“Knowledge is power” – and everything most people know about that quote is wrong!

THE FLAWED TRADITIONAL ATTRIBUTION: “Knowledge itself is power.” (“...ipsa scientia potestas est”)        Francis Bacon (1561-1626)        English philosopher and essayist        Meditationes Sacrae, De Haeresibus (1597)        Thousands of books and websites claim that Sir Francis Bacon coined or first recorded the saying “Knowledge is power.” In fact, that concept existed long before Bacon’s time and the Latin phrase “scientia potestas est,” which means “Knowledge is power,” probably did as well. Bacon used a version of it in his essay De Haeresibus (“Of Heresies”), one of ten essays in his book Meditationes Sacrae (“Religious Meditations”), which he wrote in Latin.         In one of Bacon’s typically long, run-on sentences, full of much religious and philosophical blah-blah-blah, the Latin words scientia (knowledge, science), est (is) and potestas (power, strength) are embedded in a longer phrase. The full phrase is “nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.” This is generally translated as “for knowledge itself is power.” That’s not quite as pithy as “Knowledge is power.” Moreover, in the context of the sentence and Bacon’s points in the essay, it doesn’t actually have the literal meaning that has become a cliché. In the essay, Bacon was making an obtuse argument about atheists and other people who deny the will and power of God, including those who give more weight to God’s knowledge than His power. Bacon argued that God’s knowledge is itself power.

COOLIO’S COUNTERQUOTE: “If knowledge is power and power is knowledge, then   how so many idiots be graduating from colleges?”         Coolio        American rap musician, record producer and actor         A line in the lyrics of his song “The Winner” (on the Space Jam movie soundtrack)

CERSEI’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Power is power!”        Cersei Lannister (played by actress Lena Headey)         A point she makes, menacingly, to Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (actor Aidan Gillen), in the first episode of Season Two of HBO’s series Game of Thrones.        In this intense scene, Baelish hints to Cersei that he knows she has an incestuous relationship with her brother and might use that knowledge to his advantage. “Prominent families often forget a simple truth,” he says. “Knowledge is power.”        Cersei responds by telling her guards: “Seize him. Cut his throat.” The guards grab Baelish and prepare to carry out her order. As Baelish begins to panic, Cersei says almost flippantly: “Stop. Oh, wait. I’ve changed my mind. Let him go.” After they do, she glares at Baelish and tells him an even higher truth that applies in the world of Game of Thrones: “Power is power!”

THE KICK-BUTT COUNTERQUOTE: “Knowledge is not power. It’s the implementation of knowledge that is power. It’s not what you know that matters, it’s what you do with what you know that matters.”        Larry Winget        American author and motivational speaker        In his book Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life  (2011)

A VERSION APPLICABLE TO FERGUSON? “Knowledge may be power under some circumstances, but, in others, power rests on denial and studied displacement. This image of a smoothly functioning social order lends itself to the creation of the capacity for fascist self-delusion.”        An observation in the book Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change        Edited by Carol J. Greenhouse, Elizabeth Mertz, Kay B. B. Warren        (Cartoon by Kevin Siers)

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"Don’t Worry, Be Happy" (Just Slap Me!)

THE SAYING MADE FAMOUS BY BABA & BOBBY: “Don’t worry, be happy.”                     First popularized by Meher Baba (1894-1969); made even more famous by Bobby McFerrin                      “Don’t worry, be happy” is a catchphrase used by Indian spiritual master Meher Baba and featured on his posters and “inspiration cards” in the mid-1960s.        Baba probably coined the saying. But it achieved far wider fame after being borrowed as the title and chorus of the 1988 song written by McFerrin, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” McFerrin’s original recording was a huge hit, becoming the first a cappella song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It has since been covered by many other musicians and bands.        Most people now know (and either love or hate) the song, which starts with the following lyrics:               Here's a little song I wrote                            You might want to sing it note for note               Don’t worry, be happy               In every life we have some trouble               But when you worry you make it double               Don’t worry, be happy                     Don’t worry, be happy now

PUBLIC ENEMY’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Don’t worry be happy Was a number one jam Damn, if I say it you can slap me right here”        Public Enemy        Pioneering American hip hop group formed in 1986                     This was Public Enemy’s mocking response to Bobby McFerrin’s feel-good hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in the lyrics of their song “Fight the Power.” The original version of the song was on the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing. A second version was featured on Public Enemy's 1990 studio album Fear of a Black Planet.

PUTIN’S PARIS DISAGREEMENT PLATITUDE: “Don't worry, be happy...This accord has not yet come into effect; it is supposed to come into effect as of 2021…so we still have time. If we are all constructive in what we do, there are things that we can agree on.”        Vladimir Putin                     President of Russia                     This was Putin’s widely-quoted response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw United States from the Paris Climate Change Accord, an agreement to reduce the use of fossil fuels to mitigate the global warming.        Putin himself had two reasons not to worry. For him, Trump’s decision was a win-win, since it made the U.S. look bad and because Russia is the third biggest oil producing country in the world (slightly behind the U.S. and Saudi Arabia).

