The Best Defense?
They say that the best defense is a good offense.
They are dumb. Probably. Probably it's them and not me.
Look, I understand the principle. Sometimes the best way to defend yourself is to go on the attack. Okay, maybe. That's not my problem.
My problem is this:
The BEST defense is a GOOD offense.
No way. Let's take a look at some charts.
Let's go ahead and stipulate a relationship between defense and offense, where having a good offense improves the quality of your overall defense. Assuming that's the case, we'd expect to see something like this:
You'll note that the best defense possible per the chart above is also the BEST offense. That's BEST, not simply GOOD. An offense that is ONLY good, will always be BY DEFINITION less good that a better or best offense, and will therefore result in a defense that is not as good as it otherwise could have been.
But that's not what the expression says. It's not "The best defense is the best offense." No, the expression tells us that the best defense is explicitly a GOOD offense. And that chart would look something like this:
Now, okay. I'm not an expert on, say, karate or football or machine gun fights, but it seems to me that if this second chart were accurate, you'd be getting a lot more sports movies where the coach insists the players give "74%" and say things like "reasonably clear eyes and mostly full hearts can't lose!"
Unless that's the point. Unless you don't want to tire yourself out offending TOO WELL? Like, if you absolutely annihilate them, maybe they will come back as angry ghosts and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY you??? (Or maybe if ghosts aren't real, it'd just be something like the cops arrest you for murdering the other football team.)
Or maybe this is just saying that if you try too hard, you're going to be THAT GUY, and nobody likes THAT GUY. Like, enough already. We get it. You went to Harvard. You have a nice car. Your dog's poops are cube-shaped. TONE. IT. DOWN.
Or, like, if you analyze something, only analyze it a normal amount. Don't be all like "But don't you see these bizarre implications! What about ghosts! What about cube poops!"
(Takes a moment to reflect.)
Nope. I'm super cool.
Suggested alternate expression:
- The best defense is also the best offense, but since that's a very high bar, just focus on the fact that improving your offense will also improve the quality of your defense.
Also, if your dog's poops come out in cubes, take him to the vet.
Shove that in your Bartlett's.