Our own much beloved Big Dog, El Coyote El Whatever, often makes reference to his mentor professor, Doc Pangloss.
But, I suspect many folks don’t know the real story behind Doc Pangloss — a character in Voltaire’s novel, Candide: or, All for the Best (1759).
To understand today’s QOTD, I beg you to read the following brief synopsis (from Spark Notes) concerning the two main characters in the book.
CANDIDE: — The protagonist of the novel, Candide is a good-hearted but hopelessly naïve young man. His mentor, Pangloss, teaches him that their world is “the best of all possible worlds.” After being banished from his adopted childhood home, Candide travels the world and meets with a wide variety of misfortunes, all the while pursuing security and following Cunégonde, the woman he loves. His faith in Pangloss’s undiluted optimism is repeatedly tested. Candide is less a realistic character than a conduit for the attitudes and events that surround him. His opinions and actions are determined almost entirely by the influence of outside factors.
PANGLOSS: — As Candide’s mentor and a philosopher, Pangloss is responsible for the novel’s most famous idea: that all is for the best in this “best of all possible worlds.” This optimistic sentiment is the main target of Voltaire’s satire.
Pangloss’s philosophy parodies the ideas of the Enlightenment thinker G. W. von Leibniz. Leibniz maintains that an all-good, all-powerful God had created the world and that, therefore, the world must be perfect. When human beings perceive something as wrong or evil, it is merely because they do not understand the ultimate good that the so-called evil is meant to serve.
Voltaire illustrates two major problems inherent in Pangloss’s philosophy. First, his philosophy flies in the face of overwhelming evidence from the real world. Pangloss is ravaged by syphilis, nearly hanged, nearly dissected, and imprisoned, yet he continues to espouse optimism. He maintains his optimistic philosophy even at the end of the novel, when he himself admits that he has trouble believing in it. Voltaire advocates the induction of ideas from concrete evidence; Pangloss, in contrast, willfully ignores any evidence that contradicts his initial opinion.
Second, Pangloss’s philosophy encourages a passive and complacent attitude toward all that is wrong in the world. If this world is the best one possible, than there is no reason to make any effort to change things perceived as evil or wrong.
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Trump said the Vegas shooting was “an act of pure evil”.
In fact, when it comes to the question of evil — why God allows it — one of the most often used used arguments (and according to some scholars such as, Leibniz, the strongest argument) is that this world IS, in fact, the best of all possible worlds.”
If that is true, then we should all agree with TBP poster, Hondo — who literally rejoices at the death of 59, and wishes the 500+ would also die … for God’s will has been accomplished in this best of all possible worlds.
If it is not true, then Christiaity has no clear answer as to why God would allow the mass carnage in Las Vegas. Appeals to “mankind’s free will” or “mankind’s sin nature” or, really, any other rationalization still always boils down to this world being the best possible one of all other possibilities …. otherwise God himself is either impotent or evil for not choosing a better option.
It is a helluva conundrum!
Q1: Who is correct regarding this being the best of all possible worlds: Doc Pangloss or Voltaire?
Q2: Depending on your answer; how shall we then live?
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OOOH…. First. To be edited.
Q1: Who is correct regarding this being the best of all possible worlds: Doc Pangloss or Voltaire?
In many ways, Pangloss’s approach is valid. After all, what we have is what we must cope with; making the “best of all possible” worlds out of the reality we are faced with. However, if there is indeed an all-powerful God, then perhaps the idea that when Evil seems to overcome Good, God can take that evil and use it toward good. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a lot of examples of that, though many a Good Christian Preacher has tried to convince me it is so.
Q2: Depending on your answer; how shall we then live? Isolated and alone.
I am glad this has nothing to do with current events directly.
I don’t think your if>thens must be agreed to. They are assertions that only seem inherently logical if you believe them.
No shit, Einstein. That’s pretty much true for every argument ever .. one either agrees or disagrees with the premises and/or conclusions.
A more useful response would be to state your reasons as to why you feel a certain way.
It is what it is. Get up every morning and enjoy life. It doesn’t last forever!
