Plaigarism
Our connected world--and shifting understanding of "the self"--are challenging traditional Western ideas of authorship."The final dishonesty of the plagiarism fundamentalists," writes Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, "is to encourage us to pretend that . . . chains of influence and evolution do not exist, and that a writer’s words have a virgin birth and an eternal life."
I cannot condone plaigarism, especially in an academic setting. But I wonder if cultural shifts are moving us closer, perhaps, to a New Testament understanding of "authorship," in words belong to a collective "community of discourse" rather than to "individuals"?
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, November 23, 2004
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