{"id":895,"date":"2011-08-25T00:00:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/?p=895"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:37:12","slug":"truth-in-bad-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/truth-in-bad-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth in Bad Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen your mother has grown older,
\nWhen her dear, faithful eyes
\nNo longer see life as they once did,
\nWhen her feet, grown tired,
\nNo longer want to carry her as she walks – <\/p>\n

Then lend her your arm in support,
\nEscort her with happy pleasure.
\nThe hour will come when, weeping, you
\nMust accompany her on her final walk. <\/p>\n

And if she asks you something,
\nThen give her an answer.
\nAnd if she asks again, then speak!
\nAnd if she asks yet again, respond to her,
\nNot impatiently, but with gentle calm. <\/p>\n

And if she cannot understand you properly
\nExplain all to her happily.
\nThe hour will come, the bitter hour,
\nWhen her mouth asks for nothing more.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Written circa 1923<\/em><\/p>\n

Lovely poem, no? Well, no. It\u2019s a clunky, melodramatic piece of tripe. But you have to remember that it was translated from its original German, where, arguably, it\u2019s less clunky. Certainly the sentiment is a noble one, isn\u2019t it? Love of mothers and all that?<\/p>\n

All right, would it change your opinion of this poem if I told you that Adolf Hitler wrote it? Because he did, in 1923, long before he was, you know, Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n

On the Internet, Hitler is the gold standard of evil. Everyone trying to make a profound philosophical statement always harks back to Hitler as the worst of the worst. Ol\u2019 Adolf even has his own Internet Axiom: titled Godwin\u2019s Law, it states the following:<\/p>\n

GODWIN’S LAW: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, at the risk of being trite, I invoke the Almightily Evil Adolf to make a fantastically brilliant online point, which is this: <\/p>\n

Does that fact that Hitler once told us to love our mothers negate the need to love our mothers?<\/p>\n

Allow me to elaborate. Imagine, if you will, a heated political discussion, perhaps on some noted Cable News Network or radio talk show, where some Tea Party weenie talks bout how important it is to love our mothers, because the day will come when they won\u2019t be with us. And then some wannabe Keith Olbermann yells back, \u201cYou Nazi! That\u2019s just what Hitler said!\u201d And then it all goes downhill from there until the ad comes on telling you to buy gold and live in a bomb shelter. <\/p>\n

This is one of the primary problems in discussing important issues, whether they be political or religious or about what kind of pizza we should order. The conversation always goes downhill when it turns its focus to the motives of the messenger instead of the substance of the message. <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you the number of times I\u2019ve said something about global warming, for instance, and the response is, \u201cOh, you got that from a stupid guy being paid a bajillion dollars by Big Oil.\u201d On the flip side, Al Gore has said all kinds of nutty things on this subject, but rather than respond to him substantively, many conservatives cite Gore\u2019s hypocrisy in his use of private jets and his own massive carbon footprint. And, in both cases, that\u2019s essentially where the conversation ends, and the people who attack the messenger think they\u2019ve accomplished something, when, in fact, they have not. The initial argument hasn\u2019t been refuted; it\u2019s simply been diverted to a far less interesting topic. <\/p>\n

In other words, if Al Gore tells me the sky is green, the issue shouldn\u2019t be whether or not Al Gore is a poophead. (He is.) The issue, it seems to me, should be whether or not the sky is green. And even if someone as vile as Hitler tells you to love your mom, it doesn\u2019t mean that loving your mom isn\u2019t a good idea. (It is.) <\/p>\n

I recently ran into this in my discussions with my aforementioned cousin who no longer considers himself a member of the church. Many of the arguments he cites are brilliantly refuted in a 1961 book by Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley titled The Myth Makers. When I pointed this out to him in an email exchange, he responded thusly:<\/p>\n

The problem with Nibley [is that] he is 100% biased to defend the Church no matter what<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And with that, he was relieved of having to respond to any of what Nibley actually said. By questioning motives, he gets to ignore the message. Suddenly the discussion is about Nibley himself, and the important stuff goes by the wayside. <\/p>\n

So what if Hugh Nibley really was naught but a Mormon corporate stooge? What if he boiled puppies in pancake batter and served them as hams? What if he were \u2013 gasp \u2013 genocidal dictator and erstwhile obscure poet Adolf Hitler himself? If such a man tells you the sky is blue, do you prove him wrong by citing the horrors of concentration camps or the vileness of deep fried poodles? <\/p>\n

There is a limit to this, obviously. When one is trying to find support for the love of motherhood, one will usually avoid citing Hitler as a reference, and Hitler\u2019s atrocities do mitigate the amount of time most of us will spend culling through his wretched life for pearls of wisdom. But all truth stands independent of the person that passes it along. <\/p>\n

The sky is, in fact, blue. You don\u2019t get to ignore that even if Hitler believed it, too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhenyour mother has grown older, When her dear, faithful eyes No longer see life as they once did, When her feet, grown tired, No longer want to carry her as she walks - Then lend her your arm in support, Escort her with happy pleasure. The hour will come when, weeping, you Must accompany her <\/blockquote> ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5006,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/5006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}