In the days following the death of Osama bin Laden, a quote attributed to Martin Luther King pinged about social networking websites and into email inboxes: “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
While the second, third and fourth sentences were spoken by King in 1957, the first 23 words are the appended thoughts of a US schoolteacher. In a cyberspatial game of Chinese whispers, the distinguishing marks of punctuation become detached as quickly as you can say “retweet”. In a short time, the Twitter-friendly opening line ensured that the hybrid phrase was truncated to its first sentence, King’s name still affixed.
A number of journalists have since traced the alchemy and transmission of an unknown teacher’s thoughts to a misdescribed memetic sensation. Yet the pathologies failed to investigate questions that seem far more fundamental. Why did so many feel impelled to disseminate it? In what way did the attachment of a famous name make it more meaningful? Ruth Finnegan’s study makes a remarkable attempt at answering these types of question.
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