Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Thursday, June 17. 2010

QQQ

“I pretty much have my bad inclination [‘yetzer hara’] under control; it’s my good inclination [‘yetzer hatov’] that always gets me into trouble.”


Rabbi Wolfe Kelman (h/t, Vanderleun). I suppose that's the Yiddish version of "No good deed goes unpunished."

Posted by Bird Dog in Quotidian Quotable Quote (QQQ) at 09:42 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Yes, yes it's me good intentions constitute me faults.

Brother Brain often tells me as we part from cafe', "Stay out of trouble."

Of course i object, "Me cain't have any fun tha'way, Br."

Him replies, "Yetzer me hat's off to ya, sir."

Brother Brain is brave soul,
who avoids summer trouble
at any turn.
#1 Leag on 2010-06-17 10:02 (Reply)
The word translated as "inclination" (yetzer) actually means "creative force". Many Hebrew prayers use the same root to refer to "The Creator" (yotzer).

So what is a "bad creative force" (yetzer ha-rah)?

Two explanations:

1) Even our base animal drives are necessary to G-d's plan and to the world's continued life. We just have to control them because they "tend towards bad".

2) There is no end to the human capacity to justify evil - and convince oneself it's good.
#2 Ben-David on 2010-06-17 15:02 (Reply)
The Prager article is about how good intentions often lead to evil, especially when it comes to social policy. For example, lots of nice liberals with good intentions supported murderous Communist regimes.

Thomas Sowell has one suggestion for reducing the damage done by good intentions: When considering a new "compassionate" policy, ask yourself and others, repeatedly, "and THEN what" would happen?
#3 KarenT on 2010-06-18 02:23 (Reply)
"She's the sort of women who lives for others. You can tell the others by their hunted expression."
#4 Texan99 (Link) on 2010-06-18 14:25 (Reply)

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