Friday, June 10, 2005

Expediency

Expediency, n. The father of all the virtues.

2005 Update: The motive guiding our detours and distractions.

14 comments:

Indeterminacy said...

This is a hard one to do and I think you did it well. My attempt would be:

The argumentation for putting all checks and balances in the hands of one person.

Unknown said...

The operating method of unguarded desire.

Anonymous said...

Short cut to hell

Doug The Una said...

Indie come home. There's work for you in Government.

Comfort Addict, you're really focused on desire lately. It's the new picture, isn't it? Oddly, Bierce wouldn't likely have seen a conflict between your definition and his.

Devil, that works in so many ways. Who knew good intentions were expedient?

Anonymous said...

Doug, thanks for your nice comments on my blog.

I am not sure but I believe if another modblog is using a name you must not use that. So maybe that is where you are having the problem.

I will see what i can do to make you visit to my blog easier.

For I do so appreciate all the visits.

I also cannot get to your blog from the link you provide. Except that I know how to get there. lol

Anyway, I am a college graduate but I do not know who Ambrose Bierce is .
I have been meaning to ask about that!
Guess it is time I googled searched! lol

Doug The Una said...

Morningdew, to learn more about Bierce try The Ambrose Bierce Site and the Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society (links on right.)

I'll give a quick synopsis of who he was and is to me, though: Bierce was an American writer/journalist and contemporary of Mark Twain and (I suspect) H.P. Lovecraft and wrote stories similar to each. Because he is most famous for satire and because of the manner in which he lived, he is mainly compared to Twain. His short story "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" remains influential and had you read him in college or High School, that's probably what you would have read. He famously disappeared into Mexico in 1913 looking for Pancho Villa, which is the subject of the novel and film "Old Gringo" (Gringo Viejo.)

He may have been most famous in his time for his work as a journalist and essayist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was known as "Bitter Bierce" because he turned a jaundiced eye toward toward most human endeavor. He Criticized the progressive movement but also the conservatism of his time, religion but also secularism, and the elite but also populism. That kind of general cynicism did allow him to criticize the flaws in every movement and liberated him from playing defense. One of the reasons I am drawn to his work is that it's very freeing in a time of partisan rancor.

The definitions which were assembled into The Devil's Dictionary and then the Enlarged Devil's Dictionary (which I use for this site) were attachments to articles he wrote in several newspapers. Nonetheless, they stand beautifully alone. The artfulness of using a single word to contain a single sentence or paragraph in which a great idea or institution gets exposed through irony represents an amazing accomplishment in word play. That's the other reason Bierce compels me.

For more accurate and useful information try the sites I mentioned above. Thanks for asking. People may have wondered what's wrong with me. Now you know (or can at least start the list.)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Doug! I am glad you now have the secret and can post comments on my site.

I will study up on Bierce a bit. I know i didn't read him in college.

GABRIEL C. ZOLMAN said...

Expediency, n. An almost Fortean space-time anomaly in which time itself appears to speed up for the employee, while slowing to a crawl for the employer.

)+(

TLP said...

Expediency: manipulation of events to make them suit ME.

Doug The Una said...

Morningdew, you're in for a treat.

Gabriel, that's funny. How're the fleas?

Tan Lucy, I can think of no better expert on expediency than a pez dispenser. Hear that folks? She means now!

prying1 said...

The best way to get something done until experience teaches you otherwise.

Sreekesh Menon said...

skill much needed for a telemarketer.

Jamie Dawn said...

Expediency is a word the workers at the DMV have never heard of.

Doug The Una said...

Aye, Prying, and experience usually tells me ti trick someone else into doing it.

Yeah, Sree, it's impressive how they sort the fast ones into telemearketing and send the slow ones to the helpline. They started with six sigma and got better.

Ah, Jamie Dawn, I disagree. The question is expendient for whom?