THE GRUMPY VERSION: “Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy”        Ajahn Brahm                    Australian Buddhist teacher and writer        The title of a book he published in 2015, subtitled “Inspiring Stories for Making the Most of Each Moment.” I wonder if it sold better than his earlier book “Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties.”

THE CRABBY VERSION : “Don’t Worry, Be Crabby”        The motto of Crabby Bill’s        A Florida-based chain of seafood restaurants

A WORSE VERSION: “Don’t Worry, It Gets Worse”        Alida Nugent        American writer and actress        The title of Nugent’s book about what she describes in the subtitle as her “(Mostly Failed) Attempts at Adulthood.”

THE NATTY DREADLOCKS VERSION: “Don’t Worry, Be NAPPY!”       Jeffery Bradley       American author and Internet entrepreneur       The title of his book about “maintaining and living with dreadlocks, a hairstyle that most in American society consider impractical.” (Alas, a hairstyle that for me is impossible, as much as I’d love to have dreads.)

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“The evil that men do…”

FAMOUS FUNERAL ORATION QUOTE: “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”        William Shakespeare (1564-1616)         Lines said by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar        This is one of several well-known quotes in the funeral oration Mark Antony gives for Julius Caesar after Caesar is assassinated. It follows the famous opening words: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” The oration in the play is loosely based on a real speech Antony gave at Caesar’s funeral, a few days after Caesar was stabbed to death by his political enemies on March 15, 44 B.C. (the “Ides of March”). An account of what Antony said was recorded by the Greek-born Roman historian Appian in his history of Rome’s civil wars. It does not include any of the famous lines in Shakespeare’s play. According to Appian, the Roman masses became so angry after hearing Antony’s subtly inflammatory speech that they burnt down the Senate building where Caesar was killed and went hunting for his murderers, who were forced to flee Rome.

THE GOD CONUNDRUM: “If, as the theologians say, ‘the very act of free choice is traced to God as to a cause’...if ‘everything happening from the exercise of free choice must be subject to divine providence,’ must not the evil that men do be attributed to God as cause?”        From a commentary on the philosophical debate over free will in The Great Ideas volume of Encyclopedia Britannica’s multi-volume series about the great books and ideas of the Western World, which was edited by Mortimer J. Adler and first published in 1952.

AN EARLY LABOR ACTIVIST’S VIEWPOINT: “It is sins of omission, not commission, that are most fruitful of harm; not the evil that men do, but the good they did not do, that lives after them.”        Editorial comment in an 1889 issue of The Railway Conductor’s Monthly        Included in The Conductor and Brakeman Vol. 6, compiled by The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen

A MODERN ACTIVIST’S VIEWPOINT: “It’s not the evil that men do that outlives them; it’s the mischief that computers and genetic research can get us into when they are spliced together that we need to worry about.”         From the book Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Business Ethics and Society (2006), written by Lisa Newton, Elaine Englehardt and Michael Pritchard         Paraphrasing of the views of technology critics like Jeremy Rifkin

THE SEXIST PARSON’S OPINION: “Parson Fawcett said: the evil that men do lives after them; but the evil that women do goes on for countless generations through their breeding.”        Catherine Cookson (1906-1998)        British novelist        In her period romance novel The Love Child (1990)

See more takeoffs and variations on “The evil that men do...”

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Opiates of the people: from religion and cellphones to voting and political correctness…

THE FAMOUS OVERSIMPLIFIED SOUND BITE: “Religion...is the opium of the people.” (“Die Religion...ist das Opium des Volks.”)        Karl Marx (1818-83)        German philosopher, historian and “Founding Father” of socialism and communism        In his Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right (1844)        The quote above (sometimes translated as “Religion...is the opiate of the people” or “Religion...is the opium of the masses”) is the familiar, condensed sound bite taken from a more nuanced point Marx made in the introduction to A Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right. Here’s what he actually said: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.”

THE MODERN ZOMBIE APPLICATION: “Cellphones are the new opiate of the masses, stifling conversation with friends and strangers alike, even worse than those music-carrying earbuds that keep people looking straight ahead like cattle, showing blank, uncurious faces, totally unaware that we might be approaching the slaughterhouse.”        Tony Vagneur         American rancher and newspaper columnist        In his March 27, 2015 column in the The Aspen Times

THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY COUNTERQUOTE: “REVOLUTION IS THE OPIUM OF THE INTELLECTUALS.”        Graffiti on a wall in the film O Lucky Man! (1973)

AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST’S COUNTERQUOTE: “I think voting is the opium of the masses in this country. Every four years you deaden the pain.”        Line spoken the film Reds (1981) by American Communist leader Emma Goldman (played by actress Maureen Stapleton)         It does not appear to be taken from Goldman’s actual written works

