Yes, any adjective that is felt to be complimentary will be subjectively applied, given or withheld regardless of the views of the subject on the matter; and who could imagine in the case of the adjective 'religious' anyone would know more than the subject who is or isn't that?
But I'm an atheist, and i've had a number of people assert to me that i'm religious. It's because they like me, we're friends, and find "I like her" and "She is an atheist" an uncomfortable coupling for them; so the cognitive dissonance thing kicks in, I guess. They aren't going to stop liking me, so they simply redefine 'religious' in a way that will include me. It's a gesture of friendship (or in its converse, could be a way of declaring disaffiliation, distance, enmity.) It doesn't change me, but makes them comfortable.
I didn't know that Mark Twain had said that about Joan of Arc. I must read more about her.
I guess I've always sort of thought of Leonardo da Vinci as the most extraordinary person, but he was in a workshop and not on a horse, leading an army and changing the world, and wasn't just a peasant girl. Shakespeare was extraordinary; but we don't mean just a genius.
Maybe if we could agree on some definition of 'extraordinary' that didn't require having come to public prominence, and we had a magical way of ascertaining who fit our criteria, the most extraordinary would be some person in a little village someplace with mental and moral qualities that transcended those of all others who had ever lived.
I suppose this is a version of what I used to think about when I was a child. Is the greatest pianist the world has ever known living someplace where they don't have pianos?
I think i'm a bit spacey this evening. Tired and upset, more each day, not less. |
