From David Plotz in Slate:

“In a 1997 New Yorker essay, James Kincaid argued that plagiarism should not bother writers so much. Most journalism is mediocre, unoriginal prose, Kincaid says, so writers shouldn’t mind if it gets recycled. Some literary theorists minimize plagiarism for a related reason. They are skeptical of the ideas of authorship and originality, contending that everything new is cobbled together from older sources.

But these scholars, you will note, publish their articles under their own bylines. And both they and Kincaid ignore what makes the plagiarist so sinister. For writers, the act of putting particular words in a particular order is our hard labor. Even when the result is mediocre and unoriginal, it is our own mediocrity. The words are our proof of life, the evidence we can present at heaven’s gate that we have not frittered away our three score and ten.

The plagiarist is, in a minor way, the cop who frames innocents, the doctor who kills his patients. The plagiarist violates the essential rule of his trade. He steals the lifeblood of a colleague. A few paragraphs have made Stephen Ambrose a vampire.”

My Comment

This is a very convincing essay on plagiarism from Slate.

It notes, for one thing, that the people who think plagiarism is no big deal would, tellingly enough, never allow their own columns to appear without their byline. Corporations that take material from their contract workers are aggressive litigators against competitors who do the same to them.

Slate also draws a useful line between “influence” and “plagiarism”.

All writers are influenced – they pick up words or phrases from writers they admire, unconsciously…or sometimes intentionally.

But you can tell a writer writing “under the influence” from a plagiarist because the former is happy to credit his influence. And he usually makes what he took his “own” – giving it their own characteristic twist and often making it better than the original.

The plagiarist doesn’t acknowledge influence, until he gets caught. And then he has a bunch of excuses.

The plagiarist also rarely commits his errors occasionally. If he did, it could probably be seen as an honest mistake. Most plagiarists are actually pathological in that respect. They’re like kleptomaniacs who must appropriate whatever takes their fancy. And eventually this is self-destructive, because, especially in the age of Internet, it’s easy enough to look up something and find out who took it from whom.

One example of the plagiarist as addict is Kingsley Amis, who although not known officially as a plagiarist, actually took a number of his best lines from his long-suffering wife, Hilly, who also put up with his compulsive philandering.

Oddly enough, Amis’s son, Martin, was the target of plagiarism himself, from another talented writer, Jacob Epstein, in a famous case in 1980. Martin Amis correctly diagnosed the matter as one of compulsion and self-destructiveness. The plagiarist is often signaling some deep-seated shame.

The most interesting angle of plagiarism is that it’s often done by talented, even brilliant writers. Wilde did it. So did Stephen Ambrose, the well-known historian. These are people you’d think would have no need to take good lines from some one else.

So why do they do it?

In some, as I said, it’s a pathology. It reflects an inner compulsion in the personality, a compulsion often replicated in other out-of-control behavior.

In others, it’s laziness or exhaustion of ideas. Plagiarism is an easy way to keep up a fading reputation for wit as a writer ages or otherwise loses his edge.

Another reason – one that I’ve observed often – is competitiveness and envy.

We’re accustomed to think of envy as something felt by have-nots for haves. More often, however, it’s felt by haves for other haves.

We all know the pretty woman with dozens of admirers who still has to steal the boyfriend of the plain Jane next door, even though she doesn’t want him. We all know the CEO who must make one more flashy deal, even if it will kill him, because he can’t let any deal go by him.

We know rich people who want to be even richer and famous people who crave even more fame and envy even the smallest portion of limelight that someone more obscure might enjoy.

And so also there are bright, talented people, who can’t stand that there may be somewhere, someone who also has some ability. A bit of attention elsewhere becomes a diminution of their own ability.
In these cases, plagiarism is an indication of a hollowness inside the person that nothing can fill.

More thoughts on becoming self-sufficient in an age of cybercrime, PR, propaganda and psyops…

The simple way to discredit someone’s claims is to make them look as if they are making up stuff. So one has to be careful when one sees annoying email or posts. They’re often bait intended to provoke. One clever trick I’ve seen is to send threatening email to someone from their own IP address to make it look as if he or she is sending it to themselves….

Thinking back over the years, I’ve seen a lot of these tricks, but today, more reflectively, I have to wonder if I should be so anxious after all. 0

In the end, there is often a strange justice that gives us a glimpse of some hidden eternity, despite the banality of the troubles of the moment.

I still remember the words of an irate boss to an unhappy employee at my first job. He let slip this – “I hope you DO sue…I’m just waiting for it…”.

