'Nothing succeeds like success' is a very well-known saying, based on an old French proverb. But it often proves true, in a deeper sense, that 'nothing succeeds like failure.' Religious and political movements which reigning authority crushed have frequently been revived and come out on top in the long run after their leaders gained the halo of martyrdom. The crucified Christ became more potent than the living one. Conquering general have been eclipsed by the conquered -- that is shown by the immortal fame of Hannibal, Napoleon, Robert E. Lee, and Rommel.

B.H. Lidell Hart, History of the Second World War, 1970, p. 447.

"The noon hour has passed," said Judge Fang. "Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken."

"As you wish, Judge Fang," said Chang.

"As you wish, Judge Fang," said Miss Pao.

Judge Fang switched back to English. "Your case is very serious," he said to the boy. "We will go and consult the ancient authorities. You will remain here until we return."

"Yes, sir," said the defendant, abjectly terrified. This was not the abstract fear of a first-time delinquent; he was sweating and shaking. He had been caned before.

The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Inscrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the Secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices. It had been the first fast-food franchise established on the Bund, many decades earlier. Judge Fang had what amounted to a private table in the corner. He had once reduced Chang to a state of catalepsis by describing an avenue in Brooklyn that was lined with fried chicken establishments for miles, all of them ripoffs of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Miss Pao, who had grown up in Austin, Texas, was less easily impressed by these legends.

Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, 1995, p. 91.

The Viennese knew he was a fool, but they adored him, even in the heat of the revolution which drove him to abdicate, and cheered him when he went out driving. 'I am the emperor and I want dumplings!' he once exclaimed, and a distinguished British historian has observed that this was his only coherent remark on record. This is unfair. He left many coherent remarks, and all kind.

Edward Crankshaw, The Fall of the House of Habsburg, 1963, p. 26-27. Said of Emperor Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, reigned 1835 to his abdication in 1848.

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts won't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

Talking Heads Crosseyed and Painless from the album Remain in Light, 1980.

The cold, cruel relentless truth is that in this age of materialism a man is no more than so many grains of sand, which may be blown helter-skelter by every stray wind of circumstance, unless he is entrenched behind the power of money!

Genius may offer many rewards to those who possess it, but the fact still remains that genius without money with which to give it expression is but an empty, skeleton-like honor.

The man without money is at the mercy of the man who has it!

And this goes, regardless of the amount of ability he may possess, the training he has had or the native genius with which he was gifted by nature.

There is no escape from the fact that people will weigh you very largely in the light of bank balances, no matter who you are or what you can do. The first question that arises, in the minds of most people, when they meet a stranger is, "how much money has he?" if he has money he is welcomed into homes and business opportunities are thrown his way. All sorts of attention are lavished upon him. He is a prince, and as such is entitled to the best of the land.

But if his shoes are run down at the heels, his clothes are not pressed, his collar is dirty, and he shows plainly the signs of impoverished finances, woe be his lot, for the passing crowd will step on his toes and blow the smoke of disrespect in his face.

These are not pretty statements, but they have one virtue -- THEY ARE TRUE!

Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons - Lesson Four - The Habit of Saving, 1928, p. 18-19.

Is Martin Lindstedt a Plagiarist?

Introduction

I am going to post some excerpts from this book, The Trial of Socrates (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385260326/qid=1104513721/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-5215804-1035025) by I.F. Stone, and compare them some excerpts from this essay by Martin Lindstedt, Socrates Had It Coming (http://www.martinlindstedt.org/socrates.html) . Some of the items I am going to post definitely appear to be cribbed, while others may be a bit of a reach to classify as plagiarism. My copy of Stone's book is the trade paperback, first published in 1989. I believe the book is also available in hardcover from a different publisher, so the page numbers in that edition may differ slightly.

I guess having more free time than is perhaps good for me means I do things like poke around Lindstedt's site. I stumbled across the essay mentioned above and read through it, all the while with a nagging feeling that I read something very much like it once upon a time. Turns out that I had, and as I happen to actually own a copy of Stone's book, dug it out and flipped through it, more out of curiosity than anything else. Whether it was dumb luck, Providence, or what have you, I happened to randomly open to the page with the second of the five examples that follow. The lengthiest and clearest case of plagiarism by Lindstedt. I noted the similarity and went digging for more. I stopped after five, mostly because there are only six or seven cases in Lindstedt's essay where original sources are cited, but also because, well, it became rather tedious. I'll note one or two other things I thought about in the conclusion, should someone else have a desire to pursue them.

