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-- Men of words and Men of action.

Men of words and Men of action.

An excerpt from 'The Club Dumas', by Arturo Perez-Reverte:

"Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?" said Borja, watching Corso closely. "There's nothing like that sheen, the gold on leather, behind the glass...Not to mention the treasures these books contain: centuries of study, of wisdom. Answers to the secrets of the universe and the heart of man." He raised his arms slightly and let them drop, giving up the attempt to express in words his pride at owning them all. "I know people who would kill for a collection like this."

Corso nodded without taking his eyes off the books. "You, for instance," he said. "Although you wouldn't do it yourself. You'd get somebody to do the killing for you."

Borja laughed contemptuously. "That's one of the advantages of having money - you can hire henchmen to do your dirty work. And remain pure yourself."

Corso looked at the book dealer. "That's a matter of opinion," he said. He seemed to ponder the matter. "I despise people who don't get their hands dirty. The pure ones."





I tend to agree with Corso. Not that being accountable excuses all actions, but to me it shows better character when a man is willing to step up to the plate. There's something so rat-like and cowardly about a man who won't "get his hands dirty."


Discuss.

Are you talking about just the people who pay / convince others to do bad stuff for them?

Or people who always pay others to do things in general?

Interesting, I was just reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's "notes from the underground" and it goes something like this...

excerpt ---

With people who know how to revenge themselves and to stand up for themselves in general, how is it done? Why, when they are possessed, let us suppose, by the feeling of revenge, then for the time there is nothing else but that feeling left in their whole being. Such a gentleman simply dashes straight for his object like an infuriated bull with its horns down, and nothing but a wall will stop him. (By the way: facing the wall, such gentlemen; that is, the "direct" persons and men of action; are genuinely nonplussed. For them a wall is not an evasion, as for us people who think and consequently do nothing; it is not an excuse for turning aside, an excuse for which we are always very glad, though we scarcely believe in it ourselves, as a rule. No, they are nonplussed in all sincerity. The wall has for them something tranquillising, morally soothing, final, maybe even something mysterious ... but of the wall later.) Well, such a direct person I regard as the real normal man, as his tender mother nature wished to see him when she graciously brought him into being on the earth. I envy such a man till I am green in the face. He is stupid. I am not disputing that, but perhaps the normal man should be stupid, how do you know? Perhaps it is very beautiful, in fact. And I am the more persuaded of that suspicion, if one can call it so, by the fact that if you take, for instance, the antithesis of the normal man, that is, the man of acute consciousness, who has come, of course, not out of the lap of nature but out of a retort (this is almost mysticism, gentlemen, but I suspect this, too), this retort-made man is sometimes so nonplussed in the presence of his antithesis that with all his exaggerated consciousness he genuinely thinks of himself as a mouse and not a man. It may be an acutely conscious mouse, yet it is a mouse, while the other is a man, and therefore, et caetera, et caetera. And the worst of it is, he himself, his very own self, looks on himself as a mouse; no one asks him to do so; and that is an important point.
Now let us look at this mouse in action. Let us suppose, for instance, that it feels insulted, too (and it almost always does feel insulted), and wants to revenge itself, too. There may even be a greater accumulation of spite in it than in l'homme de la nature et de la verite. The base and nasty desire to vent that spite on its assailant rankles perhaps even more nastily in it than in l'homme de la nature et de la verite. For through his innate stupidity the latter looks upon his revenge as justice pure and simple; while in consequence of his acute consciousness the mouse does not believe in the justice of it. To come at last to the deed itself, to the very act of revenge. Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache. Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it will recall it all, it will go over and over every detail, it will invent unheard of things against itself, pretending that those things might happen, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it will begin to revenge itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in trivial ways, from behind the stove, incognito, without believing either in its own right to vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, knowing that from all its efforts at revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself, while he, I daresay, will not even scratch himself. On its deathbed it will recall it all over again, with interest accumulated over all the years and ... But it is just in that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in that conscious burying oneself alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in that acutely recognised and yet partly doubtful hopelessness of one's position, in that hell of unsatisfied desires turned inward, in that fever of oscillations, of resolutions determined for ever and repented of again a minute later; that the savour of that strange enjoyment of which I have spoken lies. It is so subtle, so difficult of analysis, that persons who are a little limited, or even simply persons of strong nerves, will not understand a single atom of it. "Possibly," you will add on your own account with a grin, "people will not understand it either who have never received a slap in the face," and in that way you will politely hint to me that I, too, perhaps, have had the experience of a slap in the face in my life, and so I speak as one who knows. I bet that you are thinking that. But set your minds at rest, gentlemen, I have not received a slap in the face, though it is absolutely a matter of indifference to me what you may think about it. Possibly, I even regret, myself, that I have given so few slaps in the face during my life. But enough ... not another word on that subject of such extreme interest to you.


