LITTLE ROCK — With apologies to Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil's Dictionary:
Advice,
the miser's substitute for charity.
Art,
the place religion goes when it is locked out of the soul.
Bailout, unfree enterprise.
Celebrity,
an American category that replaced fame some time ago.
Charity,
a dispensation everyone needs, but no one likes accepting.
Crisis,
the sickness of freedom, and the health of the state. See War.
Also, Opportunity.
Courage,
the virtue without which all the others are meaningless.
Cult,
a religion of which we disapprove.
Death,
the angel whose visit is first dreaded, then accepted, then welcomed.
England,
the world's best argument against revolution.
Envy,
the deadly sin demagogues appeal to when fear doesn't work.
Excuses,
self-exculpating words offered when apologies are called for.
Fidelity,
a difficult virtue for those who do not love, an easy one for those who do.
Ghosts,
ubiquitous presences everywhere, sensed only by those attuned to the past.
Happiness,
a usually unnoticed byproduct of the pursuit of it.
History,
a malleable art form;
the most accurate reflection of contemporary standards; the perpetual repetition of mistakes. Not to be confused with its raw material, the past.
Idea,
the result of persistent effort, instantaneous revelation, or combination thereof; a teacher that can become a tyrant if unchecked.
Jealousy,
the most pointless of human emotions; the surest attribute of the Divine.
Justice,
what one seeks for others. Not to be confused with mercy, which is what we ask for ourselves.
Knowledge,
an inadequate substitute for judgment. See also Data.
Memory,
the most creative of human faculties.
Mercy,
the twice-blessed virtue, for "it blesseth him that gives and him that takes . . ."-Shakespeare.
Money,
the best of servants, the cruelest of masters. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it can buy happiness, or at least ease, but, alas, neither health nor time.
Music,
a necessity often confused with a frill; in its classical form, the redemption of National Propaganda Radio.
Normalcy,
the most abnormal of political conditions.
Order,
a prerequisite for true progress.
Patriotism,
a quality that, like music and prayer, is purest when wordless.
Persistence,
Winston Churchill.
Politics,
"a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."-Bierce, A.
Power,
the thing that corrupts-though not as much as powerlessness.
Prudence,
the first and most underrated of the virtues.
Quirky,
an adjective used to describe anyone whose quirks do not match our own.
Race,
a social construct widely sold as a scientific classification.
Remorse,
the most wasteful and stultifying of emotions. Compare to Repentance and Atonement, the most renewing of disciplines.
Science,
art in the making.
Simplicity,
the most complicated of attainments.
Solitude,
which can be heaven or hell, depending on the company.
Sinecures,
what all denounce and many seek.
Time,
the river we live in.
Translation,
the most inventive form of literature; a genre in which much is lost, much is gained, and everything altered. Traduttore traditore, as the Italians say: to translate is to traduce. Or to create anew. See King James Bible.
Travel,
an experience guaranteed to broaden the mind or narrow it, depending on the traveler; a way to make the parochial more parochial, the curious more curious.
Vision,
the ability to see beyond the visible. Where there is none, word has it, the people perish.
War,
a state that concentrates the senses and dulls the conscience.
Wisdom,
a product not of knowledge but experience.
Worry,
an attenuated form of atheism.
X,
the unknown only to those who will not reason.
Youth,
a temporary condition of abundant energy usually dispelled without purpose.
Zealot,
one who (a) disagrees with us strongly, or (b) agrees with us too strongly. See also: Overzealous.
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
His dictionary of eccentric definitions after the style of Ambrose Bierce is updated from time to time. E-mail him at:
Perspective, Pages 77, 82 on 08/30/2009