Misappropriated Messages.

Steering language choice and emotional loading—control people’s responses, emotions, and perceptions of events.  And from politics to advertising from the book of face  experts catch  us unaware.  

There are literally 100s of these repurposed or misquoted quotes that that pervade our culture. Today we are going to look at a few of these… a couple of favorites… and a couple that my research changed my thinking on.  

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In life, we have two choices, to experience or to exist. Every week, each of us makes that choice to either seek a better way to live or to get by. walk alongside me each week on the strife seek find podcast as we continue to seek our own brilliant future. As Fezzik said, during the Princess Bride, I don't think that means what you think it means. Welcome to strive, seek find podcast. I'm your host chance Whitmore. Welcome to Episode 84 of this podcast. This is your first episode. Welcome. If you're coming back for more, thank you, quick celebration. Before we get started, I'm clearing something off my bucket list this weekend. I've wanted all my life to attend an NFL football game. And while it's not my beloved eagles, come Sunday, I am attending one, I'm pretty pumped about that. I will say 49 is kind of stepping up. We're 48 did not I'll take it. Language defines our reality truly shapes it. I can remember my sociology teacher about a half a million years ago, talking about how oftentimes you can discover what's really important in a culture by the number of ways they can describe it. His example was always the number of words that the Eskimos have for different snow conditions. Or as another example, if you look historically, there are times and places that different colors didn't seem to exist, the word for it didn't. And so there was no way to express it. For instance, in poetry, very old poetry, you can find the ocean described as green, never blue, the same with the sky, because the word blue didn't exist in that culture. So it makes word choice pretty darn important as you go through life. So you can steer language with emotional loading, and control people's responses and emotions, and their perception of events. And from politics to advertising, from the book of face, on to experts. They're trying to catch you on aware. In literature, just one example. Shakespearean phrases have been co opted so far in the language that most the time you don't realize you're quoting the man. And it's only with repetition in reading that you realize how deep some of his phrases have penetrated our culture's. One example of this, to thy own self be true quote from Hamlet, which is a study in character in and of itself, is one that is horribly misused. There are literally hundreds if not 1000s of these repurposed or misquoted quotes that pervade our culture. Today, we're gonna look at a few of these, a couple of favorites of mine. And a couple of that my research changed my thinking on and I'm going to be honest, there's enough others that I may come back to this later on. Now, let's get started. To start with, I'm going to take a quote that I appropriated a few weeks ago, as the title of an episode. Fear is the mind killer, which comes from Frank Herbert's Dune, the full quote, I must not fear fear is the mind killer, fierce little death that brings total Obliteration, I will face my fear, I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see it's past where the fear has gone, there will be nothing, only I will remain. The meaning to this seems obvious. In the book, it's a representation of the training given by the Ben adjustment sisterhoods in order to control your pain response, and your fear response, a focus on self control on all parts of your body. It's a great scene involving pain induction, and Paul trading, believing he has been burned. And that his alternative to sitting still, and not letting this fear overwhelm him is his death. Keeping in mind this comes from one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, but it's still science fiction. Where I've seen it recently. It's misused and used For manipulative reasons. A great example of this is I've seen it posted on a billboard outside my hometown. Not the whole quote, just fear is the mind killer. Obviously, they did not give any credit to Mr. Herbert. But it was taken appropriated for a fight back messages that covered everything from public schools, to vaccination, to government controls, it made my teeth itch, just reading it. Now, this obviously doesn't fit with the the original intent and is CO opting it for political intent, steering the politics to the politics of fear, so to speak, react rather than think, which is very much the opposite of what a lot of Herbert's work was doing. And as a side note on this, I found it interesting this quote was considering the amount of time the book spends dabbling in Jihad and the religion, that it's at least partially based on Islam. Because based on the imagery that was provided, I can't help but think that if you'd brought up anything to do with Islam, involving that the person who had paid for it would be extremely angry. Next up, big