All's Fair in Love and Biography

I don't know whether it was Emerson or Thoreau who claimed that the Great Person is the one who says what they have on their mind while the rest of us sit in our own stink and think: 'Oh, I thought that, yesterday.'

Alas, that's not the end of the story. When the Great (GO) One gets even Greater, their followers begin concretizing the contribution made by GO ... "Don't change a word" ... and trying to figure out who is to take over the Greatness of GO. It happened with religious and political leaders, as well. People are still fighting over who the rightful heir is to Muhammed or to Luther or to Thomas Jefferson. I remember during the Iran Contra Hearings, everyone cited Ole TJ ... both sides. What did President Obama said about Mandela: "Now he belongs to the ages" and, if I may add, everyon'es entitled to write their own history of him.

So back to this Old Man's rant ... here's how it goes.

• The Great One lays out important ideas;
• The students make a religion of it;
• The new religion becomes mainstream and the only way to get to the Truth or God; and then
• People who want a "rep" take out the Great One by finding a flaw and discounting the ideas.

Heck! I haven't had that many Great Ideas, but I can see it now. Oh, I have a theorem out there bearing my name but it's my 1997 book that I cherish the most. I'm not a Great One, so it won't take more than a passing comment by some little %$^&  to discount the value of the ideas in that 400+ page book. Someone will come along and say that I'm still upset that my 4 year-older Sister once promised me an Indian (Native American) costume, if I stopped biting my nails when I was 4 years old. ... and didn't come through with her promise. And someone else will be certain to find out that I picked my nose on the old New Haven rail line from New York to Providence. ... "Uh-huh ... now, I see why he so eager to diagree with certain bits of accepted wisdom back in 1997."

What got to me today was the result of a discussion about one such GO. Someone announced that she had read a book suggesting that he gave up some of his most prominent ideas because of something his Father did. Then, someone else in the discussion went on speaking about the allegations, as if they were whispered in her ear by the Great Goat God of the Oracle.

Funny. Same morning, M found an article about a man we knew in his 80's. He and his second wife cooked OK but nothing to write home about. Apparently, when a youngish professor in the closing chapters of the Vietnam War he had broken in to FBI headquarters to try to bring some of the ills of that agency out in the open. Bill continued teaching Physics and, as far as I know, he and Maxine led good quiet lives ... he? teaching Mathematical Physics ... she? a therapist. I'm just waiting for someone to come along and blaim his cooking for the break-in.

Yuch. And when I die/And when I'm dead, dead and gone/
There'll be one rumor born/And no Truth to carry on.

Here's Thurber's view of it:

The very proper gander

by James Thurber

Not so very long ago there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing remarked, "There is a very proper gander." An old hen overheard this and told her husband about it that night in the roost. "They said something about propaganda," she said. "I have always suspected that," said the rooster, and he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander's clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. "They were up to no good," she said. A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. "He said to hell with the flag, too," said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander's house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. "There he is!" everybody cried. "Hawk-lover! Unbeliever! Flag-hater! Bomb-thrower!" So they set upon him and drove him out of the country.

Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.

(Source: Thurber, James. Fables for Our Time. New York, 1940.)