"One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff"
About this Quote
McFee’s line has the dry snap of someone who’s watched reputations get built the way stage sets do: quickly, convincingly, and with more painted wood than steel. The choice he frames is brutal on purpose. “Obscurity with Efficiency” isn’t romantic poverty; it’s the worker’s bargain - competence that stays largely unseen because it’s too busy functioning to self-advertise. “Fame,” by contrast, arrives with an “inevitable collateral”: bluff, the performance of confidence, the strategic simplification of messy craft into a saleable persona.
The wording matters. “One must choose” casts the dilemma as structural, not moral. McFee isn’t merely scolding vanity; he’s diagnosing a system where attention is scarce and therefore rewarded, where visibility requires signal-boosting tactics that shade into exaggeration. “Collateral” is a sharp, almost economic metaphor: bluff is not an occasional side effect but a cost baked into the transaction. If you want the benefits of public recognition, you’re also buying its distortions - the pressure to speak beyond what you know, to brand your work, to let the story about you outrun the work itself.
Context helps. Writing in the early 20th century, McFee straddled an era when mass media was professionalizing celebrity and when technical expertise (think engineers, seamen, mechanics) kept modern life running without much applause. The quote lands because it doesn’t flatter either camp: obscurity is a trade-off, not purity; fame is a trade-off, not simply corruption. It’s a cynical little truth that still reads like a field guide to the attention economy.
The wording matters. “One must choose” casts the dilemma as structural, not moral. McFee isn’t merely scolding vanity; he’s diagnosing a system where attention is scarce and therefore rewarded, where visibility requires signal-boosting tactics that shade into exaggeration. “Collateral” is a sharp, almost economic metaphor: bluff is not an occasional side effect but a cost baked into the transaction. If you want the benefits of public recognition, you’re also buying its distortions - the pressure to speak beyond what you know, to brand your work, to let the story about you outrun the work itself.
Context helps. Writing in the early 20th century, McFee straddled an era when mass media was professionalizing celebrity and when technical expertise (think engineers, seamen, mechanics) kept modern life running without much applause. The quote lands because it doesn’t flatter either camp: obscurity is a trade-off, not purity; fame is a trade-off, not simply corruption. It’s a cynical little truth that still reads like a field guide to the attention economy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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