"Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive"
About this Quote
Shaw takes the most ordinary fact of human biology and drapes it in the grave language of public policy, letting the absurdity do the work. "Statistics show" is the throat-clearing of officialdom: the sort of phrase that pretends neutrality while smuggling in judgment. He borrows that voice to announce a discovery so stupid it loops back into intelligence: everyone who eats eventually dies. The joke is a bait-and-switch between the scientific tone and the cosmic banality of the conclusion.
The specific intent is to puncture our faith in numbers-as-authority. Shaw is writing in an age when "statistics" and social science were gaining cultural power, often deployed to justify moral panic, reformist zeal, and paternalistic governance. By treating eating as a "habit" one "contracts", he satirizes the medicalization of everyday life and the way institutions pathologize whatever they want to regulate. It's the same bureaucratic impulse that turns pleasure into vice, bodies into case files, and common sense into a footnote.
The subtext is darker than the punchline: data can be perfectly accurate and still intellectually dishonest. You can tell the truth in a way that lies, using correlation as intimidation. Shaw's cynicism lands because it mirrors a recognizable rhetorical trick: dress up inevitability as evidence, then act as if you've proven something actionable. The line isn't anti-science; it's anti cant - a warning that the gravest-sounding sentence in the room may be the least meaningful.
The specific intent is to puncture our faith in numbers-as-authority. Shaw is writing in an age when "statistics" and social science were gaining cultural power, often deployed to justify moral panic, reformist zeal, and paternalistic governance. By treating eating as a "habit" one "contracts", he satirizes the medicalization of everyday life and the way institutions pathologize whatever they want to regulate. It's the same bureaucratic impulse that turns pleasure into vice, bodies into case files, and common sense into a footnote.
The subtext is darker than the punchline: data can be perfectly accurate and still intellectually dishonest. You can tell the truth in a way that lies, using correlation as intimidation. Shaw's cynicism lands because it mirrors a recognizable rhetorical trick: dress up inevitability as evidence, then act as if you've proven something actionable. The line isn't anti-science; it's anti cant - a warning that the gravest-sounding sentence in the room may be the least meaningful.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|
More Quotes by George
Add to List
