aphorist
 Aphorist's
Corner Weekly
by Igor D. Radovic
Foreword
Aphorisms, like epigrams, apothegms, maxims,
axioms, proverbs, sayings, adages, bon mots and many other familiar quotations
are examples of meaning and clarity enhanced by brevity. But, sadly, concise
and to the point are waging a losing battle in our modern age of verbal
overkill and ubiquitous, round-the-clock media babble. All the same, aphorisms
and related forms, on a par with poetry, are without peer in their capacity
to cut, in a sentence or two, and sometimes in most unexpected ways, to
the heart of a subject that learned volumes often leave only more confusing
and obscure. Eclectic, long on substance, experience and common sense,
and short on empty verbiage, they are also thought provoking, easily remembered,
and within the reach of any audience. Yet, for all that, aphorisms remain
a comparatively and undeservedly neglected literary genre. Aphorist's
Corner Weekly pays a modest
tribute to it by reminding us that whatever is worth saying can usually
be said better, and to better effect, with fewer rather than with more
words.
As its name indicates, Aphorist's CornerWeekly
(http://home.earthlink.net/~iradovic/aphorist.htm) is regularly updated.
New text - this author's own attempts at aphorisms and brief personal comments
on a broad variety of topics of general interest - is added every week
as old text is simultaneously removed, for a rolling total of ten weeks.
The views expressed in these observations are largely a matter of opinion
and, admittedly, occasionally resort to overstatements and understatements
to make a point, and they may sometimes err on the side of both the obvious
and the ambiguous. But, more importantly, they also reflect, to the extent
possible, a deliberate and sustained effort to avoid preconceived ideas
and generalizations, so that they may lead to conclusions rather than be
preceded and influenced by them, even if at some risk of ignoring experience,
of too easily giving in to first and superficial impressions, and of courting
contradictions. Whether this risk was worth taking the readers will judge
by themselves.
Sources:
Observations, copyright ©1968,
by Igor D. Radovic
The Radovic Rule, or How to Manage
the Boss, copyright © 1973, by Igor Radovic
The Aphorist's Corner, copyright
©1997, by Igor D. Radovic
Autumn Leaves, copyright
© 2000, by Igor D. Radovic
Thoughts & Afterthoughts,
copyright © 2003, by Igor D. Radovic
Random Remarks, copyright
© 2004, by Igor D. Radovic
Fragments & Shards, copyright
© 2006 by Igor D. Radovic
Week.. 340
-
JUSTICE, JUDGES, JURIES, & WITNESSES, PART 1
Justice is a fiction when the victor decides
what it is.
Laws are less about justice than about entitlements.
Justice is about what is desirable, but the
law is about what is possible.
We judge justice, but we feel injustice.
As a rule, there is more bargaining than justice
in a settlement.
Justice and revenge may coincide, but that
does not make them the same.
Justice will claim it is blind and objective
but, being dispensed by people, it will always be biased and subjective.
The satisfaction in seeing justice done comes
largely from the retribution it brings.
The louder the calls for justice, the more
they betray a thirst for punishment.
To say the least, justice is uncertain when
anger is present.
For the loser, a penalty is a foregone consequence.
Justice is not.
When the verdict is based on prejudice or
on assumptions evidence is only a prop or, at best, an afterthought.
The verdict depends on questions no less than
on answers.
What makes the jury system credible is not
the absence of bias among jurors, but their biases neutralizing one another.
A witness has lost the protection of ignorance.
In the courtroom, it is what he says that
makes a witness, not what he knows.
On the stand, a witness becomes a participant.
Eager or reluctant, a witness is suspect.
Back
to Top
Week.. 341
-
LAWS, RULES, & EXCEPTIONS, PART 2
An honest person is not necessarily law-abiding,
nor is a law-abiding one necessarily honest, for the law and integrity
can be at odds.
The objective of education is largely prevention;
that of the law, no less correction.
In large measure, the law picks up where upbringing
and education have failed.
A rogue thinks for himself. A law-abiding
citizen often does not.
