Stanley Fish
Ron Hardin
There is of course no logical relationship between the repetition of a
sound and the soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully
employed repetition can enhance a logical point or even give the
illusion of one when none is present.
Not, though, if you notice it; as if the writer were falling over
himself for his cleverness, indeed making a detour to show it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html
--
Ron Hardin
rhha...@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
Christopher Green
> Stanley Fish writes in the NYT, on Bush's superior rhetorical skills
>
> There is of course no logical relationship between the repetition of a
> sound and the soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully
> employed repetition can enhance a logical point or even give the
> illusion of one when none is present.
>
> Not, though, if you notice it; as if the writer were falling over
> himself for his cleverness, indeed making a detour to show it.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html
He managed to use a lot of words to describe what has been well known
as the Big Lie for a long time: repeat a lie often enough and loudly
enough, and people will forget it was never the truth.
Was the first use of "Big Lie" in description of Stalin's rhetoric, or
was it earlier?
--
Chris Green
John Lawler
>Ron Hardin <rhha...@mindspring.com> writes
>> Stanley Fish writes in the NYT, on Bush's superior rhetorical skills
>> There is of course no logical relationship between the repetition of a
>> sound and the soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully
>> employed repetition can enhance a logical point or even give the
>> illusion of one when none is present.
>> Not, though, if you notice it; as if the writer were falling over
>> himself for his cleverness, indeed making a detour to show it.
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html
>He managed to use a lot of words to describe what has been well known
>as the Big Lie for a long time: repeat a lie often enough and loudly
>enough, and people will forget it was never the truth.
>Was the first use of "Big Lie" in description of Stalin's rhetoric, or
>was it earlier?
Dunno; here's one at roughly the same time:
"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility;
because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily
corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than
consciously or voluntarily, and thus in the primitive simplicity of
their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the
small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little
matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods."
--- Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler U Michigan Linguistics Dept
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting
than looking." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Peter T. Daniels
MK predates Stalin's ascendancy, but the translation wasn't published
till ca. 1940. What's the German, and did it become part of Nazi
vocabulary? (I had to look some up once and the NYPL only had a couple
of small-scale glossaries, which didn't agree much, and which didn't
even have all of the handful of words Othmar Keel had used in his
chapter on German creation-theology in the 1930s.)
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
benlizross
OED says the German is grosse Lüge, and there is a reference to the
Nazis, but no specific place of origin. Their earliest English citation
is from Orwell in 1946: "The friends of totalitarianism in this country
usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big
lie is no worse than a little lie."
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
I suppose we can't blame them for not trying to slog through Mein Kampf
in search of earlier citations ...
Merlijn De Smit
You're dealing with two different quotes here: the one about people
falling easier for big, outrageous lies than small ones, which
originates from Hitler, and the one about a lie becoming a truth once
you repeat it often enough. I do not know the origin of the latter.
M.
alexV
news:c31fa7b1.04092...@posting.google.com...
> was it earlier?
>
Joseph Stalin had nothing to do with it for a simple reason that the whole
Western leftist establishment including the media were looking up to him
hypnotically for ideological guidance. Nobody would have ever dared! Those
who did were punished accordingly. The man was more resolute that Saddam
Hussein in such matters. There is substantial evidence that the lack of
opposition in the USA and elsewhere to the active participation of the
English Speaking World in the war with Germany was due to the fact that the
USSR was attacked in June of 1941 and Stalin ordered all his lapdogs in the
West to stop their pacifist barking immediately. Thus all your Commintern
grandfathers and grandmothers became far more "patriotic," reactionary and
militaristic than G.W. Bush overnight. And remained so until further notice.
Ben Zimmer
> > Nazis, but no specific place of origin. Their earliest English citation
> > is from Orwell in 1946: "The friends of totalitarianism in this country
> > usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big
> > lie is no worse than a little lie."
>
> I suppose we can't blame them for not trying to slog through Mein Kampf
> in search of earlier citations ...
But they could try looking for early references to Mein Kampf in the
English-language press. Here's an antedating from the New York Times:
Crash of the House of Lies That Hitler Built
By Anne O'Hare McCormick
New York Times, Jun 23, 1941. p. 16
In THE TIMES Magazine yesterday appeared an excerpt from
"Mein Kampf" which might have been an introductory note
to Hitler's pronouncement. From the beginning he has
advocated lying as an instrument of policy and the big
lie in preference to the little lie. Asserting that
propaganda must appeal forever and only to the masses,
he wrote that "with primitive simplicity of their minds
they will more easily fall victims to a great lie than
to a small."
