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The Humbugs of the World (1866) (archive.org)
33 points by tkgally 10 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



Flicked through and found this bit:

"But there is a more thorough humbug than any of these enterprises or systems. The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes — or pretends to believe — that everything and everybody are humbugs.... Religion he thinks one of the smartest business dodges extant, a first-rate investment, and by all odds the most respectable disguise that a lying or swindling business man can wear. Honour he thinks is a sham. Honesty he considers a plausible word to flourish in the eyes of the greener portion of our race, as you would hold out a cabbage-leaf to coax a donkey. What people want, he thinks, or says he thinks, is something good to eat, something good to drink, fine clothes, luxury, laziness, wealth. If you can imagine a hog's mind in a man's body — sensual, greedy, selfish, cruel, cunning, sly, coarse, yet stupid, short-sighted, unreasoning, unable to comprehend anything except what concerns the flesh, you have your man."

Blushes in economist...


Reminiscent of Machiavelli's "Prince" where he bids the devious to always cloak themselves in the garments of religion, reason and honour.


1866 was shortly after the publication of Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, which popularized the word nihilism.


Blushes in consumerism...


If I read you right you are playing the role of the man that he is critiquing: a man who holds that all his fellows are mere creatures of desire.




Gotta love how he's like, all patent medicines are fake, except the one my friend is selling...

Bah.




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