Something in quotes is presumed to have authority carried with it. So, from whomst is the authority?
Anonymizing it here is certainly to the benefit of the person using it. Turning it into a proverb or aphorism and ignorance of the quote’s origins allows people to use it freely.
But once aware, it’s not longer an anonymous aphorism. How can it be treated as if it is? “Let’s just not talk about where it comes from?”
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I understood only the first sentence.
The rest, I did not understand.
I’m of a post-modern learning; post structuralist – all that stuff. I think ideas float around, spirit of the times, the zeitgeist – I’m all for that.
However: that’s where sociohistorical stuff comes into play. Ideas may “float around” in a sense through media and what not — but when you DO KNOW the who said what to whom and when information, it becomes that much more important to act as a stitching to this spacetime continuum, to give credibility to otherwise floating notions that may or may not have a complete constitution on their own.
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People tend to have expertise in their domains but it doesn’t always bleed over into other things, it’s true.
Stephen Hawking’s attempt to build up a cardboard God and then knock it down was embarrassing to me as was his statements about AI – but nobody asked me. It’s not his domain.
Do notions stand alone outside of their historical context? No. Because people use these quotes. People who bring their own knowledge in. They have audiences who bring their own knowledge in.
A quote is nothing if not used. It is communicated BY somebody TO somebody else.
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