"Every absurdity has a champion to defend it"
About this Quote
Goldsmith nails a social law that still runs the internet on autopilot: the stranger the idea, the more passionately someone will volunteer to be its lawyer. The line lands because it’s not really about “absurdities” in the abstract; it’s about the human need to turn belief into identity. Once an opinion becomes a badge, defending it stops being rational persuasion and becomes self-preservation. The champion isn’t arguing to win; he’s arguing to exist.
Goldsmith, writing in the long 18th-century shadow of coffeehouse debate, pamphlet wars, and performative wit, knew how public argument worked as entertainment. “Champion” is a sly word choice: it casts the defender as heroic even while exposing the farce. The subtext is that absurdity doesn’t survive despite opposition; it survives because opposition gives it a stage. A defended nonsense starts to look like a “side,” and sides attract loyalists.
There’s also a quiet jab at status and vanity. The champion of an absurdity gets attention precisely because the cause is ridiculous; it’s an easy arena to dominate, a place to feel singular and brave. Goldsmith’s cynicism isn’t misanthropic so much as diagnostic: reason alone doesn’t govern what people rally around. Social reward does.
The line’s modern bite is how neatly it anticipates today’s attention economy, where every fringe notion can find its influencer, its think-piece, its “just asking questions” emissary. Goldsmith implies a bleak corollary: the problem isn’t only that absurdities exist, but that we keep minting careers out of defending them.
Goldsmith, writing in the long 18th-century shadow of coffeehouse debate, pamphlet wars, and performative wit, knew how public argument worked as entertainment. “Champion” is a sly word choice: it casts the defender as heroic even while exposing the farce. The subtext is that absurdity doesn’t survive despite opposition; it survives because opposition gives it a stage. A defended nonsense starts to look like a “side,” and sides attract loyalists.
There’s also a quiet jab at status and vanity. The champion of an absurdity gets attention precisely because the cause is ridiculous; it’s an easy arena to dominate, a place to feel singular and brave. Goldsmith’s cynicism isn’t misanthropic so much as diagnostic: reason alone doesn’t govern what people rally around. Social reward does.
The line’s modern bite is how neatly it anticipates today’s attention economy, where every fringe notion can find its influencer, its think-piece, its “just asking questions” emissary. Goldsmith implies a bleak corollary: the problem isn’t only that absurdities exist, but that we keep minting careers out of defending them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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