Digging round in my digital files I ran across AWD pic & obituary this morning. A great reminder time on this rock is finite.
#1. Pangloss is wrong. He’s like the Christian Scientist who teaches that illness is the result of faulty thinking. Our minds can create a positive attitude in the midst of pain, but we cannot deny that pain exists.
#2. Micah 6:8 sums it up nicely: “He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
So, Pangloss being wrong means this is NOT the best possible world according to God’s plan. OK, I can live with that.
It it the 2nd best? 3rd best? Perhaps even the least best? Just take a guess.
And then tell me why God gave us that one.
None of us have the slightest idea. Ignorance is infinite and by definition that means that is can never be eliminated or even diminished no matter how much knowledge we obtain. Is existence infinite? Another unknown, but for all intents and purposes–from our very limited point of view–it is. God, as a concept, is something that fills this infinite void of ignorance in one fell swoop. The question poised in XTC’s “Dear God” (“Did You make mankind or did we make you?) is certainly valid intellectually, but completely pointless–it will always remain to us on this Blue Dot an unknown.
So, even in this short comment the conundrum is revealed…we can go ’round and ’round for the rest of our short time and never come any closer to any kind of concrete answer to these kinds of questions. So, what to do? Keep asking, of course, and keep contemplating the infinite from time to time, but don’t get mired in it…AND THEN be able to forget it and just be.
Sensetti nails it….”It IS what it IS.” No matter how far I go down either path (God or No God, Accident or Purpose, however you wish to define it) our very existence makes no fucking sense. It is a mystery which may or not make it a miracle.
But it IS…we exist, whatever that means, and the only known version of conscious existence lasts for only a short while. Get up each day and enjoy it.
“It is what it is”, a popular phrase and I wonder what it truly means. Is it an actual philosophy of life … one that should be pursued?
I suppose it depends on what the meaning of is, is? Or, maybe what “it” is?
Maybe it’s accepting that the world is complex and ambiguous, so just move on.
Maybe it’s a statement of life’s limitations.
Maybe it’s a statement made by the speaker that they don’t want to categorize or analyze whatever “it” is that “is”.
But, more often than not, I take it as a sign of resignation. You see some tattooed freak with a dozen facial piercings …. oh well, “it is what it is”. Another mass shooting in pick-your-city … oh well, “it is what it is”. And, so on, ad infinitum.
Lastly, it could simply mean –“Stucky, STFU !!”
As always, I enjoyed your post, Drud.
It ALWAYS comes down to semantics. Defining terms is a crucial first step that is almost always ignored in debating/discussing.
I was using “IS” in the biggest possible sense–what exists as existence is known/defined by us humans. Vague, to be sure, but it is useful to put the largest boundaries as possible around terms, then work down to the specific.
So, yes, I agree that the saying “It is what it is” is most commonly used in resignation (the reason my wife hates it so much). However, I was using it as an expression of our deep and abiding ignorance of what existence really is/means–and expressing how little that ignorance really matters when you simply ignore it.
Jeebus, I have just laid waste to grammar and introduced the paradoxical nonsense of “ignoring our ignorance” and yet I stand by the comment.
Life is what it is. Don’t waste time trying to figure it out, just live it with a passion.
No one knows! Humans have been trying to answer that question for eons. Christians believe a perfect creation was ruined by evil. There is also a promise this evil will be defeated one day. That’s the best I can do.
No one gets to do anything more than speculate on this existential question.
Optimism is a bias. And a projection. Take your nervous systems as you find them. If you can. Control is an illusion. And the compulsion to control is taproot that keeps the tree alive, & keeps it irrigated in blood. A doubletap root, call it. I will continue to live as I have until I stop. So will everybody else.
My Father and I read that book together, a chapter a night, out loud when I was 13. I did it with my oldest Son about the same time.
It was an excellent adventure tale and my memory of Pangloss was that delusional optimism is a mistake.
I prefer the proverb of the Chinese farmer- “it is neither good, nor bad”.