The law has many more penalties than rewards.
By design, the defense limits itself to what
exonerates the accused, and the prosecution to what incriminates him. By
law, they are both permitted, nay, expected, to misrepresent the truth.
At best, laws are in search of justice.
Some laws are assertions, some are concessions.
Laws can be improved much more easily than
people.
It is safer to follow the letter of the law
than its intent.
As a rule, the letter of the law outlives
its intent.
Justice is relative; the law, merely imperfect.
It is risky to count on the law to tell a
white lie from a damnable one.
In the eyes of the law, putting up with what
is wrong is more likely to be condoning than patience.
What is done is often considered less important
than that it be done by the rules.
The individual disobeys society’s rules at
his own risk, but never questioning its own rules puts society itself at
risk.
Some games, like wars, are played not by one
set of rules, but by the rules of several or all participants, i.e., without
rules.
The living are not judged by the rules that
the dead are remembered by.
Wisdom is questioned and ignored more often
than rules, for they are backed by enforcement, and wisdom is not.
To think that man’s rules can supersede those
of nature is arrogance that never goes unpunished.
In theory, the legislature writes the rules,
the judiciary interprets them, and the police enforces them. In practice,
every one of them, invited or not, has a hand in the roles of the other
two.
Even when rare, exceptions are sufficient
to validate our fears, doubts, and superstitions.
Back
to Top
Week.. 342
-
JUSTICE, JUDGES, JURIES, & WITNESSES, PART 2
Revenge is personal, justice impersonal and
sometimes the more cruel for it.
In every courtroom there are four versions
of justice: that of the prosecution, that of the defense, that of the judge,
and that of the jury. And often even the last is not unanimous.
Tailored clothing and individualized medicine
are all to the good, but made to measure justice is discrimination, to
put it mildly.
The injustice inflicted on those we care for
is the justice those we hate richly deserve.
To protect the people, justice must often
be protected from the government.
Justice that trades is compromise at best,
and is not justice any longer.
The match of justice and force is not one
of mutual attraction but of mutual need, i.e., it is a marriage of convenience.
Laws can be legislated, but justice cannot.
Justice goes by the board when the verdict
is intended as a lesson or to make a point.
Some individuals will always try to create
a just society, and the people will always defeat them.
Often used against injustice, the bayonet
has yet to bring justice.
On the scales of justice it is all too often
the sword and the coin that provide the weights.
Not rarely, someone or something is put on
trial and convicted only to exonerate someone or something else.
Others may judge us by what we do, but conscience
judges us by what we think and feel as well.
Awaiting sentencing is usually worse than
serving time.
To be a witness is, for all practical purposes,
to have lost one’s innocence.
On the witness stand, it is safest neither
to withhold information nor to volunteer it, but to provide it on request.
Back
to Top
Week.. 343
-
CONFESSIONS
Some confessions are made to avoid making
some other ones.
Confessions are meant to be heard, not used.
But only a fool counts on it.
Confessed, a secret that corrodes from within
will often only add fire from without.
Confession is much overrated as a relief for
a guilty conscience.
Admitting to oneself is on occasion risky.
Confessing to others always is.
Confession may soothe the conscience of the
sinner, but not as much as the confessor confessing to the same sin.
A genuine confessor is available. He does
not advertise his services.
Confessing in church evades public condemnation.
Confessing to the police invites prosecution. And confessing to a reporter
deserves conviction.
Confessions may be good therapy, but are a
bad habit.
Man confesses to help himself, often only
to seal his conviction.
For most people, most of the time, confession
is not a cure, but only a palliative.
A true confession is not what the suspect
is coerced to admit and the prosecutor wants to hear, but what is corroborated
by facts.
Confession is followed more often by punishment
than by forgiveness.
A remorseful man is at the mercy of his conscience.
A remorseful man who confesses is at the mercy of his confessor.
When a noble motive is claimed confessions
are apt to sound like bragging.
When people are pressed to confess or to admit
something, it is seldom for their own good.
