Sometimes my co-workers ask me to explain things to them. Oftentimes this ends up meaning that I'm making stuff up on the fly.
Today I was asked to explain the saying, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
In the end, I found the best way to communicate this concept was to use the example of a saint. My logic was that saintly people are incapable of gaining absolute power because by nature, being a saintly person means constantly giving up power to others. Therefore, the process of gaining absolute power inherently requires a selfishness that will corrupt you.
Thoughts? Criticisms? (Be nice I really was making this up as I went.)
1 comment:
I like it Phil. It might also be helpful to point out that the word "absolute" takes on more than one meaning in the saying. In the first sense it is synonymous to "total" or "complete" whereas at the end it means "invariably" or "always". I would imagine for a non-native speaker, the similarity in spelling might lead them to believe they have a similar meaning, and the saying would not make much sense.
On a similar note, I remember when my host brother asked me to translate the lyrics of "Billie Jean" for him. Somehow, I had to explain that Michael Jackson had an illegitimate child with a woman and now is denying that the child is his.
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