you're probably wrong about something, it doesn't mean you should listen.
Outstanding choice of story, and again, really wonderful discussion about it.
Two of my favorite Mark Twain quotes are:
“A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice…..Then he made school boards.”
Thanks Matt and Walter for all the background regarding Mark Twain!! I had seen the title as to this town of Hadleyburg but had never read it. Feel sorry for those that have never encountered Mark Twain's stories as you both indicate they are brilliant.
Thank you for adding the literary twist to the podcast. I always find your comments on the events of the week interesting, but the literary discussion is refreshing. I think it is healthy for our brains to ponder something other than the mind-numbing news of the day.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens would love this interview
“[O]ur inability to accept our fallen nature is probably our greatest liability….”
I love that adjective “fallen.” A deeply theological term. Not good, not evil. Fallen.
Indeed. We are, as another literary master said, “a glorious ruin.”
Love it. We’re in the no bullshit zone here, where writers should always be.
Twain’s genius was trained and tempered during his stint in Virginia City, Nevada as a young editorialist. He learned a thing or two regarding true humor well served and understood by the everyman, his great mentor Artemis Ward is considered to be the first stand up comedian, these two were almost instant friends (Twain was prepared to roast Ward) as Ward’s delivery and sense of timing overwhelmed Twain’s funny bone. Interestingly it was Ward (well known in the East) who submitted The Celebrated Leaping Frog of Calaveras County to the NYT. Ward died young of TB.
These days I think lies and hypocrisy are the very foundation of society. The "justice" and "fairness" and "truth" concepts were made to confine these natural tendencies within some kind of bound. As sayeth Carlin, "Society is based on bullshit. Without bullshit it couldn't function." Sort of like an automobile needs oil.
I dunno. Maybe hypocrisy is better than revelling in evil. I often imagine Prez Biden appearing in television in full military uniform, a chestful of medals clinking. He grasps the lectern and bellows, "I will drink blood from the skull of Putin. This I swear!" The crowd goes crazy. He continues, "the world will bow down before us, forever!" Wild cheering, fistfights break out controlled by cops with truncheons.
Would such frankness be preferable? Maybe not.
Yes, it would be effective, but only if Biden loses his balance, tips the lectern over while trying to steady himself and tumbles off the stage into the laps of reporters from the New York Times.
"Joan of Ark?" Come on, bumpkins.
Haha, I think Taibbi has enough subscribers to pay a proofreader! Now all I can think about is Saint Joan standing next to Noah feeding the giraffes.
Old Noah isn't a different branch of the same family, he's an entirely different family. ;-)
AI transcription.
I am a graduate of Oberlin College (1961, chemistry), and was an announcer and then director of the college radio station as a senior. We would have loved to have a discussion like this on our station. Thank you!
I went to Oberlin for two years, 1967 - 1969. In those days it was a hotbed of drug use, anti-war activity, and general craziness. It was very left leaning, but in those days leftism stood for free speech, anti-war, question authority. Today it's the opposite.
Some of my ex-dorm mates and I have stayed in contact, and most have been disgusted with Oberlin's behavior in this issue with Gibson's Bakery.
The crux of the issue was that because the shoplifter was a POC the students, encouraged and assisted by the college, accused the bakery of racism. The college also cancelled, or severely cut back on its food service contract with the bakery. Those actions caused the bakery to almost go bankrupt. The reward did seem a bit excessive. I think it was reduced slightly on appeal, but it was still substantial. I hope Oberlin learned a lesson, though I doubt it.
I heard that Oberlin is now suing its insurance company over this issue. Not sure why. Maybe they didn't insure against willful stupidity.
Thank you for your information and comments, which I agree with.
The Gibsons in fact visited the current President when she took office and said they would like to settle the dispute, but she refused, and hence the court-ordered payment of ~$36 million to the bakery.
Great discussion. Have ordered a Mark Twain collection of his short stories, excited to read them.
His travel nonfiction is wonderful too - laugh your way thru Europe
Hope that's in that book as well then!
What a nice conversation on a fabulous story. Usually I have to brace myself for the weekly review of news and it weighs heavy on me. Thank you for this
while the payoff for Gibsons may seen large. it killed a family member..
Twain had the extremely rare quality of inexhaustibility. No matter how much you have gotten out of his work, there is always more, and his canvas was the entire human condition. He’s bigger than any conceivable reader. The only other artists I know with this quality are Shakespeare and Bob Dylan, who also share with him an absolute perfection of word choice. (There may be others in languages other than English whom I don’t know about….)
His closest modern successor, stylistically, is Vonnegut. Roald Dahl also shares his qualities of extreme accessibility and unsparing vitriolic observation. But they were merely first rank, Twain (and Shakespeare and Dylan) are zeroth-rank.
I wouldn't put either Shakespeare or Dylan on my list. Orwell and Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire come to mind as peers of Twain.
Of course Leonard Cohen is my local favourite and Robbie Burns Ode on seeing a louse on a woman's bonnet in church is very special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsC-Aumx4dk
Dude, the Big Shak roolz.
I do not mean to diminish the Big Shak. I understand great literature and a keen understanding of human nature. I just use metric not avoir de pois.
But as Tennessee Ernie Ford might say BLESS YOUR5 PEA PICKIN HEART.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAWYh6dqEKk
It is hard to forgive Milton his Paradise Regained but Paradise Lost is America's metaphysical framework and I believe in secular humanist liberal democracy.
There were none of my people in Elizabethan times. We had to wait for Cromwell the blood thirty homicidal maniac to allow us to return to England's fair shore.
"No Man is An Island. " John Donne 1571-1631
Forgive me my impudence but I believe Jesus was a Humanist not a theologian.
Milton felt up to the task of "justifying the ways of God to Man" and probably shouldn't have attempted the sequel. (OTOH, Samson Agonistes is better than most people will ever know.)
Thanks Abject,
One of my favourite events is the Milton /Shakespeare debates and I understand why Milton wrote a sequel. Nobody affirms the joy of serving in Heaven or the agony of ruling in Hell.
Jefferson wrote his American Bible The life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth in 1820.
Milton was secretary to The Lord Protector. Milton understood why Jesus wept.
Milton was a Deist and understood there is no such thing as Divine Justice.
Empathy is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.
I am often told how terrible the world would be without religion. In Quebec religion is banned in our public places. Race, gender and religion are not real in Quebec's secular humanist liberal democracy.
I just got up to answer the phone but my wife had already picked up . It was our Health Department making sure WE were ok and making sure we knew not to go out in this heat.
That is what REAL democracy looks like
In a real democracy the people rule and the Princes serve.
It doesn't detract from Shakespeare's brilliance or his love of Elizabeth.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown."
Milton's Satan and Jesus are two sides of the same coin.
When Elizabeth died the English Civil War became the bloodiest war in English history. The Roundheads and Cavaliers were all Christian Soldiers and Cromwell led because he was most adept at slaying Catholics.
Here in Quebec The Thomas More Institute is a liberal Arts learning center dedicated to lifelong learning.
In America the Thomas More Society is a collection of tyrannical legal pedants dedicated to creating lifelong misery.
It is the same Thomas More and the same Utopia.
It is time for the law to serve justice. The Supreme needs to serve in Heaven not rule in Hell.
I've been working on an essay entitled "Government Sanctifies Nothing" for about 3 years, but litigation demands keep me occupied and I can't get 'round to it. There is no Justice here, only some small measure of justice, some times, when Forgiveness is extended, Grace given, and gratefully received.
We, also serve, who only stand and wait.
Goddamn this is great