Should I have tried to privately discuss this with Martin Lindstedt? I thought about it, but figured I can simply apologize/eat my words in the unlikely event Lindstedt comes up with a coherent line of reasoning. This is, after all, the Internet. Plus, since the "Opposition Forum" has taken on the flavor of the old "Hell Forum" lately, I figure the bar is set pretty low for this sort of thing. Finally, it is hardly the case that an accusation of plagiarism in this instance is going to damage the academic reputation of one of the great minds of our time.

Example 1

Socrates' basic premise of government -- according to Xenophon's "Memorabilia" -- was "that it is the business of the ruler to give orders and of the ruled to obey." So the ruler should have total, unaccounted power.



Socrates laid it down as his basic principle of government in the Memorabilia "that it is the business of the ruler to give orders and of the ruled to obey." Not the consent of the governed but their submission was required. This was of course an authoritarian principle most Greeks, particularly Athenians, rejected.


Comment: Had this been the only thing I discovered, I probably would have simply let it go. Yet the first sentence in both examples are awfully close to each other. "Basic principle" and "basic premise," the quotation following at the end of the sentence, and the same translation of the Memorabilia. Note also that Xenophon's work is not exactly short. Here's a link to a different translation than the one both Lindstedt and Stone happen to be using:

http://www.gymnasiax.com/texts/xenophon/memorabilia/memorabilia.html


Example 2

And who should the rulers be? "Kings and rulers are not those who hold the scepter." Scratch conventional monarchy. Certainly not "those who are chosen by the multitude." Ick, not nowhere near a democracy. Shudder, elitist shudder, to think of the "herd" trying to rule themselves. "Nor on those whom the lot falls." Athens chose by lot from out among the democratic herd those who served on the expediting committees of a given day. Socrates did not like Athenian democracy at all, not even when tempered by chance. "Nor those who owe their power to force or deception." So much for traditional musclebound tyrants. The best form of government is by "kings and rulers," "those who know how to rule."



"Kings and rulers," he said "are not those who hold the sceptre," the symbol of their high office, which they often claimed to have received from Zeus himself. That took care of monarchy in its conventional form. Nor are they, he continued, "those who are chosen by the multitude." That took care of democracy. "Nor those on whom the lot falls" -- that rejected pubic officials chosen by lot. "[N]or those who owe their power to force or deception" -- that took care of "tyrants." The true or ideal "kings and rulers" are "those who know how to rule."


Comment: Flat out, straight up plagiarism. Same quotes, same order, very slight change to the wording. Nothing else need be said, save that Lindstedt should lick Stone's shoes for ripping him off, or send his Stone's estate a check. (Stone passed away in 1989.)


Example 3

The second charge against Socrates, that he had corrupted the youth of Athens, was even more damning. The foremost examples of the gilded youth he led astray was Alcibiades and Critias, although Socrates' effect on the rich young aristocratic fops was already mentioned in Aristophanes' "The Birds," written in 414 B.C., fifteen years before he was called to account:

Why, till ye built this city in the air, _____ line 1280
All men had gone Laconian-mad; they went __ [Spartan-mad]
Long-haired, half-starved, unwashed, Socratified,
With scytales in their hands; but Oh the change!
They are all bird-mad now, and imitate ____ line 1284

Aristophanes made fun of the dandies with their Spartan habits, dress, and even carrying their little Spartan secret police short clubs about town, but this was before the rich kids turned mean. When he mentions the intellectual beliefs of the Athenian "Spur Posse" as being "Socratified" he refers to their instilled beliefs that they were better than everyone else and that the poor and middle class were disposable human beings they could use with impunity.



In line 1281 of the Birds he describes them as elakonomanoun -- "Sparta-mad," as if from a verb Lakono-maneo, meaning to be mad about Laconian or Spartan ways. In line 1282, Aristophanes coins another word -- esokrotoun, as if from a verb Sokrateo, to imitate Socrates. These young men are described, in B.B. Rogers's rollicking, somewhat Gilbert and Sullivanish translation as:

…Laconian-mad, they went
Long-haired, half-starved, unwashed, Socratified
With scytales in their hands…

The Spartans were legendary for their meager fare -- we still speak of a "Spartan diet" -- and notorious for their avoidance of refinement in dress, manners and appearance. They wore their hair long and ill-kempt and didn't approve of bathing too often. The scytales in the last line of the passage just quoted is the word for the short clubs or cudgels that Spartans carried. So -- according to Aristophanes -- did their Athenian admirers.


Comment: This one is kind of interesting. It appears Lindstedt actually took the time to dig out two more lines than Stone used. Of course, both also discuss the syctales, and the "[Spartan Mad]" quote added by Lindstedt to Line 1281 exactly mirrors the discussion Stone makes in the paragraph prior to his quotation. Still smells like a rip off in my book.

