Seth CotlarApplied economics professor at Johns Hopkins, National Review contributor, and former Reagan advisor tweeting out an oft-debunked, fake quote from George Washington is, from inside my niche sector of academia, the perfect ending to 2022.
The good folks at Mt Vernon have a handy list of fake GW quotes, of which there are legion that circulate widely and almost exclusively on the US Right…because of US conservatives’ deep respect for originalism and their authentic revulsion for those who would cynically impose contemporary values upon the past. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations/
Back in the more innocent days of 2014, I made my first foray into the blogging world with this attempt to document conservative fake founders quotes. That blog seems pretty quaint and silly now...I abandoned it because it was both a) like shooting fish in a barrel and b) didn't really tell us much other than political hacks in America like to justify stupid opinions by attributing them to 18th century figures. https://www.tumblr.com/fakefoundersquotes
FakeFoundersQuotes
A clearinghouse for quotes falsely attributed to America's founders. 99% of these misattributions are by self-described Conservatives, who you would think would be a bit more respectful of the people they are quoting. When possible, I will offer alternative (and real) quotes that highlight the gap between 21st century Conservatism/ Libertarianism and the political philosophy of America's 18th century founders (defined inclusively). The point is not that 21st century Progressives have a special claim on the founders…it's not even clear that what someone thought was true 230 years ago should influence anything we do today (and there are great Jefferson and Paine quotes to that effect which I will post soon). My only point is to debunk those people today who would use the (supposed) words of the 18th century Founders to end 21st century arguments.
I mostly point this stuff out for snark value, but there is a larger point worth making about the shoddy epistemological hygiene practiced by the US Right. They read archivally-grounded and empirically impeccable modern historical scholarship and say "dur, this is all woke revisionnism," and then they recirculate fake founders quotes that have were debunked decades ago and have been exposed as fakes over and over again. And then they have the temerity to say WE live in a bubble.
George Washington authorized 13,000 troops to march across the freaking state of Pennsylvania in 1794 to force a handful of pissed off farmers to pay their taxes. He used the power of his office to try to apprehend an enslaved woman, Ona Judge, who freed herself in May 1796. He's not your anti-statist libertarian hero, my friend, despite what your fake quote is trying to say.
So look, everyone makes mistakes. It's not that big of a deal. But when people inside your political community keep making the same mistake over and over and over again despite many people out there pointing it out over and over...then maybe some self-reflection is in order.
When I was doing research back in 2014 for that tumblr blog, I'd see that fake GW quote memed on conservative FB sites like Heritage or Cato, and almost every time people would comment "hey, cool quote, but I don't think GW said that" with a link to a debunker. No effect.
So again, I would say there are mistakes and then there are mistakes. I often see folks on the left post something inaccurate, get corrected, and then say "oh hey, thanks, I didn't know that" and then they take down the misinformation. What a concept. Not that hard. In fairness to the JHU prof, it appears that he's deleted that tweet due, I presume, to someone correcting him. So kudos for that.
Spicewalla@sethcotlar Reading the passage from Sartre in which he says that they are amusing themselves out our expense because their goal is not to persuade, its to discredit was a light-bulb moment for me. They use performative ignorance as a form of aggression and delight in the futile attempts to correct them.
b9n10nti think we can be more accurate & generous without giving an inch to our political goals or validating theirs.
hierarchy poisons the intellect and is constantly emitting BS self-justifications. but the default assumption of individuals should be self-delusion, not wickedness. especially among pundits/journos/public intellectuals.
ideology IS a helluva drug, and Americans are force fed the "intoxicant" from birth --> constant naive misremembering/misperception
Helderweb@Spicewalla @sethcotlar
Reading the passage from Sartre in which he says that they are amusing themselves out our expense because their goal is not to persuade, its to discredit was a light-bulb moment for me. They use performative ignorance as a form of aggression and delight in the futile attempts to correct them.
..
My comments..this explains the highly paid Fox spokesmodels and every other caller on #cspanwj every morning talking about the stolen election, the dangerous vaccinations etc.
Reading the passage from Sartre in which he says that they are amusing themselves out our expense because their goal is not to persuade, its to discredit was a light-bulb moment for me. They use performative ignorance as a form of aggression and delight in the futile attempts to correct them.
..
My comments..this explains the highly paid Fox spokesmodels and every other caller on #cspanwj every morning talking about the stolen election, the dangerous vaccinations etc.
Karen Leick@sethcotlar Fake quotes are so interesting to me. There are several fake Gertrude Stein quotes on Goodreads that I see floating about. The one about dancing and this one about coffee are so funny and weird. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/9325.Gertrude_Stein
Dr. Kat@sethcotlar The so-called economists of the Reagan Administration and now of the Trump one are the bane of my existence as an economics prof. Their nonsense has been debunked for years with peer-reviewed evidence, and they persist.
mary angela perna✅@sethcotlar historians—actual historians, esp ones that tell the actual history of America are so deeply important
Mister Wanko@sethcotlar that's a good "on one hand... on the other hand" depiction.
John Spurlock@sethcotlar Yeah, those bogus “gotcha” quotes make me sick. Many people on social media won’t take 60 seconds to go to Snopes or some other place to check a quote if it flogs their hobbyhorse.
Riley S. Faelan@sethcotlar: My favourite George Washington quote goes "As my good friend Abraham Lincoln pointed out, there's all sorts of bogus quotes on the Internet."
Darrel Plant@sethcotlar Why do I feel this page is probably referenced as the source for “George Washington” quotes? “Its not a fake quote! Its on the Mountain Verne page, moran!”