Comments on: The Irony of Henry Adams: The most misunderstood quote evah! https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/ Sun, 10 Apr 2022 23:16:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: dean https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971736 Sun, 10 Apr 2022 23:16:39 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971736 Sadly the influence of the “faculty” at one of Michigan’s biggest embarrassment, Hillsdale “College”, is spreading.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10705123/Hillsdale-College-plans-open-charter-schools-fight-against-lessons-gender-race.html

]]> By: Christopher Winter https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971254 Thu, 07 Apr 2022 18:22:14 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971254 “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

To me, this seems self-evident, though the result(s) may be good or ill. But I don’t limit it to teachers; I think everyone affects eternity to some degree, however small. This goes along with a maxim I like:

“From each action, you draw an entire universe.”

Although, to take it literally, I guess I would have to change the Adams quote to say that a teacher “effects” eternity.

]]> By: RickA https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971238 Thu, 07 Apr 2022 14:47:57 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-971238 Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this!

]]> By: Steve Easterbrook https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523163 Sat, 06 Sep 2014 16:14:03 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523163 I’ll nominate “the road not taken” as another equally widely misunderstood quote. It’s about regret. The key quote about “the road less traveled” is saying that in the future he’ll claim that’s what he did, even though it’s not true:
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/section7.rhtml

]]> By: Jim Thomerson https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523162 Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:20:15 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523162 I understand that introductory courses at Harvard, these days, are often taught by Nobel Laureates.

]]> By: Joshua Zelinsky https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523161 Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:19:03 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523161 Middle Ages were not as bad as people make them out to be. A lot of good science and math was done then. If not for people like Oresme, people like Galileo and Newton would not have done what they did. The Middle Ages were a low point but they weren’t as bad as they are often described.

]]> By: Chris https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523160 Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:38:24 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523160 Wow! Thanks for the education on this! … Oh wait… Lol

But seriously, my in-laws are grade school educators, I’m sending them to this blog post. Time to do what I do best and continue my dissillusionment campaign!!! Thanks for letting me stand on your shoulders, be sure to thank Mr. Borowicz for the use of his.

It’s amazing that a warning, in the form of education’s most profound truism, whose message requires context, has been turned Ito a brain dead affirmation of a teachers place in the world.

Taken a step further, this is a literal example of “ignorance is bliss”

Those who forget the past… n’ all that.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523159 Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:31:32 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523159 Yes. This is a confusion of “context” and “original intended meaning” and other concepts. “Context” as a word has become one of those sounds humans utter without much meaning, like “um” and “uh.”

]]> By: Kengi https://gregladen.com/blog/2022/04/07/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523158 Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:26:13 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/09/15/the-irony-of-henry-adams-the-m/#comment-523158 Great bit of literary history! I’m always amused at how some songs or quotes get used and have their original meaning changed so dramatically.

I remember commenting to a marketing professor about how some car company was using a song about the dire effects that drug dealing had on society (Walkin’ on the Sun by Smash Mouth) in their car commercials. I thought it odd that a major company would want to associate their product with a song about drug dealing.

He told me that the original context of the song didn’t matter. The marketing campaign would give the song a new context rather than the song giving the car a new context.

Kind of scary in a way.

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