Example 4

[A]fter all that he had done for democratic Athens, this is the thanks he got! Christ wept over Jerusalem, but Socrates shed not a tear for Athens.



[N]ietzsche, who began as a classical scholar, once described the logic of Socrates as "icy." Gregory Vlastos, one of the foremost Platonists of our time, once wrote that while Jesus wept for Jerusalem, Socrates never shed a tear for Athens.


Comment: Lindstedt quotes nobody, Stone quotes a Platonist scholar. Both Stone and Lindstedt say the same damn thing. Stone publishes in 1988, Lindstedt in 1996. Hmmm.

Example 5

In one of his lost plays, The Auge, Euripides has one character say in the few lines which survive:


"Cursed be all those who rejoice to see the city in the hands of a single man or under the yoke of a few men! The name of a freeman is the most precious of titles: to possess it is to have much, even when one has little."



Euripedes expressed his hatred for those who would destroy democracy. In a lost play, the Auge, of which only a few lines survive, Euripedes had one of his characters cry out, "Cursed be all those who rejoice to see the city in the hands of a single man or under the yoke of a few men! The name of freeman is the most precious of all titles: to possess it is to have much, even when one has little."


Comment: Same quote, same notation of a few lines surviving. Both also used the quote at the end of their respective book or essay, though Stone's work does continue on for a few more pages. Also, does it or does it not strain the limits of credulity that a fragment of an obscure play by Euripides should be found any quoted independently by both?

Conclusion

Martin Lindstedt's essay is clearly plagiarized from Stone's book in at least one instance (Example 2), and I would argue that he did so in all five cited above. In every instance where I investigated what seemed like a quotation relating to the life and times of Socrates, save one, I was able to trace it back to Stone's book. The exception is Lindstedt's calling Euripides "the philosopher of the stage." That notation does not appear in Stone's book, as best I can tell. If someone else has an interest in investigating further, note the paragraph beginning at the bottom of p. 102 and going onto p. 103, and how similar in theme it sounds to Lindstedt's discussion of the Delian League. I'm too lazy to add that one, as it requires a bit of textual analysis, since there is nothing word for word to cite. Also, note how both Stone and Lindstedt's work begin with a comparison of the trials of Jesus and Socrates (the Prelude with Stone.) This one is candidly a bit shaky as that comparison has been made by others. Possibly a case could be made, possibly not.

Also, where Lindstedt veers from Stone's work, he falls into error at least once.


Alcibiades was Socrates' favorite pupil. Socrates saved his life on a battlefield. But the lesson Alcibiades learned from Socrates was that the rulers have no duty to their country; that their ambitions and desires come ahead of the common herd's well being and lives. Alcibiades was a Socratified "superman."


Errm, Alcibiades was hardly a Socratic "superman", as this passage from The Symposium relates:


http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/sympo10.txt

Socrates turned to Agathon and said: I must ask you to protect me, Agathon; for the passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to me. Since I became his admirer I have never been allowed to speak to any other fair one, or so much as to look at them. If I do, he goes wild with envy and jealousy, and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his hands off me, and at this moment he may do me some harm. Please to see to this, and either reconcile me to him, or, if he attempts violence, protect me, as I am in bodily fear of his mad and passionate attempts.

There can never be reconciliation between you and me, said Alcibiades; but for the present I will defer your chastisement. And I must beg you, Agathon, to give me back some of the ribands that I may crown the marvellous head of this universal despot--I would not have him complain of me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the conqueror of all mankind; and this not only once, as you were the day before yesterday, but always. Whereupon, taking some of the ribands, he crowned Socrates, and again reclined.


Whether Lindstedt was too lazy to note that Alcibiades and Socrates broke in rather dramatic fashion or is simply unaware of it is a matter of speculation. Lindstedt's curious characterization of Athenian democracy as a "golden age" is also open to question, but I think it is not too far a stretch to note that, with Lindstedt, "what is good is not original, and what is original is not good," to quote Samuel Johnson.

Oh, and in case "the gallery" (to use Fade's term) has never heard of I.F. Stone, here is a brief biography:



Isador Feinstein Stone was born in Philadelphia on 24th December, 1907. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who owned a store in Haddonfield, New Jersey. He studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and while a student he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

After leaving university he joined the Camden Courier-Post. Influenced by the work of Jack London, Stone became a committed radical journalist. In the 1930s he played an active role in the Popular Front opposition to Adolf Hitler.

Continued (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Stone.html)



An amusing irony, given Lindstedt's other posts, don't you think?