We should all have Voltaire's Passion

By George

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by

George F. Smith

Though he died more than two centuries ago, the French writer Voltaire had a passion for clarity we would all do well to emulate -- especially in this age of email suffocation.

Curiously, though, an Encarta encyclopedia article recognizes him for his elegance, wit, and "perspicuity" -- not "clarity."

I thought that was odd. Why make me go to my dictionary to find out “perspicuity” was being used to mean “clarity”? Is perspicuity a degree of clearness clearer than clarity, achieved when combined with other difficult to master qualities like elegance and wit?

I decided to see if these questions could be answered.

Elegance, it turns out, is quite elusive. Its definition does nothing to teach us what elegant writing is. Elegance implies beauty, grace, and the “complete absence of what deforms or impresses unpleasantly,” according to one dictionary’s elaboration.

Welcome to the world of Lewis Carroll. There are readers on call who will always be unpleasantly impressed with anything -- even if you’re quoting Voltaire -- and not all of them are wards of the state.

Nor did the dictionary give us an example of elegant writing. Then I looked at their phrase again -- “complete absence of what deforms” and so on. Were they trying to slip in a little elegance of their own? Notice how glorious it stands while leaving you wondering what in the blazes they’re talking about. Elegance is for the anointed, clarity for the unwashed.

Not so with Voltaire. An author “should be a perfect master of his language,” he wrote in Candide, “speak it with all its purity, and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme." Don’t muddle your message just to make it sound fancy.

Voltaire is perhaps best known for his wit. Wit, Shakespeare tells us, is stingy with words. Elegance is “tasteful opulence,” more of a free spender. How do you balance these qualities and still write clearly? As soon as you get going with elegance, wit hits the brakes. Or devise a pithy phrase, and elegance overloads it with flourishes.

Encarta’s dictionary says witty expression shows an “apt, clever, and often humorous association of words” -- no mention of brevity. So, soulless though the humor may be, elegance and wit can inhabit the same text, as long as people laugh in the right places.

Getting his message across in an entertaining and sophisticated manner was the heart of Voltaire’s writing, though not everyone thought he was funny. One of his witticisms got him beaten up, thrown in the Bastille, and released only on condition that he go to England.

Voltaire’s status as a literary heavyweight perhaps influenced Encarta’s decision to award him the lavish “perspicuity” in describing his passion for clear expression. But this is what I say: if you’re passionate about clarity you call it that. That’s why Voltaire himself, I believe, would have insisted on “clarity.” If this seems like hair-splitting, remember the famous Rough Rider who, had he been less clear, might have said, “Speak softly and carry a big cudgel.”

I know I’d be reaching for my dictionary if he had.

Other Interesting Sites

Ron Paul's
Campaign for Liberty

Strike the Root

Classics of Libertarian Thought

BK's FED Economics Portal

Greenspan's 1966 "Gold and Economic Freedom"

Ludwig von Mises Institute

"V" for Vendetta