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One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies To talk one thing is certain, that Life flies Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise To flutter – and the Bird is on the Wing.Ī Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou You know how little while we have to stay,Ĭome, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:Īnd Lo! the Hunter of the East has caughtĪnd, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
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The full cycle, with all its variations, is readily available online. (And then sometimes, like a flourish, the rhyme is maintained throughout.) Below is a selection of the hundred-or-so quatrains that Fitzgerald produced. The rubai is a four-line stanza, or quatrain, that rhymes AABA and offers rousing robustness: the rhyme disappears, falters for a line, but returns with added emphasis to clinch the deal. Fitzgerald was born in 1809 and published his first set of Khayyam-inspired verses in 1859, which, incidentally, adds two more anniversaries to 2009's already overflowing cup. It won’t be perfect, but it will be better, which is more than has been achieved by the fanciful rivals that sought utopia.Omar Khayyam (1048 - 1123) was a Persian mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and poet, today most famous for his Rubaiyat, a spirited and profoundly humanistic celebration of life, love and liquor! The best known translation (or rather adaptation) is that of the English writer Edward Fitzgerald. All of them set out to smash the societies that had evolved, and to replace them by ones that seemed alluring and full of promise in theory, but which proved disastrous when tested in the real world.įor those who would improve the condition of humankind, the lesson is that instead of smashing it to bits, we should build on what has been achieved, and has endured, and try to make it better than it was. They all led to bloodshed, tyranny, oppression, intimidation and mass murder, along with the shortages and the corruption that degraded both the physical and the moral quality of life. Lenin and Trotsky thought they could do this, as indeed did Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and lesser pocket dictators who’ve sought to usher in Heaven on Earth in short order. It stands in striking contrast to the attempts to achieve instant utopia.
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Free market capitalism has done more to lift the human condition from squalor and deprivation than all of the vaunted claims of socialism. Things are better in the modern age because we have done this, eliminating in the process many of the unnecessary causes of human suffering. Popper called this “Piecemeal social engineering,” noting its record of success over time. But we don’t smash up existing societies and put dreamed-up ones in their place. We test them in practice, and retain the ones that work.
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We look at its shortcomings and propose innovations to overcome them. When intellectuals suppose they can conjure up in their minds a better society than those that have had the inputs of billions of people over long periods of time, Hayek called it “The Fatal Conceit.” They have enabled a society that sustains a complex web of relationships, one that allows us to interact to mutual advantage with people we shall never meet. Although the values of the hunting tribe had millions of more years to embed themselves into our psyche, Hayek thought the values transmitted culturally since humans first domesticated grains and farm animals were more important. His account of the Three Sources of Human Values took the ones that people think up as trivial, compared to the ones that have emerged as societies have developed in practice. Hayek criticized this approach, and regarded human societies as too complex to be just thought up from the imagination. Some people look at society with all its perceived imperfections and injustices, and want to do away with it, and replace it with a better society, one they can conceive of, that will lack those drawbacks and blemishes, and in which people will be able to lead fuller and more rewarding lives. The drive for a better society starts with the destruction of the current one.
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Similar thoughts have occupied the minds of many revolutionaries from Robespierre onwards, and maybe even before. Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!” Would not we shatter it to bits - and then To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, “Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire There’s one stanza in “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” by Edward Fitzgerald that resonates politically.