------

beautiful isn't it? well, sometimes idility is the best way to carry on certain with certain aspects of life (such as revenge). i am not a practicant of this ideology, i consider myself a man of action but it's always healthy to analyze those individuals, who intelligently, prefer indifference rather than 'action'...

quote:

Originally posted by walcott Interesting, I was just reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's "notes from the underground" and it goes something like this...

Sounds a lot like Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment: weak and passive people build up anger against strong and active ones, and it festers inside them.

Well, Nietzsche & dostoevsky were both 'underground' thinkers that rebelled against the social and political movements of their times, "socialism" and "cathloicism/christianity". From my understanding, they both fought any doctrine that was aimed at controlling the minds of a group of people or society.

very good jbj, very good...

hey jbj, i think you're going to enjoy this...

http://www.poli.duke.edu/ugrad/2003...ses/impaper.pdf

I think you can take it.

Re: Men of words and Men of action.

quote:

Originally posted by jennypie I tend to agree with Corso. Not that being accountable excuses all actions, but to me it shows better character when a man is willing to step up to the plate. There's something so rat-like and cowardly about a man who won't "get his hands dirty." Discuss.

This is bullshit. A man who won't get his hands dirty is most likely a boss. It doesn't mean he never has or never will get his hands dirty ever, it just means that he's careful and he's no fool.

so Jenny, does that mean you respect me more because I jerk off rather then going to the rub and tug?

Re: Re: Men of words and Men of action.

quote:

Originally posted by Akridrot This is bullshit. A man who won't get his hands dirty is most likely a boss. It doesn't mean he never has or never will get his hands dirty ever, it just means that he's careful and he's no fool.

Wow! boom, gold! exactly, joe the plumber is strong but stupid, he can follow directions, let him do the dirty work.

the weak & patient, the fisherman calls the shots from his desk, his mind has mapped all the possibilities and his use is of intelligence.

you need to re-read "lord of the flies" my lady friend...

Unless, of course, by dirty work she means fisting her ass hardcore. In that case, I believe we'd all have no problems getting our hands dirty. She'd enjoy it immensely, too.

I do have to agree that just because one has retained someone else to do their dirty work doesn't mean they didn't get their hands dirty. Really, if a CEO decides to lay off 1000 employees but it is left to the employees' supervisor(s) to deliver the news then who has made the difficult decision... who got their hands dirty?

good point.

hiring "henchmen" you still get your hands dirty.

A man is fully cognizant of what his henchman does, yet can at the same time have a sense of no wrongdoing because it�s not actually him who carried out the deed. Dreaming up an idea is one thing; actually doing it in real life is something completely different. I admire those smart enough to get other to do their dirty work. Ability to dictate actions while keeping your hands clean is a skill.

This is what keeps good people good people when they're faced with having to do bad things.

quote:

Originally posted by spanglo Ability to dictate actions while keeping your hands clean is a skill.

Keeping their hands legally clean perhaps, but morally and ethically? I'd go to jail rather than live my life knowing I was morally corrupt (if I killed someone and had a chance to get away with it for example)

What if the person you had killed raped your young daughter or sister and given them aids? Would you still rather go to jail?

Aversion to some subjective feeling of impurity serves no practical function - although there may be other reasons to avoid "dirty work." And for that matter, I question the intelligence of someone who is persuaded that the manifestation of their will is any less their act because they carry it out at a higher level of abstraction.

In either case, it's best to act according to the circumstances. If you want something done right, it may be best to do it yourself. But the marginal benefits of some activities may not justify the opportunity cost of the time invested in them; to the extent that they are still desirable, delegation may be an attractive option...

Re: Men of words and Men of action.

quote:

Originally posted by jennypie I tend to agree with Corso. Not that being accountable excuses all actions, but to me it shows better character when a man is willing to step up to the plate. There's something so rat-like and cowardly about a man who won't "get his hands dirty." Discuss.

+1

nothing pisses me off more in life than passive/aggressiveness

Is this really about people unwilling to get their hands dirty or is this about those same people acting sanctimonious when faced with the consequences of their bidding?

I think it's quite fucking obvious why you wouldn't want to murder somebody yourself or why you would network yourself in a manner to have others do favours and such for you.