The most valuable confessions and admissions
are those one makes to oneself.
The strong live with their secrets; the weak
confide and confess.
In privileged doctor-patient or attorney-client
communications the interests of the patients and the clients on occasion
come second. Confessions in church are no different.
Back
to Top
Week.. 344
-
CONSCIENCE, PART 1
The law and public opinion can be harsh judges
of our actions, but our conscience never ceases to sit in judgment of our
intentions as well.
It is not those with a clear conscience that
are not bothered by conscience, but those who do not have it.
Having no conscience never stopped anyone
from appealing to the conscience of others.
Though conscience may be no less a source
of good deeds than generosity, and a more reliable one at that, there is
little warmth in it.
An over-active conscience will make even the
innocent feel guilty.
But in a saint and in a fanatic, conscience
will yield when survival is in question.
Right and good are often at odds, with conscience
left in a dilemma.
Vanity pays attention to the opinion of others,
conscience to one’s own.
Conscience has more grapples to hold us back
with than wings to soar with.
People may boast about their conscience, but
no one enjoys it.
Conscience is a harsh master to those beset
by doubts.
Pride without conscience is at best only vanity.
Conscience remembers, with a sting to prove
it.
No one complains about his conscience’s loss
of memory.
Conscience reminds us of what we should do
and, even more, of what we should have done.
Back
to Top
Week.. 345
-
CONSCIENCE, PART 2
To pass judgment, conscience needs no proof.
Conscience is the price of knowing right from
wrong.
Pride remembers wrongs others have done to
us; conscience, those we have done to them.
Conscience, like pride, both prevents crimes
and instigates some.
Conscience can make a feeling of guilt and
regrets precede the deed.
Conscience was given to man not to punish
him, but to make and keep him human.
Conscience makes an honest man; fear, a law-abiding
one.
Not much satisfaction is found in doing the
right thing only because of a guilty conscience.
Be it in the dark, behind closed doors, or
inside a cloak of anonymity, conscience is the witness that always follows
us.
For the law, action is what counts; for conscience,
intent is sufficient.
He who has no conscience has no need of a
confessor. He who has it should have no need of one either.
Our egoism protects us from others. Our conscience,
others from us.
He who consults the judgment and conscience
of others before his own doesn’t have much of either.
Absence of conscience may or may not solve
some of a man’s problems, but most assuredly will make him a problem.
For those who have it, the best and the worst
thing about conscience is that it is always there.
Back
to Top
Week.. 346
-
REGRETS & REDEMPTION
Time may be running out to do something, but
there is always time for regrets.
We regret what we have lost and, even more,
what we have missed.
No marriage and parenthood, however satisfying
and successful, is entirely free of regrets and second thoughts.
We regret having done many things, but more
often than not only how we have done them.
Acceptance and resignation are as a rule followed
by more regrets than pleasant surprises.
Many regrets come without apologies attached.
Regrets are the lengthening shadow of many
happy memories.
Few wrongdoers will not voice remorse when
a show of contrition may affect the penalty.
Life is much too long for anyone with a conscience
to live and die without regrets and remorse.
Occasionally, repentance is better rewarded
than a clean record.
Fear of sanctions, not repentance, is the
usual motive for reformation.
Incarcerating offenders doesn’t come cheap.
Unfortunately, attempts at reforming them aren’t much cheaper, if at all,
and are often even less successful.
In practice, rehabilitation depends more on
short memories and forgiveness than on repentance.
Rehabilitation means opening the wrongdoer’s
eyes, not breaking his spine.
Redemption is possible for the culprit, but
much less for the suspect.
Back
to Top
Week.. 347
-
CONSCIENCE, PART 3
Conscience knows right and wrong, not legal
and illegal.
Many more things weigh on our conscience than
conscience makes us do.
Some of those seemingly without conscience
are only proficient at rationalizing.
A conscience that is not demanding is a conscience
that is suspect.
To tell the truth, conscience affects man’s
actions and happiness less than it is credited with.
There is no easy way to live with one’s conscience.
