Plagiarism vs. Inspiration
Richard Cohen has a great discussion on his blog today about plagiarism, inspiration and the art of writing. Cohen and some of the posters in the comments made some very good points. I posted a comment there and then decided to rework it a bit and post it here, too. Communication is always a subject I enjoy communicating about. :)
Something that's always fascinated me about language is that a limited number of symbols--quite a small collection of letters, sounds and words--can be combined infinite ways to express thoughts.
It seems a miracle to me every time I think about it that we can actually use these symbols to communicate a thought or idea from one mind to another. Communication is a beautiful and awe-inspiring thing. The fact that a combination of sounds or marks on paper (or a computer screen) can effectively tell you what is going on in my mind is nothing short of magical.
Because of the way language works--because it utilizes a relatively limited number of building blocks--it is inevitable that more than one person will independently combine some of those building blocks in the same way as someone else.
As in music or art, those building blocks can also be used as inspiration for a piece that is truly unique even though it is influenced by something else. (Not to say, of course, that credit shouldn't be given to the influencer.)
However, because the ideas we can communicate and the ways we can combine these building blocks are infinite, it's essentially impossible that those similarities will be extensive in any truly original piece.
We can expect that a phrase or a sentence might be the same, but used differently, in various pieces of writing. But if several paragraphs or more are identical or nearly so, that's pretty good evidence of plagiarism.
Because ideas and concepts are infinite, it's highly unlikely that two people would carry out the same idea almost exactly the same way in something they write. So I would think that having two pieces with exactly the same unusual series of thoughts, storyline or concepts (even expressed in different words) is very unlikely to happen without plagiarization.
A truly good writer can express unique ideas in a common way, common ideas or experiences in a unique way, or unique ideas in a unique way. But a writer who says the same thing in almost exactly the same way as everyone else is original in neither thought nor expression. Even if what they write isn't exactly plagiarized, who would want to read it?
Something that's always fascinated me about language is that a limited number of symbols--quite a small collection of letters, sounds and words--can be combined infinite ways to express thoughts.
It seems a miracle to me every time I think about it that we can actually use these symbols to communicate a thought or idea from one mind to another. Communication is a beautiful and awe-inspiring thing. The fact that a combination of sounds or marks on paper (or a computer screen) can effectively tell you what is going on in my mind is nothing short of magical.
Because of the way language works--because it utilizes a relatively limited number of building blocks--it is inevitable that more than one person will independently combine some of those building blocks in the same way as someone else.
As in music or art, those building blocks can also be used as inspiration for a piece that is truly unique even though it is influenced by something else. (Not to say, of course, that credit shouldn't be given to the influencer.)
However, because the ideas we can communicate and the ways we can combine these building blocks are infinite, it's essentially impossible that those similarities will be extensive in any truly original piece.
We can expect that a phrase or a sentence might be the same, but used differently, in various pieces of writing. But if several paragraphs or more are identical or nearly so, that's pretty good evidence of plagiarism.
Because ideas and concepts are infinite, it's highly unlikely that two people would carry out the same idea almost exactly the same way in something they write. So I would think that having two pieces with exactly the same unusual series of thoughts, storyline or concepts (even expressed in different words) is very unlikely to happen without plagiarization.
A truly good writer can express unique ideas in a common way, common ideas or experiences in a unique way, or unique ideas in a unique way. But a writer who says the same thing in almost exactly the same way as everyone else is original in neither thought nor expression. Even if what they write isn't exactly plagiarized, who would want to read it?
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 10:20 PM[Permanent link]
2 Comments:
Thanks for the link, PK! For your readers, here's what I wrote on my site in reply:
I agree about the wonderful infiniteness of language. As I learned back in Anthropology class, the fact that all human beings are continually producing unique sentences, and can continue doing so for an infinite time, is what separates true language from animal calls, even if some animals have large sets of calls and occasionally produce a new one.
PK, your point that "it's essentially statistically impossible that those similarities will be extensive in any truly original piece" is one that Jorge Luis Borges might disagree with. In his short story "Pierre Menard, Auithor of the Quixote," a modern man becomes so obsessed with DON QUIXOTE that he is ultimately able to sit down and "write" two chapters of it, not by copying or memorizing but by reproducing it from his innermost depths. The two versions of the great novel -- Cervantes' and his -- are seen to be different works with different meanings, because of their different contexts, even though they are word-for-word identical. Was Borges right? I think that he invented a brilliant illustration of the importance of context. But his fictional character could only reproduce two chapters of Quixote, not the whole thing. And after all, it's only a story. In real life it would be plagiarism.
Thanks for the link, PK! I'll copy the relevant parts of this response onto your blog -- or maybe I'll try to reproduce them from my innermost depths...
Thanks for your comment, Richard. I posted a reply and followup here.
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