Sunday, January 13, 2019

Thucydides on Fake News

"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth,
 accepting readily the first story that comes to hand."
-Thucydides,  History of the Peloponnesian War.

-via  Gordon Rugg, "The studied subtexts of academic insults."
The complete quote is:
"There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Hellenes, even on matters of contemporary history, which have not been obscured by time. For instance, there is the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand."