Quote of the day 19th August 2014 - an ironic quote
If there is one quote which is most often used to mean the exact opposite of what the person who first put the words together actually meant, it is the following
"Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive officiously to keep alive."
This comes from "The Latest Decalogue" by Arthur Clough, writing in the 19th century, and every line is dripping with irony. I don't know how he would have reacted had he been told that a century later, as Dominc Lawson pointed out this week, one of his commandments would regularly be used as if it were meant to be taken literally, often in the context of euthanasia.
The best way to show how this was not the meaning of those words is to quote the whole thing. There are two versions, one known as the "Harvard" version reproduced below, and a similar one held at the British Museum.
To illustrate the point I have shown in bold the lines which echo the ten commandments, and in italics how Clough suggested people of his time were completely evading the spirit of those moral principles even when usually paying lip-service to the letter of them.
The Latest Decalogue
Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)
"Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive officiously to keep alive."
This comes from "The Latest Decalogue" by Arthur Clough, writing in the 19th century, and every line is dripping with irony. I don't know how he would have reacted had he been told that a century later, as Dominc Lawson pointed out this week, one of his commandments would regularly be used as if it were meant to be taken literally, often in the context of euthanasia.
The best way to show how this was not the meaning of those words is to quote the whole thing. There are two versions, one known as the "Harvard" version reproduced below, and a similar one held at the British Museum.
To illustrate the point I have shown in bold the lines which echo the ten commandments, and in italics how Clough suggested people of his time were completely evading the spirit of those moral principles even when usually paying lip-service to the letter of them.
The Latest Decalogue
Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)
Comments
One of the most common ones are the "young earth creationists" over in the states who love to quote Charles Darwin "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."
of course this is a quote from the origin of species, he starts off the paragraph with the above, then goes on to explain exactly how the eye can and did form by a process of natural selection. They just omit that bit.
Basically Darwin was using a style of writing by which he builds his own strawman then proceeds to knock it down.
When I was in my twenties I would have said that the iconic example was the way CND supporters would misleadingly quote from Lord Mountbatten as if he supported their view (which he did not).
But not long after came an even more extreme example of a selective quote, Margaret Thatcher's words "There is no such thing as society" which in context were part of an appeal for individuals to think about other people rather than leave it to some artificial abstract called "society" to look out for them.
Which is diametricallly opposite to what those seven words are usually presented as meaning when quoted out of context.