On Plagiarism… Specifically, Mine (Maybe)
In the interest of full disclosure, it appears that a previous post may unknowingly echo a line in a speech of Hubert Humphrey’s (Vice President of the United States in the LBJ administration) to the National Student Council.
He said:
I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
I wrote:
You have a right to be heard. You do not have a right to be taken seriously.
I discovered this similarity only a few minutes ago upon Googling “right to be taken seriously” out of a sort of morbid curiosity, wondering if anyone had argued for such a thing before, and promptly found this page on Wikiquote. I can find no actual, solid source for the quotation or full text of the speech, but I have no reason to doubt its veracity.
It strikes me that the context of the previous sentence probably lends a different meaning to each statement. Given who is speaking, the date, 1965, and the audience, I can only assume that he’s attempting to encourage student protest; if so, my meaning was virtually opposite, in that I was mocking a website I found which was agitating for the recognition of “otherkin” and “therians” as an oppressed and disadvantaged minority group.
Incidentally, this is no retraction of that. The idea’s ludicrous.
Still, the phrasing is close enough that the possibility remains—however remote—I heard it, somehow, somewhere, and cribbed it. I’ve been so insistent and so fierce about citing sources on Tumblr and offline that I feel, as coincidental as I think this probably is, I had no choice but to let you all know that such a similarity exists. I do take some pride in being entertaining and—hopefully—sometimes educational, and if I seem to be taking great pains to point this whole incident out, it’s because I would like this blog to be evaluated, for good or ill, on its own merit. Not anyone else’s. Certainly not Hubert Humphrey’s.
Thanks for reading.
