Contextomy

Cool word.

It means using quotes without context and/or without knowing the author. I see it all the time. It is especially prevalent in the genre of platitude memes. You know, the pictures you find all over Facebook that have (more or less) profound observations on life, love, death, and so it goes. Please don't take this wrong if you are a regular poster of those memes. Your sentiment is genuine, but the intent of the author of the memes is, at best, unknown. But I digress...

How about this one? Who said it? What is the context?

"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

Well, it was originally uttered by G. Gordon Liddy, but he was paraphrasing Nietzsche from Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize With a Hammer. The actual quote is, "From life's school of war: what does not kill me makes me stronger." I've even seen quote websites that attribute Liddy's words to Nietzsche. The context is that human suffering is universal, and there are many ways to deal with it, making it transformative being one of them. Nietzsche's expression of the sentiment is, as usual, heavy-handed, but that would be the philosophizing with a hammer part. So, for the most part, the platitude is in context. Like any other platitude, though, it generalizes the context to a sound bite. The work by Nietzsche is largely a criticism of German nihilism, but, as with just about everything else Nietzsche wrote, he takes potshots at Platonism and Christianity. It's a little ironic that I often see this quoted in context with...

"God never gives you anything you can't handle."

It must say that somewhere in the Bible, right? Umm... No... It's a bastardization of something Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:13,

There hath not temptation taken hold of you but such as is common to man. But God is faithful; He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it

Technically, the paraphrase is (somewhat) accurate, but it is almost always used out of context. What Paul meant by temptation was the will to sin. The meaning is that you won't be tempted by anything other than human sins, and that God will always give you a way out. The context of the platitude is usually that the bad things that happen to you will never be more than you can handle. In terms of Christian theology, nothing could be further from the truth. God puts no limits on what happens to you. The idea is to take your heavy load to Jesus and let him take the wheel (I really hated that song). Or, put otherwise, when it rains shit on you so heavy you need an umbrella, you can always count on Jesus. Strangely, a lot of Christians who swear by that platitude also swear by this one,

"God helps those who help themselves."

That one must be in the Bible, right? Nope. It doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible. There is nothing even close. The entire New Testament is a treatise on exactly the opposite; God always helps the helpless. The quote originates from a work by Algernon Sydney from 1698 called, Discourses Concerning Government (not at all where you expected it, huh?), a pretty standard liberal (as in 17th Century liberal, which we call libertarian these days) exposition on self determination. The context is self defense. Sydney says that not only shouldn't a man rely on government to protect him, it is not in his best interests to do so. I could go on for hours on that one, so I'll leave it at that. Sydney's context is pretty narrow, but platitude will always out. Let no good quote go ungeneralized. It's a statement made by a Christian, but it isn't a statement on Christianity.

There are lots of context-free and content-free platitudes, but this post is already pretty long. So, that is all. You can resume sharing memes.