we control nothing but we influence everything

--- Brian Klaas, political scientist, in conversation with Russ Roberts on the Econtalk podcast, episode If Life Is Random, Is It Meaningless? (with Brian Klaas), Jan 22, 2024, about his book Fluke.

From the transcript:

But it's also something where it's derived from a sense, for me at least, that, if the world is intertwined in this way and if our lives can be swayed by forces seen and unseen, sometimes random, sometimes small, we have a little bit less control than we think we do. Right? And, I think we're sold this world where, like, you are in control. Right? So, the self-help industry is basically an industry that tells you, 'It's your fault you're not happy, because here's the recipe to being happy and wealthy and so on.' And, the world just doesn't work that way.

And I think it lets us off the hook a little bit. I think that's the other aspect of this that I find helpful, is--I repeatedly use this quote, and it's sort of this idea that we control nothing but we influence everything. And, when you start to think about it that way, combined with the aspects of what you just read, I think it lets humanity sort of be a little bit messy and be a little bit imperfect. And it's okay.

[Better] to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a résumé, a commentary.

--- Jose Luis Borges, Prologue to The Garden of Forking Paths, in Ficciones, edited and with an introduction by Anthony Kerrigan, Grove Press (New York), (1941, 1962:15)

The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a résumé, a commentary.

 

What is presented as a list of unimpeachable virtues and laudable goals is in practice a web of contradictions

 --- A.O. Scott, in The Word That Undid Claudine Gay, New York Times, Jan 3, 2024

Excerpt

“These last weeks,” Dr. Gay writes, “have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth.” This sentence echoes the Harvard Corporation’s gusty roster of commitments, improving the syntax and the prose rhythm. Those infinitives stack up nicely. It sounds like a lot of work, but how can anyone be against any of it?

The real question, though, is how one institution can be for all of it. Is this work the university is really equipped to do? Combating bias may involve constraining open inquiry; free expression is not always respectful or compassionate. The pursuit of truth may outrun everything else. This cascade of noble imperatives can be read descriptively, as a diagnosis of the causes of campus turmoil. What is presented as a list of unimpeachable virtues and laudable goals is in practice a web of contradictions.

Dr. Claudine Gay at a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in Harvard Yard in December 2023.
Adam Glanzman for The New York Times