It is sad to me, that the world has such little originality left. As detailed in Jonathan Lethenm's "The Ecstacy of Influence", many of the brilliant minds which are highly regarded among today's public, borrow from other great minds. Are these people really so brilliant if they but plagiarize from greater minds who came before them? In Lethenm's words, nearly ever form of modern day art uses a "cut and paste" method to borrow from works in the past, sometimes, without granting credit. This realization leads me to question, why is it accepted that "professional" artists use plagiarism, when college students may lose their entire education for borrowing snippets of essays or other works. Is it acceptable for fully matured adults to steal, but not those who are still broadening their education? If these borrowers can find endless success from infusing other works into theirs it should be said that anyone can do so.
I do not believe that lethenm is advocating plagiarism, but is rather pointing out is existence in our society to those who were oblivious. While allusions are a generally accepted literary tool, it is expected that the alluded author will recieve credit for borrowed quotes, plots, or bits of music. However, in today's society it seems to be acceptable to take credit for things that have already been created by a greater, and more original mind. Before reading this work I was somewhat aware of this trend surfacing in our society today. As I walked through the movie theater I noticed that nearly every movie coming out or playing in the past years has either been based on a book of some sort, or a pre-existing plot. This is clearly unacceptable. Where has our culture's originality gone? What has happened to thinking independently?
After reading Lethenm's article I was greatly disturbed. This method of "cut and paste" should not be tolerated by the people of this society. Whether we're speaking of music, art, or literature, people should learn what it means to have originality and intelligence. They should take pride in creating something that is fully theirs and not ripped off from some one in the past. This belief that it is acceptable to steal another persons thoughts and hard work is unacceptable and completely dishonest. Plagiarism is alive and well, and no one is doing anything about it. What do you say now, college boards?
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I too think that it is unacceptable for other well established artists to be able to use other peoples ideas without recourse whereas we as students face immense amounts of consequences if we use even a line from another author in our writing. There is totally a double standard between young upcoming authors versus well established ones. Its unfair to us to because we always have to be concious of our wiring always and worry about whether or not we might have plagiarized or if we credited our work correctly. As for where you said our society is using old ideas in new forms of pop culure (the movie theater) I do not necessarily see this as a bad thing. Depending on how the art form is redone, it might actually be beneficial because there is always room for new ideas anywhere we look in society. If we were not allowed to buid on ideas, progress in society might cease to exist as we know it. I do think that pop culture needs to be redone, again depending on how it turns out, because who are we to say that someone cannot use an idea and put their own twist on it? I do not see credit as a necessary thing all of the time because if we use a basic idea in art and then put an entirely new twist on it, then why should we have to give credit to others? I think that only if ideas and pieces of text are used directly to the point where we do copy and paste, then credit is indeed needed.
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