The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

AppealSocrates: I count being refuted a greater good....I don’t suppose there’s anything quite so badfor a person as having false belief about the thing we’re discussing.—Plato, GorgiasAudite et alteram partem (Listen also to the other side).—Medieval proverb, above the entrance to the town hall, Market Square, Gouda, theNetherlandsRegard not who it is which speaketh, but weigh only what is spoken. Think not that ye readthe words of one who bendeth himself as an adversary against the truth which ye havealready embraced; but the words of one who desireth even to embrace together with youthe self-same truth, if it be the truth.—Richard Hooker, 1593I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.—Oliver Cromwell, 1650It must be acknowledged that some of the following discourses are very abstruse and difficult;or, if you please, obscure; but I must take leave to add that those alone are judges . . .who will be at the trouble to understand what is here said.—Bishop Butler, 1725Not all were grateful for his help, one finds,For how they hated him, who huddled withThe comfort of a quick remedial mythAgainst the cold world and their colder minds.—Robert Conquest, “George Orwell,” 1969It was just astonishing in those years [of Stalinism in left-wing circles in New York]—or anytime—to come up against the absolute devotion of a true believer. There’s no conversation youcan have, no fact you can point out, no point you can make, because it’s clear you’re misinformed.—Jules Pfeiffer, on his play The Bad Friend, 2003