Christopher Green
It is "große Lüge" in Mein Kampf (Vol. 1, Ch. 10). In context, Hitler
was attempting to blame the Jews and Marxists for putting about the
"big lie" that Ludendorff was responsible for Germany's defeat. I
don't know whether the argument (that a "big lie" is more plausible
than a small one) was original with Hitler or not. I'm disinclined to
dig much deeper, but the idea that petty people would employ lies
believable to the masses to bring down a supposedly great man sounds
like something out of Also sprach Zarathustra.
--
Chris Green
Paul J Kriha
Merlijn De Smit <isol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a6d093c4.04092...@posting.google.com...
AFAIK, the minister of propaganda, Goebbles, said it (lie repeated
thousand times becomes truth, or something along those lines),
but I have no reference at hand, neither am I sure he was the original
author of it. My parents, though, thought he was.
Paul JK
Peter T. Daniels
OTOH, the lexicographer could argue that this is merely a collocation of
"big" and "lie," whereas the sense pointed out by Christopher Green at
the top of this message is an idiom -- not yet arrived at in the Orwell
quote!
I wonder why the Times quote says "great" while the paragraph given
above says "big," along with other differences.
Surely there weren't two competing published translations? (Wasn't it
Ralph Manheim's first major work? -- And a few years later he did *Die
unendliche Geschichte*.)
Merlijn De Smit
> "Christopher Green" <cj.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:c31fa7b1.04092...@posting.google.com...
> > Ron Hardin <rhha...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:<4153F0...@mindspring.com>...
> >
> > Was the first use of "Big Lie" in description of Stalin's rhetoric, or
> > was it earlier?
> >
>
> Joseph Stalin had nothing to do with it for a simple reason that the whole
> Western leftist establishment including the media were looking up to him
> hypnotically for ideological guidance. Nobody would have ever dared! Those
> who did were punished accordingly.
Yes, of course. All the Western leftist establishment were sucking up
to Stalin or they'd be transported to secret camps in Alaska, the
outer Hebrides, St. Kilda or Helgoland. As everyone knows. And let's
not forget about the media as well! Just open up any West European or
US newspaper from the 1930s to the 1950s and see how Stalin, life in
the Soviet Union and the local Communist parties are glorified at
every page. I hear it has something to do with a secret brain-wave
modulating array built in 1929 in Krasnoselkupsk.
Now, returning to Planet Earth for a moment, this of course has zilch
to do with the origins of the quotations that the thread is about.
M.
AlexV
"Merlijn De Smit" <isol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a6d093c4.04092...@posting.google.com...
> Yes, of course. All the Western leftist establishment were sucking up
> to Stalin or they'd be transported to secret camps in Alaska, the
> outer Hebrides, St. Kilda or Helgoland. As everyone knows. And let's
> not forget about the media as well! Just open up any West European or
> US newspaper from the 1930s to the 1950s and see how Stalin, life in
> the Soviet Union and the local Communist parties are glorified at
> every page. I hear it has something to do with a secret brain-wave
> modulating array built in 1929 in Krasnoselkupsk.
>
> Now, returning to Planet Earth for a moment, this of course has zilch
> to do with the origins of the quotations that the thread is about.
You are a liberal idiot living in a palace of double lies. I DO HAVE
documents supporting my statement. I wonder if you can provide anything
beyond this miasmatic sarcasm.
Christopher Green
What sort of balderdash is that? Sources, please.
--
Chris Green
alexV
"Christopher Green" <cj.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:c31fa7b1.04092...@posting.google.com...
> > Joseph Stalin had nothing to do with it for a simple reason that the
whole
> > Western leftist establishment including the media were looking up to him
> > hypnotically for ideological guidance. Nobody would have ever dared!
