Devil's Dictionary Research Articles

Anxious Science: Ethnography as a Devil's Dictionary

Anxious Science: Ethnography as a Devil's Dictionary

"Law" versus "Performance" as Objective Standard

1. Ronald Moe, Exploring the Limits of Privatization, Public Administration Review, vol. 47 (November/December 1987), p. 45. 2. I use the term publicness as, essentially, the flip side of privatization. Publicness is not a mellifluous term, but it probably beats publicization. 3. B. Bozeman, All Organizations Are Public (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987). 4. I was flattered to embody the prevailing orthodoxy (and only six months after publication!) until I consulted my personal, autographed copy of Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary for Public Administration. Orthodox is defined as out of touch with contemporary trends. 5. Moe, ibid., pp. 453-454. 6. Moe, ibid., p. 453. 7. Moe, ibid., p. 458. 8. Indeed, this is the problem that motivated All Organizations Are Public. Consider the similarity of Moe's assessment and the following All Organizations excerpt: Rarely is the allocation of goods and services determined by evidence that a function is better managed in one sector than the other.... There is no reason why ideology and economic theory should have hegemony over such decisions. Managerial and organizational issues may be just as important (p. 4). 9. Moe, p. 456. 10. Moe, op. cit., p. 453. 11. See B. Bozeman and M. Crow, U.S. RD M. Crow and B. Bozeman, A New Typology for RD Technology Competitiveness Act of 1987, House Committee on Science, Space and Technology (H.R. 2916), August 4, 1987. 14. Moe's term, p. 456.

Punchlines as Paradigms

Punchlines are those amazing switcheroos which suddenly appear, as if from nowhere, with no apparent logic, to belittle things-and make us laugh. A punchline can victimize an idea, a reputation, a situation, and most of all, a person, with stunning speed and effectiveness. But, surprisingly, a punchline is not automatically destructive-technically speaking, it appears to be basically a clarifying factor. For some time, I thought of punchlines as the perfect problem-solvers, as stiletto-sharp solutions, able to cut through problematic situations and eliminate them. But that approach just would not work. I could not find any punchlines that could really destroy a problem, actually make a problem go away. Instead, the punchlines invariably found problems, revealed them. To illustrate, let's look at an example-from Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary (1911). Here is Bierce's definition of logic:

The Self and the Social Community: Another Look at American Realism

Alfred Habegger. Gender, Fantasy and Realism in American Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.378 + xiii pp. Elizabeth Hampsten. Read This Only to Yourself: The Private Writings of Midwestern Women, 1880-1910. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. 242 + xiii pp. William Dean Howells. Selected Letters. Vol. I (1852-1872). Edited by George Arms et al. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.498 + xxv pp. William Dean Howells. Selected Letters. Vol. II (1873-1881). Edited by George Arms and Christoph K. Lohmann. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979. 371 + xiv pp. Elizabeth Stevens Prioleau. The Circle of Eros: Sexuality in the Work of William Dean Howells. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1983. 226 + xvii pp. Eric J. Sundquist, ed. American Realism: New Essays. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. 298 + ix pp. In The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined realism as "the art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads."1 Like Bierce, literary critics traditionally have been uncomfortable with realism's seemingly unsophisticated ideas and objective view of human experience, its documentary and detailed forms of expression, its quaint structures, and literary mediocrity. Further, naturalism, often seen as an extension of realism, has seemed a decadent embarrassment. Realism and naturalism, therefore, generally have been consigned to the realm of the literary historian, who focuses on the philo- sophical alienation of the idealistic imagination responding to cultural changes produced by rapid industrialization, the rationalizations of social Darwinism, and the worship of wealth. For the literary critic, realism serves as a bridge spanning the complex vision of romanticism and the cultural and esthetic dislocation of the moderns. For the literary historian, realism expresses the social and intellectual effects of industrial capitalism.

The devil and all his words

Ambrose Bierce (1842–?1914) took part in the U.S. Civil War, dug for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota, worked for William Randolph Hearst on the San Francisco Examiner, and from time to time simply vanished. Finally, in 1913 he went south of the border into revolutionary Mexico and disappeared without trace. No one has ever learned what happened to him, but before he vanished he had left behind an enduring legacy: The Devil's Dictionary.

Bedside Manners: A Patient's Guide to Doctors and Hospitals

A physician, says the<i>Devil's Dictionary</i>, is one "upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well." Another definition, which is more to the point, holds that a physician is "an ordinary, hardworking fellow who just happens to possess the power of life and death." Numerous "consumer advocates" and muckrakers have written books that tutor the public on how to deal with this strange creature, the physician; but none have done so with as much wit as has Richard Gordon in his latest collection of essays. Gordon is an anesthesiologist who took to writing somewhat by accident: "I started writing with a job on the<i>British Medical Journal</i>. I had the bright idea of running a doctors' comic column, but the editor had a sharper sense of humor and put me in charge of the obituaries. This was invaluable practice. It taught me how to write

The Devil's dictionary of programed instruction

The Devil's dictionary of programed instruction

A Psychoanalyst Looks at Politics: A Retrospective Tribute to Robert Waelder

If Ambrose Bierce were writing his Devil's Dictionary today, he would probably define psychology as the science that predicts that Russian leaders will behave the same way during a missile crisis that a female sophomore does on a date. If tiiis is a caricature, it is only mildly so, as one would quickly learn by reading die testimony on psychology and international relations during die hearings in 1967 of die Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Portrait of Ambrose Bierce.

Ever since<i>reading</i>the "Devil's Dictionary" and feeling its power of black bile turned into vitriol, I have been curious to know something more about Ambrose Bierce. He seemed such an incarnation of misanthropy that I wondered whether he had always been "sick with the sad leavings of the sterile sea." Had he developed his increasingly corroding rancor through some real or fancied injury done his spirit in the course of his life of editorial peregrinations and critical acerbity? When I was in California around the middle of 1964, I found in Howells, a really enchanting secondhand bookstore, a book entitled "Portrait of Ambrose Bierce." It is a remarkable book. Bierce and de Castro once were collaborators in a writing enterprise. The biography is a combination of fawning adulation and a chip on the shoulder attitude—the hurt feeling of the spanked child. Apparently de Castro was too overwhelmed by his

The Devil's Dictionary

For some sensitive souls the vast amount of evil in the world is so appalling that it seems to dislodge their underpinning and set them adrift on a sea of the bleakest, blackest pessimism. Perhaps the least surprising thing about Ambrose Bierce was the fact that in 1913 when he was 71 years old he took off for Mexico as he said "with a pretty definite purpose, which, however, is not at present disclosable." This was the last that was ever heard of him. Presumably his trip was suicidal. The history of mankind tells of a number of people on whom the pressures of the world bore so heavily that they made efforts to flee it. Some apparently succeed in establishing a new foothold, as Gaugin did; but others vanished utterly—<i>spurlos gesenkt</i>. The Dover Press has reissued<i>The Devil's Dictionary</i>as a paperback with a satanic red cover and

Devil's Dictionary

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article ArticleNo AccessDevil's DictionaryWhatsisnameWhatsisnameSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Apr 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.9.7.8AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail "Devil's Dictionary." Psychiatric Services, 9(7), p. 8 Access content To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access. Personal login Institutional Login Sign in via OpenAthens Purchase Save for later Item saved, go to cart PPV Articles - Psychiatric Services $35.00 Add to cart PPV Articles - Psychiatric Services Checkout Please login/register if you wish to pair your device and check access availability. Not a subscriber? Subscribe Now / Learn More PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5 library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development. Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 9Issue 7 September 1958Pages 8-8 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 April 2006 Published in print 1 September 1958