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Yes We Can.
Jun. 15th, 2007 03:57 pmI came upon a terrible website today. When I dirst looked at it, briefly, I thought it was just the kind of life-coaching bad advice that flourishes everywhere, albeit on a very serious topic. As I read further I got angrier, until I was enraged after reading this:
But at this point, I got sidetracked, to see what else people can't do without my "consent." Apparently, no one can irritate, offend, intimidate, tease, bully, rush, insult, humiliate, control, judge, swindle or belittle me without my consent. No one can let me down or make me feel small without my consent. Clearly, any time any of those things happened, I wanted it to happen. Deep down, I must be a bad person, or simply a weak one, to be so willing to consent to all of these terrible things.
Also, for some reason, no one can unbend me without my consent. I read the whole thing and I still don't know what that means.
The mother of all these snowclone instances is Eleanor Roosevelt, who is quoted in several places as saying, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." This is, of course, also bullshit. And inaccurate paraphrasings of this saying are the source of many of the snowclones mentioned above. But after a long discussion on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
npl e-mail list about the scholarship of quotation collections (or, more accurately, the lack of them) I'm wondering if she even said it at all. It's rare to see any attribution to a source. The quote doesn't seem to make an appearance on the major official sites dedicated to Eleanor Roosevelt, and it doesn't show up in her writings that are available for search at Amazon. In fact, it's most prominent in self-help/life-coaching books, even before the occasional appearances collections of quotations.
On the rare occasion it is cited, the source is This Is My Story, which is apparently a memoir from 1936 or '37 long out of print. And given the track record of most quotation collection, it might not even be an accurate quotation.
So the quote, though definitely bullshit, may not even be actual. I'm tempted to buy one of the few copies of the book used off Ebay or Amazon just to find out how this whole mess started.
What this site can do for youThat is such a disgusting statement that I don't know where to begin. So let's start here: Bullshit.
* Show you that no one can abuse you without your consent.
But at this point, I got sidetracked, to see what else people can't do without my "consent." Apparently, no one can irritate, offend, intimidate, tease, bully, rush, insult, humiliate, control, judge, swindle or belittle me without my consent. No one can let me down or make me feel small without my consent. Clearly, any time any of those things happened, I wanted it to happen. Deep down, I must be a bad person, or simply a weak one, to be so willing to consent to all of these terrible things.
Also, for some reason, no one can unbend me without my consent. I read the whole thing and I still don't know what that means.
The mother of all these snowclone instances is Eleanor Roosevelt, who is quoted in several places as saying, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." This is, of course, also bullshit. And inaccurate paraphrasings of this saying are the source of many of the snowclones mentioned above. But after a long discussion on the
npl e-mail list about the scholarship of quotation collections (or, more accurately, the lack of them) I'm wondering if she even said it at all. It's rare to see any attribution to a source. The quote doesn't seem to make an appearance on the major official sites dedicated to Eleanor Roosevelt, and it doesn't show up in her writings that are available for search at Amazon. In fact, it's most prominent in self-help/life-coaching books, even before the occasional appearances collections of quotations.On the rare occasion it is cited, the source is This Is My Story, which is apparently a memoir from 1936 or '37 long out of print. And given the track record of most quotation collection, it might not even be an accurate quotation.
So the quote, though definitely bullshit, may not even be actual. I'm tempted to buy one of the few copies of the book used off Ebay or Amazon just to find out how this whole mess started.