What would help is context. Voltaire was teaching us about his time as much as he was a moral lesson. Remember this guy was an early version of the SJW, but he was also repeatedly imprisoned by his own government for his words. Classic liberal with street cred. AND he was a supporter of the Monarchy. Go figure.
Well, I read it in third grade so I don’t recall the politics of it. I only remember that it involves an earthquake, a war, and all the unfortunate stuff that happens to Candide.
I started out quoting real-life individuals here and then decided it would be simpler to use this character because he is a teacher of sorts and it gives the TBP reader the option of believing the shit my Pangloss said or brushing him off as a fool, which Voltaire’s Pangloss is.
Perhaps George Lucas also read Candide. His Star Wars series have a lot of common themes and characters:
Candide is like the unknowing Luke Skywalker who is one day abruptly removed from his comfortable life, and Cunegonde, who is like the reluctant Chewbacca; taken along for the ride.
Pangloss, like C3PO (see also Dr Smith from Lost in Space), has all the answers but they solve nothing. When folks assert that “Things happen for a reason” they are channeling old Pangloss. In the end, Candide, like myself, wakes up from his blind allegiance to Pangloss saying, we must tend our own gardens – a libertarian precept.
El Whatever
Perhaps you addressed this previously and I missed it …. but WHY are you posting as Anonymous?
It’s annoying as shit cuz I think Anons are chicken-shit cowards …. which I know you are NOT.
Sounds like you had a very very cool dad!
Q1: Voltaire. I can’t stand newage thinkers that think nothing bad can happen if they have positive thoughts.
Q2: Hard to do and one of those do as I say but not as I do, but: Try to stay in the present moment as much as possible (See Warren Zevon’s last appearance on the Letterman show: “Really enjoy that sandwich”) and live each day as if it was your last.
Anyone who thinks this world is the best of all possible worlds is flat out bat shit funny farm straight jacket pill tray moon howling insane.
We are one or two generations away from completely losing our humanity, that part of us that lets us even ask these sorts of questions. It is being stripped right out of us, replaced with a screen and soon a feeding tube and a nest of sensors. What comes after that isnt going to be pretty.
Definitely not the best of all worlds.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gotquestions.org/amp/Satan-god-world.html
Hey, leave me out of this. I don’t exist.
But why does God allow evil in the world? Because there is no God (not to be a jerk).
For every day life, you need to look to the positive, otherwise nothing would ever get done. There are those interruptions, but they are generally few and far between for most of us.
The poor fucks in North Korea – as long as they are really ignorant of the rest of the world – they won’t know they’re suffering.
God did make a perfect world .It was humans that sinned and through sin came Death with the corruption of everything including creation itself . It’s in the Bible Meathead.
One more thing if EC gets Big Doggie status I want Big Doggie status .Look I much I have educated you Meatheads on the dangers we are facing.( Damn Jews )( Damn Muslims )(Damn Negroes ) .I want my big ? status enough already.
You have also educated us on the stupidity of Xians who take the bible literally.
Yours in Odin,
Diogenes
BB, Stucky seems to have nominated me but I still have to go before the commission and I’m afraid it may not turn out so well.
https://youtu.be/W78GyBn2GBY
Anon (formerly with the lovely name, El Coyote)
Your Big Dog status will shortly be voided if you don’t stop posting as Anon.
stuck,
coyotes aren’t big dogs anyway,they’re cowardly and conniving little howlers–
however,they do have a knack for adapting and surviving–
bb
Your Big Dog application will be processed when …. it’s a cold day in hell.
God — “You can have your Paradise if you can keep it.”
Perfect world? Credit God.
Imperfect world? Blame humans.
Priceless.
Free Will.
Free Willy.
I know it’s rayciss, but Godamm it’s funny. Enjoy:
Stucky’s willy is funnier then Drud’s willy.
Wasn’t there a “no bitches” rule when I first got here? And, I’m sure that was in the “canine” sense.
Roger “Verbal” Kint: Keaton always said, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him.”. Well, I believe in God and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze.
