When the once well-respected superintendent of Little Rock's school district--Dexter Suggs--resigned in the wake of a plagiarism scandal, an old friend's comment on my own writing came back hard and fast. Like a carom shot out of a side pocket in a pool game.
He said I practiced "creative plagiarism," which was one way of describing my habit of tying together literary allusions in my columns. A charge to which I plead guilty. With shameless pride. Readers might or might not recognize the allusions, which is fine with me. If they do, there is something satisfying about knowing the source of a reference. If not, that's okay, too, for phrases that have earned a place in literature can stand alone; their aura of eloquence requires no explanation.
None of this may be relevant to the suspicious, line-by-line, word-for-word resemblance of Dr. Suggs' dissertation to others' work. But why anyone would trouble to copy all that empty educanto beats me. If you're going to steal others' words, why not steal some worth stealing--instead of the usual schlock that fills up graduate papers filed away by the ton in schools and departments of education all across the country?
What troubles about Dexter Suggs's supposed plagiarism is not that he might have taken credit for others' words but his poor taste in larceny. It brings to mind the jewel thief who takes infinite pains to sneak into a lady's boudoir to find her jewel case, and then . . . pilfers only paste.
What's wrong with a little tasteful plagiarism anyway? After all, when Cervantes or Shakespeare has said it better, why say it worse?
In these computerized times, it doesn't take much trouble to reach into the classics and expropriate eloquence. You press a key or two and--Bingo!--someone else's wisdom can appear under your name.
If and when the slip is noticed, always call it . . . Accidental ! ("Gosh, I must have copied that in my research and forgotten it wasn't mine.") Or as Dr. Suggs might put it, and did, he didn't feel he "intentionally committed any fraud or plagiarism."
Some of us live in fear that we might plagiarize in all innocence. It might not be forgivable, but it's understandable. Some language is so irresistible we almost automatically incorporate it into our own.
Joe Biden, when he was the senator from Delaware, was once so impressed by an Englishman's life story that he adopted it as his own.
The late Stephen Ambrose was so taken with another historian's work that he appropriated it as his own. Yet he was so conscientious (or feeling so guilty) that he cited the original work in a footnote, as if to leave behind a clue so he'd be sure to get caught.
Ditto, Dorothy Kearns Goodwin. Her M.O. was just the same, right down to the telltale clue.
If I footnoted every maxim, proverb or allusion I used in a column, my prose would look as if it had broken out with chicken pox.
It's understandable why others' good stories and perfect phrases should prove irresistible. What's not understandable is why people would steal bad prose, or sappy memories. It's not the theft that troubles in such cases, but the poor taste of the thief.
Molly Ivins is my exemplar in these matters. When she was caught sounding word-for-word like Florence King--accidentally, of course--let it be said for Miss Molly that at least she had the good judgment to copy from the very best. Originality is a much over-rated virtue compared to good taste in what prose to steal.
My old friend, the one who spots so many of my larcenies/allusions, put into words why I've always had a soft spot for the plagiarist. Naturally they are somebody else's words--James Branch Cabell's:
". . . very few sane architects commence an edifice by planting and rearing the oaks which are to compose its beams and stanchions. You take over all such supplies ready hewn, and choose by preference time-seasoned timber. Since Homer's prime a host of other great creative writers have recognised this axiom when they too began to build: and 'originality' has (become) like chess and democracy, a Mecca for little minds."
Hear, hear!
If you took out all the allusions and reservations and qualifications and adaptations Cabell used, the entirety of his multi-volume works might be reduced to a paragraph. Which, for those who appreciate what my old friend calls creative plagiarism, is meant as praise, not condemnation. It is always wholly a pleasure to quote Mr. Cabell.
Indeed, I've borrowed/stolen the phrase, "It was wholly a pleasure . . . " from the way Mr. Cabell always began his letters to correspondents whose opinions he would then proceed to devastate. I intend the theft as a tribute. Plagiarism may be the highest form of flattery. But always call it . . . Research!
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Democrat-Gazette. Naturally enough, much of today's column is copied from an earlier one, which first appeared in 2008. E-mail him at:
pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com
Editorial on 04/26/2015