"Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing"
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Butler treats morality less like a halo and more like an instrument that won’t stay in tune. The line is funny because it refuses the flattering fantasy of “pure” virtue: the world is messy, incentives are crooked, and anyone who expects to live without compromise is either naive or performing. So virtue, if it wants to survive contact with reality, does something unromantic and practical: it “tunes herself...a trifle sharp.” Aim a little higher than you can reliably hold, because you will flatten under pressure.
The metaphor matters. Tuning is not moral surrender; it’s calibration. Butler’s “impossible” carries the Victorian hangover of rigid respectability and the daily accommodations that kept empire, industry, and polite society running. In that environment, earnest righteousness could become a kind of brittle vanity. His virtue is not the sermonizing kind that demands perfection from others; it’s self-aware, almost managerial: it plans for human weakness the way a musician anticipates sagging pitch in performance.
Subtextually, he’s also skewering hypocrisy. “Compromise” is inevitable, but who gets to call their compromise “pragmatism” while branding someone else’s as corruption? By personifying virtue as a strategist, Butler suggests that integrity isn’t proven by never yielding; it’s proven by noticing where you’ll yield and setting your standards with that drift in mind. The wit lands because it’s both forgiving and unsparing: you will fall short, so stop pretending you won’t, but don’t use inevitability as an excuse to stop aiming.
The metaphor matters. Tuning is not moral surrender; it’s calibration. Butler’s “impossible” carries the Victorian hangover of rigid respectability and the daily accommodations that kept empire, industry, and polite society running. In that environment, earnest righteousness could become a kind of brittle vanity. His virtue is not the sermonizing kind that demands perfection from others; it’s self-aware, almost managerial: it plans for human weakness the way a musician anticipates sagging pitch in performance.
Subtextually, he’s also skewering hypocrisy. “Compromise” is inevitable, but who gets to call their compromise “pragmatism” while branding someone else’s as corruption? By personifying virtue as a strategist, Butler suggests that integrity isn’t proven by never yielding; it’s proven by noticing where you’ll yield and setting your standards with that drift in mind. The wit lands because it’s both forgiving and unsparing: you will fall short, so stop pretending you won’t, but don’t use inevitability as an excuse to stop aiming.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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