Roger “Verbal” Kint: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
from The Usual Suspects
Personally I agree with Verbal Kint – evil comes not from gød, nor göd but from people, some sick, some blind, all imperfect. And when evil (the devil) presents itself, we can appreciate gOd (the unknowable and recognizable but spelled with an all seeing circular eye in the middle); or spelled with two circular human like eyes in the middle, aka what is knowable = good. Are you spell bound? The Lord of Misrule and history will judge our deeds as we try to interpret events and bring to action what we believe.
I’ll show this beautiful , blonde hair ,blue eyes nurse and maybe I will sweep her off her feet . She will know I’m a big ?
The world is a windmill. Not the best of all possible windmills. Just a windmill. Tilting at windmills, no matter the delusional dress, is the occupation of people who prefer not to see, who are not wired to see, who gotta’ have Holy Sees. Cathoholics. Cue every image of people being sucked into whirling vanes & blades you’ve ever seen. Like Terminal Velocity, Sheen, Gandolfini, wind farms. Sow it, reap it, blow your GMO seeds into other’s property & then sue…right up until the little big horn is Sioux-rammed up your keester.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip5jQNL-qIY
Huh. I still have a copy of that book sitting in my library. I think we read it in high school or possibly first year university but can’t be sure, my memory for those things is poor.
Worst, best better? This much is evident – God gives us free will, we know this because He gives us a choice regarding the most important aspect of our existence which is our relationship with Him. We can choose to believe and embrace or not. The state of our world and its health is not God’s making, having given us choice, it is ours. As such – it is what it is.
God loves man and if you understand love well enough you also understand that it is more about instruction than control. God wants man to love him of his own volition because if it is forced it is not love. He instructs but he does not coerce. Thus the world ends up being a reflection of our consciousness and our choice and not of God’s love, goodness or even anger.
God instructs and waits. Man chooses to learn or not. In our world our choices dictate best, better, worse.
very good foxy and better yet,you kept it simple–
Beautifully said FM
I love the double meaning of the movie title “As good as it gets”.
Never having wrestled God, I understand that I’m speaking with little experience. Today’s news says that the grave of Santa Claus was found underneath a Turkish church. Wasted more time believing in a dead guy, damn. Stucky’s questions make me laugh. The comments that follow, make me think. I agree, it is what it is.
That saying and ‘neither here nor there’ and ‘things happen for a reason’ are dumb. They are all fatalistic baloney designed to deny god without actually saying that there is no god. They sound like philosophical wisdom but they suck at explaining anything. The new mantra is ‘if only everybody was white’.
I wonder how many folks would be OK with the Vegas shooter if he had only targeted beaners and blacks? Let’s hear it from the genocidal maniacs, Captain Asshole, I’m looking at you.
On Question One, William S. Burroughs:
Consider the One God Universe: OGU. The spirit recoils in horror from such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Because He can do everything, He can do nothing, since the act of doing demands opposition. He knows everything, so there is nothing for him to learn. He can’t go anywhere, since He is already fucking everywhere, like cowshit in Calcutta.
The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. It’s a flat, thermodynamic universe, since it has no friction by definition. So He invents friction and conflict, pain, fear, sickness, famine, war, old age and Death.
His OGU is running down like an old clock. Takes more and more to make fewer and fewer Energy Units of Sek, as we call it in the trade.
The Magical Universe, MU, is a universe of many gods, often in conflict. So the paradox of an all-powerful, all-knowing God who permits suffering, evil and death, does not arise.
“What happened, Osiris? We got a famine here.”
“Well, you can’t win ’em all. Hustling myself.”
“Can’t you give us immortality?”
“I can get you an extension, maybe. Take you as far as the Duad. You’ll have to make it from there on your own. Most of them don’t. Figure about one in a million. And, biologically speaking, that’s very good odds.”
— From The Western Lands
On Question Two, Frank Zappa:
Do what you wanna
Do what you will
Just don’t mess up
Your neighbor’s thrill
‘N when you pay the bill
Kindly leave a little tip
And help the next poor sucker
On his one way trip. . .
— From The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
ubercynic reads the wild things, a couple of crazies, despite the fact T4C likes Zappa. Naked Lunch is weird. How do you like Charlie Manson’s writing, uber?