Those
> > who did were punished accordingly. The man was more resolute that Saddam
> > Hussein in such matters. There is substantial evidence that the lack of
> > opposition in the USA and elsewhere to the active participation of the
> > English Speaking World in the war with Germany was due to the fact that
the
> > USSR was attacked in June of 1941 and Stalin ordered all his lapdogs in
the
> > West to stop their pacifist barking immediately. Thus all your
Commintern
> > grandfathers and grandmothers became far more "patriotic," reactionary
and
> > militaristic than G.W. Bush overnight. And remained so until further
notice.
>
> What sort of balderdash is that? Sources, please.
Do your own search on the net you will find plenty of material. Perhaps you
will uncover something I still do not have. In any event it is not my
mission to educate close-minded. How can you discuss my evidence if you
dismissed it out of hand as balderdash?
Merlijn De Smit
In a very trivial manner, the last part of the statement is true, of
course - that the US pro-Soviet left (not the "leftist establishment"
as such, providing one can speak of such a thing existing before the
1970s) was very much in favour of the US entering the war. It's also
very widely known. Of course, this is the US rather than the
English-speaking world - England's final commitment had much more to
do with the Luftwaffe than with any Stalinist fifth column - and the
US would have entered the European theatre of the war anyway.
M.
Merlijn De Smit
Well, I have documents supporting my suspicion that my neighbours act
under the influence of the secret brain-wave modulating device,
operated by Stalin himself. Or, well, I had them. When I wanted to
look at them again the other day, they all had disappeared. My lack of
discretion on this newsgroup must have alarmed the KGB. Or the NKVD.
And the Majestic Twelve.
Still, this doesn't have anything to do with the origin of the
proverbs this thread was about, does it?
> I wonder if you can provide anything
> beyond this miasmatic sarcasm.
On the issue of the Western leftist establishment in the 1930s
faithfully reproducing Stalinist propaganda lest they risk deportation
to the secret communist gulag somewhere in the taigas of Michigan?
No.
M.
Christopher Green
The leftist fringe in the US did indeed advocate entering the war, but
giving it any credit for swaying public opinion is as self-serving as
it sounds. The main opposition to US entry into the war came from
isolationists and the far right, of whom Lindbergh was the leading
figure. Hitler must have been furious when the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor made the isolationist position no longer tenable.
alexV
"Merlijn De Smit" <isol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a6d093c4.04092...@posting.google.com...
news:<c31fa7b1.04092...@posting.google.com>...
> > "alexV" <alex...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:<T6adnRFuvYO...@comcast.com>...
> > > "Christopher Green" <cj.g...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> > > news:c31fa7b1.04092...@posting.google.com...
> > > > Ron Hardin <rhha...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> > news:<4153F0...@mindspring.com>...
> > > >
> > > > Was the first use of "Big Lie" in description of Stalin's rhetoric,
or
> > > > was it earlier?
Of course, this is the US rather than the
> English-speaking world - England's final commitment had much more to
> do with the Luftwaffe than with any Stalinist fifth column - and the
> US would have entered the European theatre of the war anyway.
It means how little you know. Before June 22, 1941 the Communist Parties and
their diffuse supporters and associates on the left were advocating
Australia, New Zeeland and Canada to stay out of the war because it was very
beneficial to Stalin. It was his order. England, of course, at that time
kept a weary eye on both her Communists, considered traitors and the
Luftwaffe. Stalin recently sign a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany.
He thought that Hitler would keep pounding England and thus lead the
Capitalist World to self-destruction via "contradiction and antagonism." He
almost proved to be right.
On June 22, 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union. I do not remember when
the Communist Parties of the West got their orders from Moscow to do about
face: the next day or two weeks later when Stalin finally woke out of his
depressive stupor but the orders clearly went. The Communist party of
Australia begged the government to change its status as a subversive force
because they were already on the same wavelength. Thus when I hear those
anti-Iraq war protesters screeching it makes me puke.
alexV
You are trying to deflect the blame. It is true that there were various
forces. Hitler was not furious--he was actually very happy. Germany declared
war on USA 3 days after Pearl Harbor. Hitler could not have done that. He
had a treaty of cooperation and mutual defense with Japan but there was no
obligation to join Japan in ANY war but only when Japan is attacked.
It has been widely debated why Hitler decided to declare war on the USA.
Nobody can find a suitable explanation except in his impulsive personality.
He was nearly hypomanic at that time and could not resist a compulsion and
excitement to fight a GLOBAL war. For him life was a huge Wagner's opera
production.