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You’re taking my pal Fenwick. He’s an exceedingly loveable little man. His disposition is so sunny, his character so open, that even the Most Hardened Cynics, of whom my spouse is Worldwide Chairman, name Fenwick “totally cute.” He’s the very incarnation of the Boy Scout creed: “reliable, loyal, useful, pleasant, courteous, sort, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, courageous, clear (nice Scott! however he’s clear), reverent.”
Now you’d assume that with a persona like that, Fenwick can be nearly the preferred man on our block. That isn’t so. Fenwick is nearly essentially the most unpopular man on our block. Folks can’t stand him. I’ve seen Sunday-school lecturers with unblemished complexions, and account executives with split-level ranch homes, throw conniption suits on the mere point out of Fenwick’s identify. Why? Why? I puzzled over this for years, utilizing the best puzzling tools cash should purchase, earlier than I found the reply: Fenwick is a person who goes round being logical. He even makes use of motive at cocktail events.
Now, most individuals consider in motive the best way they consider in chilly showers: It’s O.Okay. should you don’t overdo it. Only a few individuals are so insensitive as to go round making use of logic to different individuals’s beliefs. The constant utility of motive to human affairs is irrational. It is usually harmful, as you shall quickly discover out.
The fundamental bother is that Fenwick, who could be very clever, assumes that different individuals are very clever, too. And that, consider it or not, is the best way he talks to them. This makes individuals uneasy, for nothing is extra unsettling than to be handled as in case you are extraordinarily clever—particularly by somebody you hardly know. To keep away from disillusioning such a person requires that you simply keep a continuing state of alert, and assume earlier than you converse, which imposes merciless calls for in your mind. It even makes you look at the partly packaged platitudes you’ve all the time employed as a substitute of pondering. Few actions tire one out so quickly.
That is from an essay by Leo Rosten, a long-time pal of Milton and Rose Friedman. “Fenwick” is Milton Friedman. Milton and Rose turned mates with Rosten within the Nineteen Thirties, a truth I didn’t know till I learn their autobiography, Two Fortunate Folks. Rosten is the writer of, amongst others, The Joys of Yiddish, a ebook I’ve had on my shelf and dipped into for the reason that Eighties, after I began wanting to grasp Yiddish higher (having married right into a Jewish household.)
I knew Milton fairly nicely, having first met him in Might 1970. I believe Rosten has him precisely proper.
Learn the entire thing, which is pleasant.
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