{"id":2002,"date":"2019-01-23T16:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T22:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=2002"},"modified":"2019-01-25T10:48:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T16:48:53","slug":"the-happiness-of-deceit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2019\/01\/23\/the-happiness-of-deceit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Happiness of Deceit"},"content":{"rendered":"

“But they say it is an unhappy thought to be deceived.\u00a0 To this I say no, for the unhappiest thought is not to be deceived<\/strong>.\u00a0 For those who think that the happiness of a man can be found in things as such could not be further from the truth; this resides in opinion.\u00a0 For nothing can be clearly known, since human affairs are so obscure and varied, a fact already stated correctly by my colleagues, the least impudent of the known, philosophers.\u00a0 Or if there is something that can be known, it is usually something that will hinder the enjoyment of life.\u00a0 Finally, the mind of man is so constructed that it is far more susceptible to accepting falsehoods than realities<\/strong>.” Desiderius Erasmus,\u00a0The Praise of Folly<\/em>, in\u00a0The Essential Erasmus<\/em>, trans. John P. Dolan (New York, 1964), 133. [Emphasis added]\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here Erasmus’s personification of Folly describes how most people would prefer to be deceived than to know the truth.\u00a0 Folly had just described how flattery rules human discourse.\u00a0 As was often the case, Erasmus used this opportunity to attack bad preachers and theologians. Then, Folly gave an example of how most prefer falsehood to truth:<\/p>\n

“If anyone wants to make a convincing and easy test of this, let him go to church and listen to the sermons.\u00a0 If something worthwhile is being said, everybody sleeps, or yawns, or is ill at ease.\u00a0 But if the bawler–I made an error, I meant to say prater–as often happens, begins some old wives’ tale, then everybody awakens, straightens up, and listens attentively.” [Ibid.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“But they say it is an unhappy thought to be deceived.\u00a0 To this I say no, for the unhappiest thought is not to be deceived.\u00a0 For those who think that the happiness of a man can be found in things … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,57,15,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-deception","category-erasmus","category-renaissance","category-wisdom","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}