4 ms·
The tendency to ascribe profound or wise sounding words to cultures perceived as exotic is interesting. The attribution to Franklin makes sense, the guy said a
by robbedpeter 5y ago
The tendency to ascribe profound or wise sounding words to cultures perceived as exotic is interesting. The attribution to Franklin makes sense, the guy said a lot of wise things. Since this does originate in a Confucian context, "Chinese proverb" almost passes muster, but it's not quite complete.
There's probably a good career in pop psychology for someone who can deconstruct the various motivations for false attribution of profound and wise words.
"The big book of wise words and why we lie about who said them."
- RealityVoid 5y agoProbably the easiest answer to ascribing this is simply the lack of knowledge about the origin of the words, so they just... fill in the gaps with whom they believe could credibly say it. Not malice, just lack of knowledge. It's also simpler to convince and expose people with things that fit easyer with their model of the world and the cliches they have in their head.