Brainwashing, Italian-Style: The Birth of “Plagio” | Hacker News Reader

Brainwashing, Italian-Style: The Birth of “Plagio”

bitterwinter.org

66 pointsaww_dang23 comments

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

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...

It’s not that rare, “è stato plagiato da x” (he’s been brainwashed by x), it’s relatively common (given that people don’t talk that much about brainwashing).

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 I did not know it was an actual article of law and that it was repealed before I was born.

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)

Actually “gli/ti hanno plagiato la mente” is a sentence that, as an Italian, I have heard often.

Just curious, were you an adult in 1981 when it was removed from legislation? If now, it may be just old history for you.

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.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagio_(ordinamento_penale_italiano)
  5: https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/plagiare_%28Sinonimi-e-Contrari%29/

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").

Plagiarism?

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 è 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.

It is a technical term. See former article 603 cp (italian penal code).

never heard something like "mi hai plagiato la mente"?

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.

> It said that “plagio” does not exist.

It obviously exists. In all meanings of it. How did they conclude it doesn't?

Obviously by the use of "plagio" itself of course...

Mind-control is a tricky subject you know. ;-)

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.

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

That looks like a complete and total miscarriage of justice...

Most likely, yes. While the Constitutional Court did not explicitly say so in 1981 when they declared the law unconstitutional, the fact that the only conviction was at least highly dubious was definitely a reason to support their decision. The reason given is that it is impossible to distinguish “plagio” and free choice of the alleged victim.

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...

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...

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\

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