Conscience is kept awake by bad, not by good
memories.
Conscience and loyalty make uneasy bedfellows.
A man not tormented by his conscience for
what he does will unlikely be so for what he thinks.
No one has a conscience without paying for
it.
Anger may override conscience but, in time,
conscience - if there be any - will, prodded by guilt, reassert itself.
Conscience remembers failures, not successes;
and the more reprehensible our trespasses, the better our conscience remembers
them.
Letting time solve problems rather than confronting
them lets conscience off many a hook.
Conscience limits choices and winnows opportunities.
Unlike temptation, conscience is a stern taskmaster,
not a cheerleader.
Back
to Top
Week.. 348
-
REWARD & PUNISHMENT, PART 1
What people want, not what they need, is what
makes a reward.
He who expects a reward for what he gives
often receives less in return than he who does not.
Man learns to be grateful and to reward others.
Taking revenge comes to him naturally.
Know-how rewards the guilty more than ignorance
protects the innocent.
We all know punishment, but some of us bruise
more easily than others.
It is much easier to evade punishment for
crimes committed than consequences for poor judgment exercised.
The harshest punishments are not for what
we do, but for what we are.
Punishment is generally more severe for those
who do not live up to other’s expectations than for those whose own expectations
are unwarranted.
Much too often people are punished for refusing
to do what they can’t do.
Penalties intended for the guilty frequently
punish the innocent as well.
When a mother punishes her child, it is often
the mother who feels the pain more.
Punishment - deserved or not - is more likely
to catch up with all of us than justice is to catch up with culprits.
To punish is easy. To be just is not.
Punishment is for mistakes made and crimes
committed, and even more for being the loser.
Exile as a state of mind is the worst exile
of all.
Among wrongdoers, some know they are wrong,
some don’t, and some are convinced they are right. And the harshest penalty
is often reserved for the last.
Back
to Top
Week.. 349
-
REWARD & PUNISHMENT, PART 2
Nature knows only cause and consequences.
Reward and punishment are man’s invention.
In many races the applause is for to the winner,
but the reward goes to someone else.
The prize pursued and the prize won can be
the same and yet turn out to be very different.
Absent the desirable, the available becomes
the prize.
To share the spoils or to get attention it
is more useful to be present than to be deserving.
Justice may seek punishment. Revenge always
does.
More offenders need treatment than punishment,
but many more are punished than treated.
Woe to those whose punishment is meant to
be an example or a warning, rather than justice.
To be different attracts attention and risks
discrimination, but to express different beliefs invites retaliation.
Support for punishment often depends on someone
else being the executioner.
Where there is punishment when it is not deserved
there is usually an absence of it when it is.
Punishment teaches some to mend their ways,
and some how to evade it.
Punishment may well teach a lesson, but seldom
improves anybody.
As a rule, the penalty is harshest when the
accused is right and the judge is wrong.
Few penalties are retroactive by law, but
many are in practice.
A violation by an outsider is sometimes treason
if by an insider, and is punished accordingly.
Back
to Top
Biographical Note
Dr. Radovic was born in former Yugoslavia.
His early education was in France and Yugoslavia. He spent World War II
under Nazi occupation, followed by several years under the Titoist communist
regime in Yugoslavia, where he studied Law and Civil Engineering. He escaped
from behind the Iron Curtain in 1951, and worked in Western Europe and
in South Africa before coming to the United States and completing doctoral
studies (Industrial and Management Engineering) at Columbia University
in New York City. In 1965 he joined the United Nations and served in various
capacities relating in the main to economic development and cooperation
and involving extensive international travel. During this period he also
taught at Columbia a graduate course on problems of industrialization in
less developed countries. In 1988 he retired from the U.N. as Director
of the Department for Special Political Questions, Regional Cooperation,
Decolonization and Trusteeship. Dr. Radovic resides on the West Coast,
and divides his time between the U.S., Canada, and, occasionally, Australia.
He is currently working on a new manuscript.
http://home.earthlink.net/~iradovic/aphorist.htm
|
|
