Netcom rumors are TRUE!
nob...@ds1.wu-wien.ac.at
> This stuff about netcom censoring people: ITS TRUE!!! I had an account
> for three months and was posting regularly from it. then I posted to
> news.admin.policy some comments critical of Netcom Support's
> "policies" about "abusive" users. for satiric effect, I appended the
> "support signature".
>
> My account was placed on "hold" for "forging Netcom Tech Support
> postings" or something like that. I called the number and the person,
> a "Bruce", I think Bruce Woodcock, said that the problem was not that
> I borrowed the signature, but that the contents of the message were
> "abusive" or something like that.
Sigh. Won't you people EVER learn?!
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I detest what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.
That Witty Frrrenchman
> The Mad Programmer <t...@netcom.com> writes:
>
>> My account was placed on "hold" for "forging Netcom Tech Support
>
> Sigh. Won't you people EVER learn?!
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>I detest what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.
Only Voltaire didn't say it. This is a garbled version of a line sometimes
attributed to an extrapolation by one of Voltaire's editors. (It's not
witty enough for Voltaire, is it?)
-:-
They will tell the spider: Go on, you're doing good work.
--Sandburg
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
g...@hrcms.ATT.COM
Sir Hans
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>>I detest what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.
>Only Voltaire didn't say it. This is a garbled version of a line sometimes
>attributed to an extrapolation by one of Voltaire's editors. (It's not
>witty enough for Voltaire, is it?)
_Bartlett's_ does inform us in a note that:--
This sentence is not Voltaire's, but was first used in quoting a letter
from Voltaire to Helv\'etius in _The Friends of Voltaire_ (1906) by S. G.
Tallentyre (E. Beatrice Hall). She claims it was a paraphrase of
Voltaire's words in the _Essay on Tolerance_: Think for yourselves and let
others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
Hmm... that doesn't sound _quite_ the same to me... but the note
continues:--
Norbert Guterman, in _A Book of French Quotations_ (1963) suggests that
the probable source for the quotation is from a line in a letter to M. le
Riche [February 6, 1770]: ``Monsieur l'abb\'e, I detest what you write, but
I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.''
Which _is_ rather close, no? I don't see why this is quoted more often...
Hans,
--
Sir Hans d...@fwi.uva.nl
it wont be long now it wont be long
till earth is barren as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone --Don Marquis
Alfred M. Kriman -- my real name
>>>I detest what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.
Some guy named "That Witty Frrrenchman" (we know who but we won't
tell) and "Sir Hans" point out that it's a well-known misattribution and
various other relevant data.
As pseudonymous poster #2 noted, the precise wording first appeared
in "The Friends of Voltaire" by Evelyn Beatrice Hall writing under the
pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre. Chapter VII is devoted to Helv\'etius
(1715-1771), whom she depicts as a kindly, generous person, with a hint of
more talent to raise him above mediocrity. He married and settled in the
sticks, with a new wife who was unfashionably old (32), and they were happy.
This was ended by his tragic aspiration, to earn some small glory for himself
as a philosopher.
In 1758, he published ``De l'Esprit,'' which Hall renders
``On the Mind.'' From the little Hall says of it directly, I take it that
this was a moral-relativist tract, adducing bad social conditions as the
cause of immoral behavior, regarding humans as essentially animals, and
skeptical of the validity of moral claims generally.
This was initially unpopular with everyone--secular philosophers, all
of the church, the government. It certainly got him noticed, but not by all
at once. Voltaire immediately regarded the work as a serious disappointment
from one who had been a somewhat promising protege. He was most insulted to
have been compared in it with lesser intellectual lights (Cr\'ebillon and
Fontenelle). It was widely criticized by other wits of their enlightened
social circle. For a few months, however, it escaped the notice of the
government. Then the Dauphin read it. The privilege to publish was revoked;
the censor who approved its publication was fired. A rolling wave of official
condemnation began, culminating with the Pope (Jan. 31, 1759) and the
Parliament of Paris (Feb. 6) and public book-burning by the hangman (Feb. 10),
an honor shared with Voltaire's ``Natural Law.''
On the principle that anything so unpopular with the government must
ipso facto be pretty good, the official condemnation permanently established
his philosophical repute among the fashionable salon crowd, and rehabilitated
him among the intellectual elite as well, to a great extent. He became
popular in Protestant England and Germany.
Hall wrote:
++> ...The men who had hated [the book], and had not particularly loved
++> Helv\'etius, flocked round him now. Voltaire forgave him all injuries,
++> intentional or unintentional. `What a fuss about an omelette!' he had
++> exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to
++> persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! `I disapprove of what
++> you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' was his
++> attitude now. But he soon came, as a Voltaire would come, to swearing
++> that there was no more materialism in `On the Mind' than in Locke, and
++> a thousand more daring things in `The Spirit of Laws.'
My impression is that Hall is fairly scrupulous, throughout her
book, to state within the text whether she is quoting speech or text, and
whether various reports are first-person or likely hearsay. I believe it
was reasonable of her to expect that `I disapprove ... say it' would be
recognized as her own characterization of Voltaire's attitude. I think
some readers were confused because of the way she follows this with
paraphrases of his spoken criticisms.
(Disflamer: I didn't check any other references on the above.)
Pseudonym #2 writes:
>_Bartlett's_ does inform us in a note that:--
>
> This sentence is not Voltaire's, but was first used in quoting a letter
>from Voltaire to Helv\'etius in _The Friends of Voltaire_ (1906) by S. G.
>Tallentyre (E. Beatrice Hall). She claims it was a paraphrase of
>Voltaire's words in the _Essay on Tolerance_: Think for yourselves and let
>others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
The evil sixteenth edition of Bartlett's, at least, edited by the
liberal devil Justin Kaplan, does not divulge the context of Hall's
confession. I just don't think she needs much excuse. It was not a
scholarly work either, in which one might expect detailed references.
>Hmm... that doesn't sound _quite_ the same to me... but the note
>continues:--
>
> Norbert Guterman, in _A Book of French Quotations_ (1963) suggests that
>the probable source for the quotation is from a line in a letter to M. le
>Riche [February 6, 1770]: ``Monsieur l'abb\'e, I detest what you write, but
>I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.''
>
>Which _is_ rather close, no? I don't see why this is quoted more often...
Maybe: It's not a familiar quote, and it doesn't mention a `right.'
Since Hall died in 1919, presumably no one had a chance to try
jogging her memory with this.
Obquotes:
Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the
spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in
one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the
other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their
evils--no, nor the human race, as I believe--and then only will this our State
have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.
-- Plato, in _Republic_, bk. V, 473-C,
according to Justin K.
If I wanted to punish a province, I would give it to philosophers to govern.
-- Frederick the Great,
according to S. G. Tallentyre, in his _The Friends of Voltaire_ (1906).