[HN Gopher] Brainwashing, Italian-Style: The Birth of "Plagio"
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       Brainwashing, Italian-Style: The Birth of "Plagio"
        
       Author : aww_dang
       Score  : 60 points
       Date   : 2021-09-06 06:31 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bitterwinter.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bitterwinter.org)
        
       | ykevinator3 wrote:
       | But not christianity, that's not remotely culty
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | The evolution of words are interesting, but without any real
       | examples of the "brainwashing" style "plagio" being prosecuted
       | ... it is really hard to know what it means / how it could play
       | out.
        
         | occamrazor wrote:
         | It's hard to provide examples, because they don't exist!
         | 
         | Only one person has ever been convicted:
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Braibanti
        
           | AnimalMuppet wrote:
           | That looks like a complete and total miscarriage of
           | justice...
        
       | Remote-Mouse wrote:
       | If something is deemed illegal, then you are bound by law to
       | adhere.
       | 
       | Unless there are loopholes in such law, in which case you exploit
       | them.
       | 
       | In the absence of any law that depicts something as "illegal",
       | are you not free to do the thing that is not considered illegal?
       | 
       | The other alternative it to bring about a law that expressly
       | permits such an act as legal.
       | 
       | Lets say, to allow the government to spy on the people of the
       | country or wider, or perhaps to brainwash them with propaganda?
       | 
       | It's either remove a law that says it's illegal, or create a law
       | that permits it as legal. Either way, the people are screwed. /o\
        
       | qwerty456127 wrote:
       | > It said that "plagio" does not exist.
       | 
       | It obviously exists. In all meanings of it. How did they conclude
       | it doesn't?
        
         | Remote-Mouse wrote:
         | Obviously by the use of "plagio" itself of course...
         | 
         | Mind-control is a tricky subject you know. ;-)
        
       | matco11 wrote:
       | The content of the article is inconsistent with what is explained
       | by other sources, and, from a quick search, the author seems to
       | be politically involved on the subject.
       | 
       | The law was introduced in 1930, during the Fascist era. The
       | Italian Constitutional Court declared the law on "plagio"
       | unconstitutional in 1981, as it found the law to be imprecise,
       | resulting in a hard to measure definition of the crime of
       | "plagio", lacking coherence, and hence liable of arbitrary
       | application by courts. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagio
       | 
       | More detailed explanation here [in Italian]:
       | https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagio_(ordinamento_penale_ita...
       | Apparently, there are similar laws about "mind manipulation"
       | (brainwashing) in France, Spain, and Belgium.
        
       | berikv wrote:
       | Amazing to see that this exactly matches with another item in the
       | front page - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/06/three-
       | near-ide...
        
       | a_chris wrote:
       | Italian here, first time I see the word "plagio" used like this.
       | We usually say plagio when someone does not respect a copyright,
       | e.g. I wrote a book and someone copy the majority of book to
       | write its own book
        
         | zoover2020 wrote:
         | Plagiarism?
        
           | riffraff wrote:
           | Yes. As an Italian, I agree with OP, I have never heard
           | "plagio" to mean "brainwashing" or "mind control".
           | 
           | EDIT: on second thought, there is the idiomatic expression
           | "una persona e stata plagiata" which might be what the
           | article is about. It is used in the sense of someone who's
           | led astray by "evil" influences.
        
             | blue1 wrote:
             | It is a technical term. See former article 603 cp (italian
             | penal code).
        
         | mmarq wrote:
         | It's not that rare, "e stato plagiato da x" (he's been
         | brainwashed by x), it's relatively common (given that people
         | don't talk that much about brainwashing).
        
         | gpderetta wrote:
         | As an Italian, I did in fact hear 'plagio' being used in the
         | sense described in the article. I did not know it was an actual
         | article of law and that it was repealed before I was born.
        
         | qubex wrote:
         | Actually "gli/ti hanno plagiato la mente" is a sentence that,
         | as an Italian, I have heard often.
        
         | znpy wrote:
         | It actually used to be more common, back when that kind of
         | stuff was discussed from time to time (eg: back in the day when
         | there was this huuuge general mania/phobia about "bestie di
         | satana").
        
         | aww_dang wrote:
         | The article goes into the etymology, explaining how the
         | plagiaristic sense came about by a satirical use of the term in
         | Roman times.
         | 
         | >The word "plagio" is not of recent coinage. It derives from
         | Roman law, which also created its present ambiguity, because
         | "plagio" in Italian means both "mind control" and "plagiarism,"
         | as in "My book has been victim of plagiarism." It was the same
         | in Latin, except that the meaning of "control of a human being"
         | came first, and the meaning of "plagiarism" came later.
         | 
         | >Responsible for this confusion was a satirical roman poet of
         | the first century CE called Martial. In his epigram no. 52,
         | Martial used the word "plagium" humorously and metaphorically.
         | Just as those who try to pass off another person's slave as
         | their own are guilty of "plagium," Martial said, so should be
         | considered those who pass off a literary work they copied from
         | somebody else as their own. They also commit "plagium,"
         | protested Martial...
        
         | q-rews wrote:
         | Incredibly, neither Treccani [1] nor Wiktionary mention that
         | meaning even for the Latin word. [2]
         | 
         | However there's a page on Wikipedia in English [3] and Italian
         | [4] and also Treccani mentions this meaning in Plagiare's
         | thesaurus [5] only.
         | 
         | If feels like it's meant as "to enslave", either physically or
         | mentally.                 1:
         | https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/plagiare/       2:
         | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plagium       3:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagio       4: https://it.wikipe
         | dia.org/wiki/Plagio_(ordinamento_penale_italiano)       5:
         | https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/plagiare_%28Sinonimi-e-
         | Contrari%29/
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | AdrianB1 wrote:
         | Just curious, were you an adult in 1981 when it was removed
         | from legislation? If now, it may be just old history for you.
        
         | ABS wrote:
         | plagio has multiple meanings, one it's the one you are
         | referring to (e.g. plagiarasing someone else's work) and
         | another is what this article is about.
         | 
         | vittima di plagio, plagiare una persona, etc are all in common
         | usage (and subject of study in psychology)
        
       | slim wrote:
       | It is fascinating that the roman empire bloated the legal corpus
       | so much, the concept of ownership became so broad that you could
       | own a human or an idea. And then plagio stems from both stupid
       | ideas because for real property the concept of theft was well
       | understood and defined and could not be applied. Thanks op for
       | submitting this. Now reading the second part.
       | 
       | https://bitterwinter.org/brainwashing-italian-style-the-fasc...
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-07 23:01 UTC)