In a futile effort to save more trees, I will at times use this digital scroll as a repository for random notes. Here we have an interesting tidbit from Edmund White’s biography on Marcel Proust, page 43. It actually stems from reference to The Guermantes Way, in which the Jew called Bloch asks a former French official by the name of Norpois what he thinks of the dramatic Dreyfus Affair. Norpois proceeds to avoid the question repeatedly by hiding behind rhetorical camouflage. The piece’s narrator then observes about Norpois:
“…the maxims of his political wisdom being applicable only to questions of form, of procedure, of expediency, they were powerless to solve questions of fact as, in philosophy, pure logic is powerless to tackle to the problems of existence…”
I cannot think of a better summary for our modern system of political grandstanders and toothless business leaders.
ECONOMIC COMMANDER 