Musings on misattributions and why it is risky

Definition of misattribute (transitive verb): to incorrectly indicate the cause, origin, or creator of (something); to attribute wrongly

— Merriam-webster.com

Last weekend, I did a quick traipse down Facebook lane in the morning, and one of the many threads that popped on my timeline was a “fabulous insight” by my favourite actor Anthony Hopkins. It had been flagged on one of the “inspirational” pages I follow: you know these recommendations that float around, “You may like so-and-so group/blog/poetry forum…”, well, at times, I fall for them. The ‘insight’ began with: “Let go of people who aren’t ready to love you yet! This is the hardest thing you’ll have to do in your life and it will also be the most important thing: stop giving your love to those who aren’t ready to love you yet.” What followed — fairly long, quite a few paras — was equally compelling, beautifully written. The passage was signed off by Hopkins along with #Peace and #Love. And, of course, there was a photo of the great actor, perched atop the words, looking wise yet mellow, his blue eyes as piercing as always.

At that time (early morning, pre-breakfast), I had no reason to doubt the attribution. Hopkins is trenchant when it comes to expressing himself. So, I copied the passage, as is (signed Anthony Hopkins), and forwarded it to many on my WhatsApp contacts list. About 80 per cent of them responded with (emojis of) hearts and thumbs ups and hugs and angelic meditativeness. Some responded copiously, with words. My father sent me an extended “observation” of what he felt about the matter after admitting Hopkins is “SO right”.

I have no idea why I had a sudden, unexplained need to cross-check the passage a day later. My heart sank like a ton of bricks when I came across a piece by one Dan Evon on snopes.com — in the ‘fact-check’ section. “This quote appears to have been first attributed to Hopkins circa September 2020,” Evon writes. “However, this essay predates Hopkins’ alleged authorship by about two years. In December 2018, writer Brianna Wiest published an essay entitled This Year, Let Go Of The People Who Aren’t Ready To Love You on Thought Catalog. With the exception of a slight modification to the first line/title — Wiest writes ‘let go of the people who aren’t ready to love you’, while the ‘Hopkins’ version starts ‘Let go of people who aren’t ready to love you yet’ — these texts are practically verbatim copies of one another. As Wiest’s version was published two years before Hopkins’ name was attached to this text, and as Wiest is an essayist with similar works published in her book 101 Essays to Change the Way You Think (and not an actor who is better known for acting than essay writing), it’s safe to say that Wiest is the original author of this essay, not Hopkins.”

I realised fake news — and I guess misattributions fall into the gigantic realm of fake news — has cast a long shadow over our virtual lives, and my conditioning has now become “to doubt”. On October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, for instance, one of the most popular memes doing the rounds on social media was India’s Father of the Nation’s sketch alongside his alleged quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” But I already knew it was a misattribution; actually, not exactly a misattribution but a case of putting words in his mouth. What he really said was less catchy — and, more to the point, less meme-worthy: “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do.”

Similarly, Voltaire never said, pithily, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, in a “historic” endorsement of free speech. As businessinsider.com puts it: “Voltaire didn’t actually speak these words, but the idea does fall in line with his ideology.” So, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in Friends of Voltaire, her biography of the French philosopher, wrote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it — was his attitude now.” Basically, she “paraphrased”, in her own words, how she thought Voltaire felt about a certain topic. But everyone “just decided the quote was real”.

But my favourite — if I may have a favourite — misattribution is the one that’s given to the one who made gentlemen prefer blondes. The quote is: “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” It’s a fascinating her-story. Way back in 1976, historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote a piece for American Quarterly, in which she coined the phrase “Well-behaved women rarely make history” (in an entirely different context than any ‘dodgy’ one you may be thinking of). Much later, in 2007, Ulrich wrote a book and titled it Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History. But as the age of the Internet and social media descended upon us in right earnest, someone somewhere decided to (mis)attribute this “quote” to Marilyn Monroe.

sushmita@khaleejtimes.com

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