THE ANTI-PC VARIATION: “Political correctness is the opium of the liberal…It makes them feel good.”          Comment in a letter to the editor in the suburban Chicago Daily Herald, August 20, 2010

THE HOMOSEXUAL TAUTOLOGIST’S VARIATION: Gudrun (actress Susanne Sachsse): “Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses.” Holger (actor Daniel Bätscher): “I thought opiates were the opiate of the masses.”        In the film The Raspberry Reich (2004)

THE ECONOMISTS’ VARIATION: “Popular culture distracts and confuses Americans through distorting perceptions of social issues and existing social institutions. If religion was ‘the opium of the masses’ in the nineteenth century, the electronic media is the ‘opium of the masses’ in the late twentieth century.”        Economists William E. Halal and Kenneth B. Taylor        In their book 21st Century Economics (1999)

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Things that would happen if God wanted it...

THE OLD CLICHÉ: “If God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings.”         A proverbial saying of anonymous origin         This familiar line is widely used as either a serious comment or a joking remark about scientific and technological innovations or social actions and beliefs that go against tradition. It is sometimes given with meant or intended in place of the word wanted, or with man and him in place of us. The various formulations of the saying — and paraphrases of it — are employed to make or to mock pronouncements about the wisdom or acceptability of certain things.

THE DISCOURAGED VOTER’S VIEW: “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates worth voting for.”         “The Dissenting Democrat” (pen name of a liberal progressive political blogger)        This quote, posted on the Dissenting Democrat’s blog, sums up the opinion of American voters who don’t particularly like the latest candidates from either major political party. The post says the line has been attributed to journalist Molly Ivins and to progressive political gadfly Jim Hightower. It’s essentially a variation of the better-known quotation “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates,” a quip generally credited to comedian Jay Leno.

THE DISCOURAGED DIETER’S VIEW: “If God wanted us to lose weight, He would have made celery a comfort food.”        Scott “Q” Marcus        Blogger and self-described “THINspirational speaker”        In a post on the dieters advice site ThisTimeIMeanIt.com.        (Faux TIME cover from www.fathead-movie.com.)

ROD’S TAKE ON HATHA YOGA: “Surely if God had meant us to do yoga, he would have put our heads behind our knees.”        Rod Stewart        British rock star        One of the most widely-quoted lines from his recent book Rod: The Autobiography (2012)        Stewart wrote that he came to this conclusion after someone tried to teach him a few fundamental yoga postures. “As I was attempting to master a beginner's level ‘balancing table’ position,” he recalled, “I fell over into the fireplace.”

SEAN’S TAKE ON HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE: “Heterosexual marriage is just wrong. I mean, if God had meant men and women to be together, he would have given them both penises.”        Sean Hayes         American actor        His quip, as the character Jack McFarland, in the “An Affair To Forget” episode of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. (Season 2, Episode 19)

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“Religion is the opium of the people.”

THE FAMOUS KARL MARX SOUND BITE: “Religion...is the opium of the people.” (“Die Religion...ist das Opium des Volks.”)        Karl Marx (1818-1883)        German philosopher, historian and “Founding Father” of socialism and communism        From the introduction to his manuscript Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844)        The quote above (sometimes translated as “Religion...is the opiate of the people” or “Religion...is the opium of the masses”) is the familiar condensed sound bite taken from the more nuanced point Marx made in the introduction to his critique of the views of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Here’s what he actually wrote: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.”

THE OCCUPY WALL STREET VERSION: “Occupy Wall Street...ignited a month ago after a prompt from AdBusters, a not-quite-underground magazine based in Toronto that wraps its anti-corporate message — hyper-consumption is the opiate of the people — in high-definition, high-gloss irony. (It is rather delicious that the counterattack to the vast class war waged for so long by the American right wing and its corporate masters was hatched under Canadian sponsorship. The last time Canada provided such a public service was when it harbored Vietnam-era draft resisters.)”        Editorial in The Boston Phoenix, October 17, 2011

THE OCCUPY WALL STREET VERSION 2.0: “Is talking about the economy becoming the opiate of the classes?”        Rev. Michael Bresciani        American minister, author and conservative columnist        In one of his recent columns on the RenewAmerica website, September 25, 2011

THE ONLINE PORN VERSION: “We might not have free education, healthcare, or affordable housing but at least we have the ‘freedom’ to pay for unlimited access to online pornography. But what is this tawdry freedom really? Surely the masturbating porn audience is a parody of sexuality. Work, consume, masturbate to porn, be silent, die. Pornography is the opium of the people.”        Dr. Abigail Bray        Australian sociologist and author of the book Misogyny Re-Loaded          Comments in an opinion piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald, October 8, 2011

THE ONLINE JOKESTER’S VERSION: “If religion is the opiate of the masses, then what the fuck is opium?”        Mason Lerner        American stand-up comedian and freelance writer        One of the 25 things Lerner said he cares about more than whether the NBA is going to have to cancel some games, in his column on the FasterTimes website, October 17, 2001

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