Pages

29 October 2005

Calvin and Hobbes

History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.

- Calvin, to Hobbes

This strip is apparently the most successful cartoon one since Peanuts. I got hooked on it at some point and was mighty sad when it ceased publication.

Calvin is the stereotypical boy, but with an adult's sense of the world. His tiger, Hobbes, was apparently named for the English philosopher who told us that in the state of nature life was poor, nasty, brutish and short.

I have used Calvin sometimes in my posts and people might find the references a bit obscure or odd. So as I post this on Friday night - dated ahead for sticklers - I thought I'd share a little cartoon and one of my favourite Calvinisms.