• wheezy@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    This happens BECAUSE it’s the wealthiest country on earth.

    We live in a time of larger wealth disparity than the times of peasants and kings.

    The royals were also really wealthy as they said in ignorance “let them eat cake”.

    • deltapi@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Except that statement wasn’t said by royalty, it’s a misattributed mistranslation of a snippet from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions.
      It was written 9 years before Marie Antoinette became queen and while she was still a child and had not yet traveled to France.
      This is a classic case of the victors writing history. This quote has been used countless times to try to illustrate that the royalty was out of touch (which I’m neither arguing for nor against here,) however there’s no evidence it was ever spoken by the Queen - indeed it wasn’t attributed to her at all for many years after her death.

        • deltapi@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Maybe she did. Doesn’t change the fact that using misattributed quotes tends to diminish the perception of the preceding opinion in the eyes of readers.

          • Beero@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            I think in this case the quote actually paints her in a better light the reality. You can forgive someone for being sheltered and naive, but you have to be a monster to abduct children from their families.

    • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Same thing now.
      Some individuals are the wealthiest on earth.
      The US shithole has the biggest (unpayable) debt and is the poorest country on earth.