08 June 2009

Learning from history... and experience...

”The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” — Cicero, 55 BC

Found at Bits and Pieces.

Addendum: I posted the above yesterday, but as noted in the Comments section, the quotation by Cicero is a fabrication that has cascaded through the internet. The original quote was "The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall."

The person who found the error asked whether Minnesotastan admits to editorial errors. Absolutely. We agree with the view of blogging expressed by Andrew Sullivan:
No columnist or reporter or novelist will have his minute shifts or constant small contradictions exposed as mercilessly as a blogger’s are. A columnist can ignore or duck a subject less noticeably than a blogger committing thoughts to pixels several times a day. A reporter can wait—must wait—until every source has confirmed. A novelist can spend months or years before committing words to the world. For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.
Writing (or assembling material) in this fashion, one is "often wrong, but never in doubt." It's risky to accept at face value anything found on the 'net, but expediency generally overrules careful research. One admits one's mistakes and moves on. I did even more - I notified my friends at HuffPo, and they have made it a front page story:

And if you believe that screencap is real, then you've missed the point of this entire post...

12 comments:

  1. This internet legend has been denied at truth or fiction.
    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/cicero-plan.htm

    This is what they say:

    This alleged quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero that began circulating on the Internet in October, 2008, is based on a true statement from the great Roman orator, but someone added a lot to it to make it match some of what the United States was facing economically.

    The actual quote is:

    "The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall."

    ReplyDelete
  2. The citation below dates the original fake quotation to the Kansas City Star in 1986 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. RR did not cite Marcus Tullius.

    http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.quotations/browse_thread/thread/d0c75b3069548f17?tvc=2

    ReplyDelete
  3. If it were true: what's your point? We shouldn't fix these things? Rome didn't - and grew vastly in power after 55 BC. Of course, it ceased to be a republic in more than name...

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.”
    - Brendan Behan

    How's them apples Pietr? A polite correction is acceptable. Your discourteous comment about the blog author callous and inappropriate.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @anonymous - I don't consider Pietr's comment to have been either discourteous or inappropriate.

    I like the fact that he documented his comments. This blog would benefit from more such vigorous commentary.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Minnesotastan - It was the comment that you deleted that I found objectionable. I have no problem with him pointing out an error. It was the third of his three comments that I thought was rude. I'm guessing that you felt the same since you pulled it down.

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  8. @anon - No, I didn't delete the comment. As the bloghost 'bot notes, "This post has been removed by the author." He deleted it. I read it, because all comments come to one of my emailboxes (even if they are subsequently deleted), and I didn't find it objectionable. I incorporated part of the wording into my response when I amended the original post.

    This isn't a big deal. We move on.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Quo usque tandem abutere patientia nostra?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quousque_tandem_abutere,_Catilina,_patientia_nostra%3F

    ReplyDelete
  10. Translation -

    "For how long will that madness of yours mock us?

    Pietr - I'm not trying to mock you with the screencap. Just trying to make a point about fallibility in blogging.

    Want me to remove your name from the screencap? I put it there as a substitute for the Showy Ladyslipper award. But I can X it out with a couple of keystrokes if you wish. I thought you would get a laugh out of it.

    Let me know.

    Stan

    ReplyDelete
  11. Stan,

    “How long will you abuse our patience?”

    The beginning of the first speech against Catilina. This speech was given by Cicero on the eighth of November in 63 BC. (Wikipedia citation)

    I love your screencap,it made me smile, and I accept it in lieu of the Showy Ladyslipper award.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Whew, I'm glad that's settled!

    We actually learned more from the revelation that the quote was partially faked than from the original faked version.

    Good work, everybody.

    ReplyDelete