Plagiarism is very very dangerous!!

Mary Beard's latest blog is about plagiarism.


http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2010/02/are-you-at-risk-of-plagiarism.html


I made the following comment:

The problem is "ownership", innit? Whose seed impregnates which belly, and who owns the issue - sorry "outcome".

You have all kinds of transgressions here, some mortal, some venal. Rape, teenage lust, marriage (oops, that's legal!), normal infidelity, the occasional fling, party-party, the Lady and the Local Lad, bigamy...

So what kinds of egg-kidnapping deserve Hell, and are there any that deserve Heaven??

And isn't reproduction all about expanding the gene pool and serendipitous mutations? Silk purses from pigs' ears?

In the worlds of ideas and culture (to name a few), copywrong and patents (intellectual property) are far, far more destructive than borrowing humanity's collective creations and developing them. Emulation, progress, prosperity - they're all bound and gagged and chained upside down in inaccessible dungeons. (Inaccessible presumably meaning you can't access the outside, in NewSpeak.)

If a student can present commonplaces better than the last documented presenter then good on her! If not, tough titty and down go his grades. Always provided the grader a) has the knowledge to spot the copywronged commonplace, and b) has the skill and judgement to evaluate the quality involved.

So, if the community (say the ideas crowd in ancient Athens) is intelligent, perceptive, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed - what's yer problem? And if it isn't - who gives a fuck?

And - to state the obvious - the honour due to an original take on things can be very well shown by an IPBB community. And materially rewarded by a society in which IPBB communities are respected.

It's blatantly obvious that our present society/mode of production is not just disrespectful, but downright hostile to IPBB communities. And that our present society is more intent on binding and gagging original (or more generally, creative) people, and chaining them upside down in inaccessible dungeons, than it is in rewarding them materially.

So:

"Plagiarize!
Let no one else's work evade your eyes!
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes!
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize!

Only be sure always to call it please "research"..."

[Etymological footnote: "Latin plagiarius, kidnapper, plagiarist, from plagium, kidnapping, from plaga, net; see plak-1 in Indo-European roots", American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/plagiary)]