Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

[cahn]

Yuletide signups so far:
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D

(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)

Comments

Re: Diderot - Personal Life

[cahn]

My favorite story is that he liked tricking his teachers by working really obscure syntax into his Latin and Greek, waiting for them to correct him, then taking great pleasure in proving that he was right and they were wrong.

This is hilarious to me not least because it makes perfect sense that this is your favorite story :D

He manages to court her by convincing her parents that he's EXTREMELY CHASTE, i.e. on the verge of becoming a priest. In a very similar way, he recently once swindled someone out of a bunch of money by pretending he was about to enter the priesthood.

Wow!

This new and improved, "Now with more Rousseau-trashing!"

ahahahaha!

And to her credit, his wife Toinette, who is notably pious herself, wants Diderot to be able to get the assurance that he would get the burial he wants without having to convert, if he's dead set on not converting, and does her best to make that happen.

So, like, this is actually really touching to me. (I know very few notably pious people who would not be jonesing for the conversion, and that's in this day and age.)

Diderot: Or I could move to a different parish. Byyyeeee!

lolololol!

Ghost of Voltaire: Never let it be said that I took the easy route, even in death!

Voltaire, you... are not inaccurate there.

While having anything but a heroic death à la Socrates, Diderot had nonetheless expired in a way that was perfectly compatible with his philosophy: without a priest, with humor, and while attempting to eke out one last bit of pleasure from life.

That's actually kind of great, a good death in a different way than some others' good deaths, but it does seem like as good death as one is likely to get, to me. (Especially given that he was an atheist, so didn't run up against the religious problems of dying without confession.)

Re: Diderot - Personal Life

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is hilarious to me not least because it makes perfect sense that this is your favorite story :D

Lol! I honestly racked my brains trying to think of why I don't have more memories of doing this ("more" means I have some, yes :P), and then I realized:

I went to such bad schools that I had a hard enough time convincing my teachers I was right and they were wrong even when I wasn't trying to trick them!

Exhibit A: My inability to convince one of my high school English teachers that "The volleyball team plays well" is grammatically correct. His rationale: "'Volleyball' is a noun, adjectives modify nouns, therefore it's 'The volleyball team played good.'" *Could* *not* convince him otherwise. The conversation degenerated to the point where my mother forced me to write a letter of apology for rudeness when she found out I had asked him what his college degree was in (because I sure didn't think it was English).

Exhibit B: History class, also in high school. On an exam question that went, "The [some denomination]s believed that God was _______ and ______," I put "omniscient" and "omnipotent." I was marked wrong, because the answers were "all-knowing" and "all-powerful." *Could* *not* convince the history teacher that those words meant the same thing. I wasn't even trying to show off, I just put down the first words that popped into my head!

Trying to trick these people on purpose would have just ruined my GPA, which I needed for scholarships, because that was the only way I was paying for college, because it's not like a quality education for me was a priority or anything for my parents, smh.

Oh, wait, wait, I forgot one! selenak, you'll love this one.

Exhibit C: The same history teacher who marked me off for "omniscient" and "omnipotent" repeatedly taught the class that James I/VI was Catholic. I could not convince her otherwise.

So, like, this is actually really touching to me. (I know very few notably pious people who would not be jonesing for the conversion, and that's in this day and age.)

I know, I was hugely impressed, which is why I had to include it! According to the author, she said she would give her life for him to become a believer, but if he wasn't going to, she still wanted to help him get that burial.

That's actually kind of great, a good death in a different way than some others' good deaths, but it does seem like as good death as one is likely to get, to me.

Agreed. It's a good Epicurean (in the original sense of the word) death.

Re: Diderot - Personal Life

[cahn]

According to the author, she said she would give her life for him to become a believer, but if he wasn't going to, she still wanted to help him get that burial.

Awwww! That's very... perceptive, or logical, or maybe both. <3