Two partisans are better than one
As a recent bit of junk mail – in a drive to inspire subscription to the New York Review of Books – took wry relish in reminding me, bipartisanship appears to be the word of the day, and is as hot and creamy as the soup.
As I write, the Atlantic has rarely seemed wider. You might be forgiven for thinking that, here in America, the voices of unilateralism, gung-ho intervention and wounded bellicosity have drowned out all the rest.
– Rea S. Hederman, Publisher
A rather unfortunate statement for an intellectual rag (or anyone for that matter) – marketingly hoping I’m one of Them and reminding me that We have to stick together.
So to get with the zeitgeist, let us not bother with raw truths like,
To say that A is liberal or B conservative is to say nothing intelligent about his or her politics, conduct, occupation, place of residence or record of prior arrests. It is conceivable, even likely, that the woman identified as a liberal thinks nothing of tapping her daughter’s telephone and enjoys an after-tax income of $2 million a year supplied by eight-year-old seamstresses earning $3 a day in a Chinese basement.
On the other side of the stereotype, it is equally conceivable that the man labelled as a conservative devotes his life and fortune to the protection of hummingbirds and refuses to eat grapes picked by non-union Mexican field hands.
– Lewis Lapham, Harper’s November issue
Because they only put a damper on things, and instead fuel this great bipartisan drive by finding new ways of dividing the world’s population in two.
So if you would kindly complete the phrase,
The world can be divided up between…
(Note: “those who divide the world into two categories and those who don’t” has now officially been taken.)
· · • · ·
Comment
- After waiting over an hour for a friend to show up this morning:
Those who think it’s important to be on time, and those who are chronically late.
— Jim Nov 6, 2:22pm # - Coffee-drinkers and tea-drinkers. (I occasionally have a cup of tea, with lemon and honey, on a cold afternoon, but I’m definitely in the former camp.)
— language hat Nov 6, 2:32pm # - The world can be divided up between those who own the world.
— Niel Nov 6, 3:15pm # - lumpers and splitters
— n/a Nov 6, 3:23pm # - Online Casino | Casino Bonus | Online gambling
— Trio Casino Nov 6, 11:13pm # - Spammers and spammees.
— gail Nov 7, 5:30am # - Heh.
— Eeksy-Peeksy Nov 7, 5:44am # - I always thought the world could be divided into 3 – those who can add and those who can’t.
— Jerry Nov 7, 8:43am # - Or 10 … those who get binary and those who don’t.
— Jeremy Nov 7, 9:42am # - Those whose computers work and those whose computers are in the shop.
— IB Bill Nov 7, 12:24pm # - Stuff that sucks and stuff that doesn’t, organizers and dissemblers (agents of entropy? What do you call something that creates chaos? A chaosifier?), the tolerant and those jackasses, us and them, joiners and loners, Elvis fans and Beatles fans.
— Kevin Nov 7, 1:25pm # - But… but… I like both Elvis AND the Beatles! Is there no place for me in this bifurcated world?
— language hat Nov 7, 1:58pm # - Those who get it and those who don’t.
Those who can spell and those who can’t.
Those who show up and those who miss the boat.
The fortunate and the unlucky.
The swift and the slow.
The tedious list-makers and the concise.
— pat Nov 7, 4:45pm # - Those who like Bob Dylan and those who don’t.
— Mel Nov 7, 10:07pm # - The happy and the informed.
— Eeksy-Peeksy Nov 8, 11:14am # - Those who pre-empt the obvious and those who spend half-an hour stuck in a recursive loop of steadily failing attempts to work that first element into a pithy and surprising sentence whose second element is both witty and slyly profound and, having been forced by the constraints of duty to abandon those attempts, move on, their passage marked only by a colorless and equally recursive description of that barren struggle.
— msg Nov 8, 5:03pm # - (I paraphrase:) The swift, the strong, the wise, the understanding, and the skillful; but time and chance happens to them all.
— Brian Nov 9, 1:48pm # - Roundheads & Cavaliers.
— misteraitch Nov 10, 6:27am # - Salt and Vinegar / Cheese and Onion
— Joe Nov 10, 12:43pm # - between people who tell you the type of people they are and those who just live and let you decide what they are.
— beerzie boy Nov 10, 1:51pm # - 1. those who get it, those who don’t care and those who don’t care to
2. synthetes, aesthetes and anesthetes
3. dog lovers, cat lovers and land lubbers
i really think it all comes in threes
— moose Nov 11, 1:15pm # - Having just had lunch with an Atkins adherent, I’d say it’s those in favour of carbohydrates and those who vehemently oppose them.
— michele Nov 12, 8:36am # - Those who have read James Joyce, and those who ought to.
(Actually, the world is divided up between Poohs, Piglets, Tiggers, Eeyores, etc. But if we’re playing polarities here…)
— nick Nov 12, 11:00pm # - those who read your site and those who don’t? because i’ve gladly just entered that first group.
awesome blog.
— candace Nov 18, 2:19am # - (Note: “those who divide the world into two categories and those who don’t” has now officially been taken.)
Isn’t it:
“Those who divide the world into two categories and those who are smart enough to know better.”
— kevin Nov 18, 7:07pm # - Those who speak concisely and those who, well, they mean to, of course, but there are so many points of view to consider and all, that they, um, you know.
— palinode Nov 25, 12:54am # - Those who want to stay in one place forever, and those who want to see the world.
— Anna Nov 29, 1:47am #
commenting closed for this article