However, I can see why you would detest people who keep themselves out of law's reach yet are quite responsible nevertheless. And then how these same people could conceivably act as though their hands are clean, that they've done nothing 'wrong' and that distance from actionable minions is all they need to feel absolved. These people are obviously lying to themselves before others.

But on that same note, why despise the authority when there are obviously individuals willing to carry out orders? Where is the line drawn between consequence and responsibility when people bungle up intentions with notions that individuals can merely be the hand of another? 'He was just doing his job' etc. What somebody's 'job' is can be a dicey concept as broad strokes would indicate that it's simply whatever you get paid for. There exists consequence in a legal sense, of course, for the dirty hands of outlawed authority, but what sort of world would we live in if this same authority were not held responsible for the actions of individuals?

Jennypie, I think you're a Rand fan, no? Rand was very much about personal accountability and individualism. Well here's a proposition: is there ever an exception to people who are 'just doing their job'? Why would this be an excuse for anything people are doing? Why is wearing a uniform or being paid to do something suddenly grounds for your actions to be referred to an authority for permission, moral and legal? There are numerous examples in our society and most of them have to do with men who carry guns.

We speak so highly of our own ethical concepts, but in practice, I don't think they hold much water. Why are policemen allowed to pursue a criminal at high speeds, clearly putting a lot of people in danger as well as violating numerous laws he, himself, would reprimand and punish other citizens for? Why are soldiers allowed to fire their weapons at other people in foreign lands? It's not ok to open fire on people under most circumstances, so why is it an accepted exception if there is an authority involved to refer responsibility and protection to? These are rhetorical questions obviously: police allow their own agents the power to break laws when it is necessary and handled with discretion; soldiers are merely the tools of international disputes, pawns in the distress of politics and the imagined civility we have assigned ourselves with.

But I believe this calls to question: If people are so willing to submit themselves to a cause or agenda, to do whatever is necessary to uphold the governed laws of a particular order, all the while participating in the exceptions we trade for the illusion of security and the integrity of order, then where do we draw the line with respect to their humanity? It seems to me that if police or soldiers are the volunteer tools of their nation or government, then there is no use mourning their loss, that they are not people, that they are simply items who have forfeited their individuality for the sake of some 'greater good'. But I do not actually believe this in practice. Cops and soldiers are human beings, despite the wrongs they have done or the laws they have trespassed. I could not possibly look someone in the eyes who is 'just doing their job' and think of them as any less human as the next person. So why are moral exceptions made when lawful permission is the only thing between some agents and the responsibility of some actions we would, under most circumstances, consider reprehensible? It seems nothing more than an excuse to me, and one that is allowed to perpetuate due to little more than people's sanctimonious sensibilities as well as [understandable] fear of reprise - after all, when the definition of 'crime' no longer excludes those hiding under adjudicative authority, we'll suddenly have far more murderers, liars, and all-around hypocrites among us.

//I'm a man of words, if you couldn't tell.

True man, Law Enforcement's hypocritical "do as I say not as I do" ideology is a source of major frustration for me and many others I know.

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated You change bed pans for a living.

Re: Men of words and Men of action.

quote:

Originally posted by jennypie I tend to agree with Corso. Not that being accountable excuses all actions, but to me it shows better character when a man is willing to step up to the plate. There's something so rat-like and cowardly about a man who won't "get his hands dirty." Discuss.

if we're talking about things like murder, you'd have to be awfully stupid to do it yourself. professional hired help is the way to go.

quote:

Originally posted by spanglo What if the person you had killed raped your young daughter or sister and given them aids? Would you still rather go to jail?

You have to break that down. See I'd be after revenge, but what I'm doing is murder, which if you take it out of the context of the situation is, in most places you're likely to go, both ethically and morally wrong.

It's a bit of a wank but you need to remove yourself from the situation and only leave so much that your actions can be factored as one of the end states of the decision you need to make (to kill or not to kill).

The ability to objectively assess a response to a situation is what keeps society together, otherwise we'd have vigilantes everywhere. The decision has to be bigger than yourself.

quote:

Originally posted by Teh Jim You have to break that down. See I'd be after revenge, but what I'm doing is murder, which if you take it out of the context of the situation is, in most places you're likely to go, both ethically and morally wrong. It's a bit of a wank but you need to remove yourself from the situation and only leave so much that your actions can be factored as one of the end states of the decision you need to make (to kill or not to kill). The ability to objectively assess a response to a situation is what keeps society together, otherwise we'd have vigilantes everywhere. The decision has to be bigger than yourself.

A very honorable response.

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