by Brett Stevens
"If a fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise," wrote William Blake in his Proverbs of Hell.
This proverb is widely misinterpreted as meaning that we can make a wise man out of a fool. That is not so; what it means is that a fool who tries new versions of the same foolish thing will eventually discover the truth of the thing he's undertaking. It's another way of saying we learn by error.
In 1789, with the French Revolution, the West formalized its enlightenment ideal: the human form comes before nature and God, and is the ultimate ideal.
This proverb is widely misinterpreted as meaning that we can make a wise man out of a fool. That is not so; what it means is that a fool who tries new versions of the same foolish thing will eventually discover the truth of the thing he's undertaking. It's another way of saying we learn by error.
In 1789, with the French Revolution, the West formalized its enlightenment ideal: the human form comes before nature and God, and is the ultimate ideal.
