Highest intelligences • Sagacious minds • and Fools

•
"La photographie est une découverte merveilleuse,
une science qui occupe les intelligences les plus élevées,
un art qui aiguise les esprits les plus sagaces
et dont l’application est à la portée du dernier des imbéciles."

— Félix Tournachon, dit Nadar (1857)​

"Photography is a wonderful discovery,
a science which occupies the highest intelligences,
an art which sharpens the most sagacious minds and
whose application is to reach the last fools."

— Félix Tournachon, aka Nadar (1857)​

•••

Hello everyone,

This was said more then 150 years ago!
At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

• If Nadar called them "last fools" then… what would he call them today?

• Aware that he could not know the future developments in photography,
do you think this judgement would still apply today?

What do you say?

even in that time the duality science/technique vs art was present and it is still here today.
maybe the democratisation of access to everything due to market economy is keeping the
value and full strength of the idea 150 years later.

Kind of similar to the 2nd Amendment. "All men shall have the right to bear arms"......."Arms" back in those days was a single shot pistol that you had to pack a lead ball, wadding and gun powder after every shot. Now you can put a 40 round magazine into an assault rifle and fire all the shots under 10 seconds.......what would they say now? Maybe this should be on another forum....Sorry :confused-new:

Smoke said:

Kind of similar to the 2nd Amendment. "All men shall have the right to bear arms"......."Arms" back in those days was a single shot pistol that you had to pack a lead ball, wadding and gun powder after every shot. Now you can put a 40 round magazine into an assault rifle and fire all the shots under 10 seconds.......what would they say now? Maybe this should be on another forum....Sorry :confused-new:

Click to expand...

While I think they would marvel at the technology I think they were smart enough to know that just as cap and ball rifles were a huge technological leap over bows and arrows and just as bows and arrows were a huge technological leap over wooden clubs; that one day, something would be a huge technological leap over cap and ball rifles. Were colonial civilians limited to wooden clubs or bows and arrows? No, they were allowed to own the technology relevant at the time.

If you look at the Constitution as written by the founders it's about two things: reiterating the rights of the people (not granting rights, mind you; the Constitution does not GIVE anyone their rights, it affirms what some rights are) while defining/limiting the power of the government. As an example, the Second Amendment doesn't say, "All men shall have the right to bear arms"; it says "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." One sentence implies a specific right is being bestowed - like a pat on the head - the other affirms an existential right the government has no power to take away because rights are inherent by virtue of our humanity; they are not doled out to us at the whim of a benevolent government.

And lastly, you're right... This is probably best discussed in another forum.



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Kodiak said:

•
"La photographie est une découverte merveilleuse,
une science qui occupe les intelligences les plus élevées,
un art qui aiguise les esprits les plus sagaces
et dont l’application est à la portée du dernier des imbéciles."

— Félix Tournachon, dit Nadar (1857)​

"Photography is a wonderful discovery,
a science which occupies the highest intelligences,
an art which sharpens the most sagacious minds and
whose application is to reach the last fools."

— Félix Tournachon, aka Nadar (1857)​

•••

Hello everyone,

This was said more then 150 years ago!
At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

• If Nadar called them "last fools" then… what would he call them today?

• Aware that he could not know the future developments in photography,
do you think this judgement would still apply today?

What do you say?

Click to expand...

Interesting quote. I am wondering what his definition of 'fool' is. Sometimes, the gist or spirit of the thought can be lost in translation. I see in the French statement, the word 'imbeciles' is used, which is very close to the English 'imbecile' which is the equivalent of 'idiot, moron'. This latter implies more of a semi-permanent deficiency in intelligence, whereas 'fool' is a kinder, almost harmless way of saying that somebody made a bad decision . . . something like "temporary insanity"

But then Nadar was initially a caricaturist and saw photography as a way of quickly creating 'caricatures', at first . . . so maybe "fool" to him was simply that . . . maybe his comment about an application to the last fools refers to the ultimate caricature of any person willing to sit for him,. . .or maybe it was a political statement. We know that he mostly photographed "significant" people and people of his own political convictions.

Considering how he defined portrait photography, experimented with artificial lighting and aerial photography, I think he would have loved to be alive in today's world of photography. I don't think today's "auto" thing would have mattered to him. Apparently the end result was what was important, not so much how you got there.

Without having read his full, detailed biography (which I would like to do eventually) and knowing in what context it was used (surely, whoever was talking to him asked a follow-up question?), it's hard to say what that last sentence refers to.

Just my opinion.

Horoscope Fish said:

While I think they would marvel at the technology I think they were smart enough to know that just as cap and ball rifles were a huge technological leap over bows and arrows and just as bows and arrows were a huge technological leap over wooden clubs; that one day, something would be a huge technological leap over cap and ball rifles. Were colonial civilians limited to wooden clubs or bows and arrows? No, they were allowed to own the technology relevant at the time.

If you look at the Constitution as written by the founders it's about two things: reiterating the rights of the people (not granting rights, mind you; the Constitution does not GIVE anyone their rights, it affirms what some rights are) while defining/limiting the power of the government. As an example, the Second Amendment doesn't say, "All men shall have the right to bear arms"; it says "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." One sentence implies a specific right is being bestowed - like a pat on the head - the other affirms an existential right the government has no power to take away because rights are inherent by virtue of our humanity; they are not doled out to us at the whim of a benevolent government.

And lastly, you're right... This is probably best discussed in another forum.



......

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It seems like I struck a nerve....It was only an analogy (maybe not the best one) but that's all. I'm sure they did realize that there would be more modern advances in weapons but again, just an analogy. I happen to own all of the weapons mentioned above and I am an avid shooter, hunter and have a carry permit. I will leave it at that. As you agreed with me (thanks, by the way) this is for another forum and also thank you for the history lesson and the correction of the verbiage of the 2nd Amendment.

Do you think the founders envisioned today's technology like Daily Newspapers, Eye-Witness news on TV, The Internet, FaceBook and Twitter when they wrote the First Amendment?

Smoke said:

It seems like I struck a nerve....

Click to expand...

No, not at all.

I don't know what I said, specifically, that makes you think you struck a nerve with me, but I do tend to speak rather bluntly and sometimes I know that comes off in ways I didn't intended. It's just how I talk and, by extension, I suppose, how I type.

Smoke said:

I happen to own all of the weapons mentioned above and I am an avid shooter, hunter and have a carry permit. I will leave it at that. As you agreed with me (thanks, by the way) this is for another forum and also thank you for the history lesson and the correction of the verbiage of the 2nd Amendment.

Click to expand...

I'm a life-long pistol shooter, pistol shooting competitor (Steel Challenge, mainly) and NRA member myself. I don't consider myself a hunter, per se, but I've done enough wing shooting to hold my own I suppose.

Tracsoft - Don Kuykendall said:

Do you think the founders envisioned today's technology like Daily Newspapers, Eye-Witness news on TV, The Internet, FaceBook and Twitter when they wrote the First Amendment?

Click to expand...

I don't profess to know what the Founders foresaw in the way of technology specifically, and I didn't mean to imply they I thought they could foresee fully-automatic rifles in my previous post. That being said, I feel confident they knew in a hundred years time we probably wouldn't be using cap and ball rifles. Regardless of what the evolution might bring, I'm sure they were aware it would bring something. I mean, do YOU think technology won't change MOST things in a hundred years time?


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