In that moment, his target, a young, quick-tempered but very honest young man from somewhere near the Pennsylvania steel town of Donora, had heard all he needed to hear. He quickly and correctly walked away from the situation. He knew he was being set up. He was poor and needed the money, but his instinct told him that money could always be had; his soul, however, might not survive the situation.

I’m happy to report that the treacherous boss, who thought he’d won that encounter, lived a long while after. Long enough to find that indeed the mills of God grind exceeding fine, even if they take a while doing it. That area near Donora (like a good part of Pennsylvania) has long gone to seed.. and the boss and his company with them. The young man went on to run his own successful business in Texas….which is booming.

Of course, many a time, it doesn’t work out so well. Umpteen whistle-blowers and even people who were desperately trying NOT to blow the whistle but kept having it thrust into their mouths, have ended up on the wrong side of life from encounters with the unscrupulous.

But even so...even so…we really do not know the destiny that shapes our ends…(Note: this is a line so well-known that reference to its creator – Shakespeare – is unnecessary. I note it only so that critics trolling the blog for evidence that I might be committing the acts I charge others with will have to go away empty-handed. I love attributing people, because I love writing and respect the craft of it)

To return to my thoughts on cybervigilance.

IPs, emails, instant messages, can all be forged…or can be dismissed as forgeries. Which is why it’s necessary to have a little more than that – say, published articles, time-sheets, audiotapes, witnesses or other kinds of records to back up.

Audio-taping, which I tend to use also has its limitations. Some places in the US make it illegal, unless the other party is informed and agrees. Still, this isn’t so everywhere in the US, nor is it true in many other countries in Latin America or in Europe or in Asia. And having a third-party witness also helps.

Fortunately, an old friend of mine happens to be someone who’s worked in the US government’s defense systems, and he has some knowledge of cybercrime… so I’ve always been a little forewarned in these matters..

Others might not be so lucky.

Some guidelines:

*Make multiple copies of your tapes

*Print out your email records and save several copies

*Store your records with a trusted friend or attorney

*Keep records off the premises of your own house or person.

*Audiotapes have to be kept carefully or the sound can degenerate in quality

*Never let on that you have such detailed records.That can create more tension and provoke defensive reactions from your opponents.

*Any legitimate claims you have against them can also then be distorted to look extortionist. This is what happened to the whistle-blower who knew about Cindy McCain’s drug addiction and thefts from her own company. His legitimate claim for severance pay was made to look like extortion.

Libertarians believe that security is first of all our own responsibility. We owe it to ourselves to read the annals of crime and become aware of what people can..and have..done. Ignorance kills, as a lawyer I know likes to say.

Still, despite my pessimism, I have to add one last thing.

Truth by itself usually has a power that people underestimate. There is a certain ring to it that other honest people tend to pick up. Whether it’s something in the energy a person projects or whether it’s something in the body language, tone, or even sentence construction, dishonesty has a palpable presence. It leaves its mark in shifty eyes and gestures, in coarse expressions and tones. This has nothing to do with features or body parts or body types.

It’s the subtle spiritual quality of each human being that animals and children pick up faster than human beings.

Look at people as wholes, take in their physical features, but focus most sharply on the “feel” or “tone” you pick up. This tone will vary, because people vary in the signals – physical and emotional – that they give off. I don’t want to say this is fool-proof or that one’s instincts can’t sometimes be mistaken. They can. But it’s been my experience that the body has its own sensor system that we ignore at our peril. The times when I have got myself in trouble have always been times when I ignored warning bells from this sensor.

But there is another defense that works: trying to remember the best in the past…

There is always at least one person you can remember even from the worst encounters. And even among those who weren’t good, there’s always the spark of soul, however neglected and abused it is.

Whatever their past actions, each has the chance to redeem himself and seek from grace what he doesn’t merit on his own actions. It’s not the past and its misdeeds, however villainous, that bring us down. It’s the refusal to confess the misdeed, the refusal to make amends, the refusal to set right and reconcile.

Unfortunately, the legal system, which is what spawns the corporation to begin with, also makes it difficult for it to develop into something more human and less mechanical, something that is less a part of the “public spectacle” that “Mobs” decries.

Rather than allowing the human interaction that would resolve things, the corporate structure and the lawyers who keep it so, encourage- indeed, fatten off – pushing people further and further into the mechanism of litigation..

Or, more accurately, anticipated litigation.

The boss doesn’t run the company. It’s the company that runs the boss, as my co-author on “Mobs” likes to say.

In the end, the human being inside vanishes altogether…