Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

The things you learn by reading…

These blew my mind today.

From Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861: It was considered unseemly to campaign for yourself during Lincoln’s days. Others could campaign for you but if it seemed like you wanted to be President too badly, the people didn’t vote for you. So in the crucial months before the Southern states left, Lincoln didn’t even make speeches, travel, and campaign very much at all. There was a cone of silence for everyone.

Come to think of it, can we reinstate this practice?

From The Making of a Philosopher: In talking about the mind/body problem (essentially that our minds, thoughts, and consciousness do not match up exactly to the physicality of our brains), Colin McGinn suggests that the connection may be beyond our ability to figure it out. It is beyond our perceptions, our reality. It is beyond our mental capability because that is constrained to our actualities.

There are certain ideas for which we simply cannot think to its actual truth. Wow.

Of course I know that there are issues for which it seems like there is no final answer, but I never really considered that certain close-to-truth explanations may be impossibilities.

And here, it seems, regardless of our delusions of grander, is the real difference between God and Man.

Tags: Books, What I Learned by Ms. SP
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In my last Napoleon post, I shared my surprise at learning that this famous Frenchman wasn’t even French.

Now, I find out that Napoleon didn’t win all his battles leading up to his self-coronation. He was just very good at telling the French people that he was a winner. He knew the importance of controlling information and effective propaganda.

The tireless energy that helped him be so effective as a military leader also led him to do some really remarkable things as ruler of a country. In many ways, he betrayed the revolutionary democratic movement that swept away the royals, but he was also the one who codified equality and brotherhood into French society through new laws and merit-based promotions.

Tags: What I Learned by Ms. SP
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Do you know what I learned today? Napoleon Bonaparte was not even French.

On the first of the year, I decided that as a military history nut, I know far too little about Napoleon than is decent. I have some books waiting on the bookshelf, but for now, I’ve started a PBS Napoleon video.

Man, the guy was from Corsica, which the French took over just four months before his birth. Napoleon grew up hating the French and always feeling like the outsider.

He tried to help his native country gain its independence back, but that didn’t work out (<–extra shortened version). Now spurned, he turned towards his surrogate homeland.

Isn’t that interesting?

Tags: What I Learned by Ms. SP
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