Friday
"'Cant' is a four-leter word we don't use much now. Most people of my generation have never heard of it, never alone use it in conversation...to apply it to someone is to accuse them of sloppy thinking, if you are being kind, or, at the very worst, of a total lack of sincerity."
Of course, when it comes to sincerity, one should remember as Milton Friedman once put it, that sincerity is a much overpraised virtue. People can sincerely believe in all manner of utter rubbish, while others insincerely pay tribute to things that are right and true. Oh, the crooked timber of humanity.
I rather like what George Burns had to say.
He said that sincerity is the most important attribute for an artist
So when you learn how to fake that, you got it made!
Posted by RAB at March 20, 2009 02:36 PM
Actually, RAB, I think that quote is originally from Jean Giraudoux ("The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made"). Of course, George Burns could have stolen it first!
I also like what George Bernard Shaw had to say about it: "It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
Posted by Laird at March 20, 2009 09:18 PM
A word most often used when combined in the once oft common phrase "cant and hypocrisy"
(I'm in my mid-geezer-hood at age 65, so used to see it in print more often)
Posted by virgil xenophon at March 20, 2009 09:22 PM
"to apply it to someone is to accuse them of sloppy thinking, if you are being kind, or, at the very worst, of a total lack of sincerity."
I don't think Ben Wilson has the meaning of the word quite right. Cant is derived from the latin cantare, meaning "to sing", it is related to the words chant and incantation. Its not so much about sloppy thinking or insincerity but about the unthinking repetition of pre-cooked words or phrases, as part of a ritual or to show group loyalty. For example: "The NHS is the envy of the world", or "Its in the interest of national security", or even "unregulated free-market capitalism".
"Cant" is a word that needs to be used more, because most political discussion is composed entirely of cant.
Posted by Robert Scarth at March 21, 2009 12:52 AM
sincerity n. Sincerity is the most important thing. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
The Political Dictionary
Posted by Andrew_M_Garland at March 21, 2009 02:05 AM
Mr Scarth is correct---cant refers to those tired bromides which are trotted out and strung together in an imitation of actual thought and analysis.
Cant is the codified expression of what is commonly known as "the conventional wisdom", which is why when someone comes along and proposes something opposed to that wisdom, the reaction is so furious, even hysterical.
As an example, Lonborg wrote about "The Litany", the collection of "everybody knows" stuff that greens of all flavors chant reflexively whenever anyone asks if all they demand is really necessary. Most of the list is either outdated or was an exaggeration to begin with.
Well. The reaction from the environmental community was beyond hysteria. Lonborg had committed the worst possible heresy---he had questioned the "magic words" which justified everything, answered everything, and contained all the necessary truth that anyone ever needed to know.
In the original Star Trek series, there was a rather clunky episode about the "Yangs" and the "Coms", an alternate Earth in which the vaguely asian "Coms" were dominent, and repressing the more primitive "Yangs", who closely resembled the humans in the "Planet of the Apes" movies.
Anyway, near the end, the "Yangs" allow Kirk to hear some of the magic words that somehow inspire them, even though the mumbled, slurred words more resemble "Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats" than anything intelligible.
But Kirk, as only he always can, recognizes the words as the preamble to the US Constitution and stuns the "Yangs" by reciting the actual words, and explaining what they really mean.
In that case, of course, the magic words were actually more than the reciters ever knew they were. In real life, as in the case of "The Litany", and so much of the nonsense that so many people prattle on about, the magic words are meaningless, at best, or perniciously wrong.
The fury derives from the simplest of rages---the discomfort and anger of those who have comfortably arranged the various aphorisms and bromides that they employ to explain everything, and avoid having to actually think about complex subjects too much, when confronted with someone who challenges them to question some of what they thought they had all figured out.
As a very good example, visit Chicagoboyz and read the various posts in which Shannon Love discusses the roots of the current financial meltdown, and the comments by one of the resident leftists who simply cannot comprehend the idea that government programs might have catastrophic results, even with the best intentions, when political notions trump economic values.
It is also a good example of the dark side of cant. If one knows, just knows, all the answers, then if something goes wrong, there must be some villians around somewhere.
And surprise, surprise, just guess who the stereotypical villian of the age happens to be---I'll give you a hint: he pursues that evil profit thingy.
Posted by veryretired at March 21, 2009 02:40 AM
Very tired comes closest to the use and intent of the definition of cant.
Surely, somewhere in the OED, must be "a recitation;" or "to recite." Mere cant is mere recitation.
There is the more commonly used recant, which is to withdraw a recitation (testimony or assertion).
one may recite other sources to reinforce one's own thinking; but, mere recitation without a premise is mere cant.
But, it's so hard to tell in these days of teleprompters & pundits.
Mercats are cuter than mere cants !
Posted by RRS at March 21, 2009 07:00 PM
W.V.O Quine: "It doesn't much matter what you believe so long as you are not sincere"
Posted by MHelme at March 22, 2009 08:22 AM