brother is watching you from Orwell's 1984. Or as I like to call it, one of those books that everyone quotes, but oh, so few people have actually read. And who can blame him? Because like most dystopias, it's dark. The meaning the book is a simple symbol for an overwhelming concept. Everywhere posters, big brother stairs accusingly. It's the symbolic representation the government thing controls every aspect from birth to death, including what you think, and more to the point what you can think control of life by a huge monolithic totalitarian government that is so powerful that even the concept of rebellion is dying. For instance, government monitoring in the form of spies, electronic devices, including the television, which is on all the time, which monitors your facial expressions, and the eagerness of every movement, and donation of every word, day and night, a completely horrific life designed around control how I've seen it used of late. Most of the time, you see it on social media, when someone has something removed. Forgetting entirely you're not guaranteed free speech on a private platform that is there to make money, not to allow you to say whatever the hell you want. It is evocative manipulative, and not at all what Orwell envisioned who watches the Watchmen, I had this one completely wrong, by the way. This is because of the graphic novel The watchmen. I saw this phrase in there and I had a very high minded view of it. And the comic it was used to graffiti everywhere. generally referring to those who, who were watching over and judging the actions of the heroes who had appointed them to take care of society. And that's the general usage today, who's going to watch over the powerful to keep them from doing the unthinkable. So I assume the origin was about the same. Big nope on this one, folks. I had no idea that this came out of Latin poet and it roughly chant translated who guards the guards, not striking out against the government's power, but against marriage, because the author believed women were liars and cheaters and incapable of chastity loyalty, both horribly sexist and inaccurate. This is one case I definitely like the repurposing better than the source material. And last but not least, the famous Marie Antoinette quote, quote, let them eat cake. Story, as I was taught it, was that when presented with the information that the peasants preparing to riot outside the palace, were doing so because they were out of bread. A confused Marie Antoinette made the comment, well, then let them eat cake. The idea being that she was completely disconnected from the lives of her subjects living in her own fantasy world without any wants. Well, it turns out she never said it. That it was actually part of anti monarchist propaganda used by their opponents to discredit them during the revolution. And apparently pretty effectively because I bought it. It's great propaganda, the equivalent of the time of creating a meme and pasting comments over the top. They didn't actually say it. In this case. The writer said something pithy and memorable to reinforce public opinion against the Royals. I'll own this one. I believed it and used to illustrate how disconnected royalty was from their people. I'm sorry, former students. All of this is to say, speak clearly, think critically, and work to understand other viewpoints. Doing these things will make it a little harder to drag you down the road of emotional manipulation. Can you think of any mis attributed misused or otherwise abused quotes? Do you have any you'd like to share? Please reach out. Shout outs. Keeping it simple this week. Shout out to my kids for making an intentionally low key birthday special with the amazing gift of time. Time with them. Love you ladies. On top of it had a hell of a dinner at a dance show afterwards. All without leaving my living room. worth mentioning. It was a big news week. The one year anniversary of January 6 COVID continues. There's a lot going on. But on this big news week, the march of change got me on this one. And from the New York Times, Blackberry in service of its once ubiquitous mobile devices by Neil Victor. It's both a marched down memory lane, and a look at the changing world of text. For those of us who used BlackBerry before iPhone took over the world. There's a little nostalgia thinking back to the time of trackballs and those tiny little keyboards. Sometimes looking back even as you move forward teaches you something and that alone makes it worth mentioning. I've attached the article on the Strive Seek Find on Facebook, and at chancewhitmore.com . And that concludes this edition of stripe seek find. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, or would just like to support the podcast. Here are a few ways you can do it. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser. They will help bring more listeners to the podcast. If that isn't your style, you can buy me a coffee or purchase some merch. Links are in the podcast description. Finally, if you have ideas or feedback, please reach out to the Strive Seek Find page on Facebook or to @chancewhitmore5 on Twitter. Until next time, keep seeking your own brilliant future. Have a great day.