The Brittle Casing of an Insect’s Thorax
aka Aphorist's Delight
This week I was literally stopped in my tracks by two aphorisms, two days apart.
The first, perhaps predictably, comes from Confucius. I reckon I’d heard it when I was younger; also predictably, it hits considerably harder now.
“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”
Unpredictably, the second aphorism is from Bill Clinton’s First Inaugural Address*, which I read in preparation for the final lecture I delivered to my United States history class.
“There’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America.”
Were I a better teacher, I might’ve abandoned the lecture to explore this proposition and debate the extent to which it holds true three decades later. But far be it from me to interrupt our regularly scheduled program to entertain my whims. So I forged forward with my Clinton Years talk and am planning a discussion of Slick Willie’s aphorism for a chill day after the barrage of exams my students are now enduring.
In preparation for that discussion, and in my seemingly ceaseless effort to avoid adult responsibilities (taxes be damned!), I’ve been exploring the robust history and tradition of the aphorism.
Before I drag us too deep down this particular rabbit hole, perhaps I might offer a brief definition. Our friends at Merriam-Webster, whose guidance, I confess, I seek regularly when composing these pages, defines the aphorism as:
1 : a concise statement of a principle. 2 : a terse formulation of a truth or sentiment : adage. 3 : an ingeniously terse style of expression.
In The Art of Aphorism from the 15 July 2019 edition of The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik asks: “Why are these fragments of wisdom—empirical or mystical, funny or profound—such an enduring form?” Luckily, Gopnik answers his own question:
We don’t absorb aphorisms as esoteric wisdom; we test them against our own experience. The empirical test of the aphorism takes the form first of laughter and then of longevity, and its confidential tone makes it candid, not cynical. Aphorisms live because they contain human truth…and reach across barriers of class and era.
“Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples,” another La Rochefoucauld classic, is not only humorous in its tidy reversal; it is also still rather persuasive, as we watch the drift from rebelliousness to reaction in every generation.
One year before Gopnik, in that same distinguished publication, Brian Dillon lamented The Sharp Force and Disgraceful State of the Modern Aphorism, declaring that:
The origins of the aphorism are both elevated and abject, as fits a literary form of sublime ambition that is at present in a kind of disgrace. The English word, which seems first to have been used in the sixteenth century, to describe certain medical writings, derives from the French aphorisme and the Latin aphorismus, whose Greek original denotes a definition or distinction, a setting apart. The term appears at the head of writings on medicine and the good life attributed to Hippocrates. There are over seventy of these texts, and the first is among the most well-rehearsed gobbets of wisdom in literary history: “Life is short, and Art long.” The second fragment or thesis treats of “disorders of the bowels,” which suggests already that the aphorist is a costive sort, disgorging small verities with considerable effort. The aphorism is defined by its monadic quality, its obtuse resistance to being teased or elaborated…
The aphorism…is sharp, also hard: in an essay on the polished maxims of La Rochefoucauld, Barthes compares the form to the brittle casing of an insect’s thorax—the aphorism not as weapon but as suit of armor. The aphorism would like us to believe in its tightly furled autonomy, but we can still discern its secret anatomy. It has a well-defined structure, which at its simplest is composed of symmetries and parallels. The aphorist imagines a rhetorical algebra; everything is structured like an equation.
I’ve been leaning into this rhetorical algebra, seeking to understand the evolution of the aphorism, while also wondering if Dillon is wise to lament the luster of the form. Is the aphorism indeed in a disgraceful state?
On my path, I started thinking about aphorists in American letters, aside from Bill Clinton. Naturally, this brought me directly to the door of Emerson, perhaps the most well-defined figure on America’s Mt. Rushmore of aphorists, who, as America was moving Westward and teeming with optimism, demanded of his countrymen, "do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." His contemporary, Honest Abe dropped some hot aphorisms, one in his frustration in the throes of the Civil War, “whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” Mark Twain, colossus of the next generation of American aphorists, railed against the excesses and disparities of Gilded Age America, reminding us that, "it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." The next generation brought Robert Frost who, at age 80, having endured the Gilded Age, two nasty Depressions, and two depressing World Wars, summed it up sharp and hard as Dillon would demand: "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."
Tempted as I am to carry on, walking us along the next generations of American aphorists, from Walter Lippmann to Woody Guthrie to FDR to George Carlin, which I plan to do in my US History class when exams end, I prefer to pause to consider some aphorisms that speak to our times.
While I am hardly in the position to support or refute Dillon’s claim that we are in a nadir period of the aphorism, I spent some time this week curating contemporary aphorisms that speak to our times. I scrolled through a decade’s worth of notes on my phone, combing for aphorisms. I decided to share ten here, no more, no less. I’m not confident that my compilation does what I want it to do, but I’ll share what I found. Some of these aphorisms are just floating in the ether while others can be attributed to authors:
Hurt people hurt people.
The hardest thing to ever happen to you is the hardest thing to ever happen to you.
In the digital age, authenticity is revolutionary.
In the age of information, wisdom is the rarest currency.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” (Maya Angelou)
“The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” (Bessel van der Kolk, Bodies Keep the Score)
“The truth will set you free; but first it will piss you off.“ (Gloria Steinem)
“It is dangerous to live in a secure world.” (Teju Cole, Open City)
“The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.” (Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts)
"Live your life however you want, but don't confuse drama with happiness." (Ron Swanson, Parks and Rec)
If you know any aphorism that speak to our moment, pretty please with sugar on top, leave a comment below and/or message me.
I would hazard a guess that rap is bursting with killer aphorisms. Regrettably, I’ll confess that I don’t listen closely enough to rap. Maybe you hip-hop heads out there can chime in with an aphorism?
While I’m rapping about rap, I’ll also confess that I’ve been riveted by the Kendrick v. Drake beef. I don’t understand rap beef. Seems like the worst possible version of a middle school lunchroom. I’ll lunch on a beef wrap over a rap beef any day. What can I say? Diss tracks just ain’t for dis dude.
Though I hold tight to Rapper’s Delight,
I’m quick to indict when art picks a fight.
That’s a (w)rap.
[mic awkwardly dropped, crickets chirp]
Meh. Could well be that all I have to say about the KenDrake Beef™ was better said by the British aphorist, Alan Watts: "Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun."
Hugs,
DL
*Fun fact: Bill Clinton was elected 32 years ago and is younger than both the 2024 presidential candidates. Okey. Maybe that fact is not so fun.
Hey! I have a colleague who is animated by rap beef I think. I might’ve suckered her into writing a guest spot in this here column. @Malika! What say you, ma’am?