That’s a shame. You’ve emphasised in this thread that “reasonable people” may disagree. Even though I’ve changed your mind on Congress’ and the courts’ opinion on this matter from “unrightable” to “unrighted” wrong, I’m an unreasonable person on this matter?
It seems like a strange allusion to make if only because, if I remember Don Quixote, the tilting at windmills was because the would-be knight in question believed them to be dangerous giants. A neutral situation is misinterpreted through the mind of madness into an enemy. And, from what you’ve said so far, the “foe” I’m picturing does exist. A President or senior figure, per you, can avoid anti-discrimination legislation in making their appointments. They may act in whatever biased or bigoted way they see fit in terms of who they hire, with the only check being election or impeachment. Again, per your citing, efforts have been made actively to ensure that exception. The giants would seem to exist.
You didn’t really change my mind. I used the word as a line from a musical, not as a advocate for it being the perfect word to use in describing the issue.
Yes, but that’s not (in my view) the lesson of Don Quixote. The fact that he’s mad is not the problem – in his madness, he exemplifies the quality of upholding perfect ideals. The kitchen wench and prostitute Aldonza becomes his genteel lady Dulcinea; his battered and bony horse becomes a noble steed, and the modest inn becomes a fine castle with the innkeeper the resident lord. Aldonza finally throws it back in his face, bitterly telling him how she’s nothing but a whore, the daughter of another whore whose father was some regiment here for an hour (“I can’t even tell you which side.”) And he says resolutely, “Thou art still my lady Dulcinea!”
In other words, the reason quixotic means “idealistic; unrealistic; impractical,” is not that Quixote was insane – it’s that he continually rejected the mundane in fabor of the perfect.
No argument. But a single senator insisting on solution that fixes this is idealistic; unrealistic; impractical.
Actually, you did respond to my question about whether Congress and the courts had declared it an “unrightable” issue by saying, after your basis for saying so, “So, yes. Or at least defined it as, “We’re not going to right it.”” Did you mean, “So, no. More accurately, they’ve defined it as “We’re not going to right it.””?
I very strongly disagree. The reason quixotic means those things is that Quixote could not perceive or comprehend reality other than the way he understood it. He didn’t reject mundane reality; he didn’t see mundane reality in order to reject it. His madness is the essence of his quixotic behaviour. And after all, he doesn’t attain perfection in many of his travails nor bewail himself at every perceived loss of it. A Quixote who rejected the mundane in favour of the perfect would have defeated those giants in his own mind.
You’re going to have to spell out your metaphor more deeply, I’m afraid, I’m not following you. I’ve already been a madman; am I this single senator, too, or is that someone else?
I suppose I was picturing a snarky Congressional voiced response: “Yes, it’s unrightable…by which we mean that we’re not going to right it.”
He didn’t lose to the giants. He explains that at the moment of his victory, a sorcerer turned the giants into windmills. He never really loses, as Quixote.
In the musical’s final scene-within-a-scene, Alosono Quijana is in his sickbed, weak and defeated, having been forced by his erstwhile nephew-in-law, Dr. Carrasco,“the Knight of the Mirror,” to see his pretense for what it was. Aldonza forces her way in and pleads with him to remember, for she has now found the Dulcinea within herself. His trusty sidekick Sancho is there as well.
Quijana chooses to embrace Quixote again. He deliberately chooses the pursuit of perfection over the reality of the mundane. “More misadventures?” says Sancho joyfully.
“ADventures, old friend!” replies Quijana. “I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha, my destiny calls and I go!” Sancho and Aldonza chime in… as Quijana suffers the fatal heart attack that takes his life. In the end, he had the choice and he chooses idealism, seeing and rejecting the mundane.
And then the scene returns to the prison in which Cervantes is summoned to face the Inquisition, and his fellow prisoners, stirred to a bit of idealism themselves, return his manuscript of Quixote’s adventures.
[QUOTE=Bricker, earlier]
So, yes. Or at least defined it as, “We’re not going to right it.”
[/QUOTE]
You’ve slightly moved your quotation marks so as to encapsulate the whole sentence, there. In the original the agreement wasn’t part of your Congressional emulation.
He loses. That’s the reason he gives for his loss; but he accepts the loss. He accepts the loss of his spear, as annoyed as he is about it. He fails, and recognises this. It’s not a case of him rejecting the mundane for perfection; as I said, if it was, he would have defeated the giants in his own mind. Perfection would have him brilliantly carrying the day. Reality - as his madness-stricken mind sees it - has him lose and break his weapon. “I lost because a sorceror transformed those giants.” is not perfection.
Again I have to disagree. The madness comes upon him again, or perhaps the recognition of reality as it is, leaves him. What makes you think he had some active choice in the matter?
Stirred to idealism, yes. But not by someone who strove for perfection. After all, that’s not the “perfect” response by the prisoners. Just a good one.
Of course. In both Spanish and the English translation.
This afternoon, you are cordially invited to join me in CS to continue this aspect of our discussion. It’s a hijack of the main point here and altogether too genteel for the Pit.
That’s nothin’. In college, I read El Cantar de mio Cid in the original Spanish [that is, not updated to the modern form] as the final assignment in a Spanish Literature class.