By the time you read this, the Left will still be coping with the resignation of former Harvard President and known copycat Claudine Gay and trying to rewrite the narrative to make her into the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy. By the way, Hillary Clinton, please call your office. That part was predictable.
What wasn’t so predictable was the Left falling all over itself to redefine plagiarism to make it more acceptable. Granted, the Left loves to redefine words with the regularity of a guy who eats a lot of fiber and prunes, so it’s not surprising they would do it here. It’s the sheer fucking stupidity behind it that has me dumbfounded, but not speechless (which is a good thing because if I couldn’t put my thoughts into words, this would be a very short blog).
plagiarism
What the Left thinks it means – a not-so-serious offense where someone wittingly or unwittingly copies the work of another
What it really means – intellectual theft
When I was growing up…errr…going from childhood into adulthood, I was taught copying someone else’s work without attribution was a grave error. I’m talking worse than wearing leisure suits unironically here, kids. I will admit to having done it back when I was young and stupid, but now that I’m old and stupid, I know the error of my ways. By copying someone else’s work and claiming it as your own, you are at best depriving the owner of the original work of recognition.
So, why in the Wide World of Fuck is the Left suddenly okay with plagiarism?
To be fair, they’re not completely okay with it. Just if the wrong people use their stuff. See how Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snyder reacts to Donald Trump supporters using “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as a theme song. Of course, he’s okay with it being used as a theme song for anti-gun activists and Ukrainians, so…yeah.
This isn’t to say he’s not within his rights to dictate who can use his song. Even though I don’t agree with the political reasoning behind his decisions, I can’t object to what he’s doing because it’s his intellectual property, and I’m sure Leftists would agree without question.
Just not for the intellectually consistent reason.
Let’s say someone were to copy an article by Taylor Lorenz and try to pass it off as his or her own. The Left would have a shit fit. Of course, this would never happen because a) you’d have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to do it, and b) Lorenz has the intellectual vigor and rhetorical skill of moldy bread. Copying one of her pieces is grounds for being declared mentally incompetent in 16 states.
That was before Ms. Gay, of course. As of this writing, there have been 40 instances where she has plagiarized someone else’s academic work while writing hers. Most of the academics she’s plagiarized and other academics have defended her, going so far as to say they don’t feel it was plagiarism. Now, this is where shit gets weird. Instead of calling it what it is, Leftists came up with new excuses, ranging from “sloppy attribution” and “sort of more like copying other peoples writings without attribution” to suggesting it’s more commonplace and, thus, not as big of deal as it’s being made out to be. Some went so far as to say the charges were “mostly bogus.“
And if you had “anti-plagiarism is racist” on your 2024 Stupid Shit Leftists Say Bingo card, you have a winner! Because Leftists have to bring race into everything from plagiarism to getting the wrong kind of cage free organic free range cruelty free bananas from Whole Foods, it was only a matter of time before Ms. Gay’s race was brought into it. And it wasn’t just one or two outlets, either. There were a litany of “muh racism” takes from all the predictable sources. Why, it’s almost like they…plagiarized their responses!
Or they share the same brain cell. You know, whichever.
More to the point, though, should the Left’s indifference to plagiarism spread outside the halls of academia, it would have a detrimental effect to any intellectual property. Patent law, copyright law, and even laws surrounding parody would definitely take a hit. As much as I’d like to see 50 porn “parodies” of Barbieheimer (all shot, produced, and released within at a pace that would make Roger Corman look like an overmedicated sloth), I’m not sure this is the direction we should want to go.
And think of the impact to social media sharing sites like YouTube, whose copyright system is more fucked up than Keith Richards as an AA sponsor. Or Keith Richards in general. Any video posted could get taken, renamed, and rebroadcast, including any previously copyrighted material. That in and of itself would impact a certain bay of pirates sailing on the interwebs.
Now, who would be hurt most by this attitude? Maybe…oh, I don’t know…the Leftists in the performing arts community? After all, if plagiarism is fine and should be excused with the lightest of wrist slaps, there’s nothing preventing someone like me from copying a Tyler Perry movie or a Cardi B song and calling it my own.
I mean, aside from me having taste, that is.
This is a situation where the Left’s adherence to social justice comes back to biting them in the collectivist ass. They can’t hold Ms. Gay accountable for what she clearly did because it would look racist and sexist. But in doing so, they’re going to be hurting their financial bottom line sometime in the future because they are undercutting intellectual property rights, which is how many of their prominent donors make their money. Hope it’s worth it.
Meanwhile, Ms. Gay is no longer President of Harvard, but is still employed as…a political science professor. Granted, plagiarism isn’t necessarily a criminal matter, but the fact she only got a demotion speaks volumes about how Harvard and the Left have put not being called racist and sexist above not enabling plagiarizers, in direct defiance of the rules Harvard has for its students. That’s right, kids. College students are now held to a higher intellectual and ethical standards than one of its professors.
At least for now. It’s only a matter of time before Harvard will have to deal with a student who uses the precedent it set with Ms. Gay to argue (and I daresay successfully) there is a double standard between students and faculty and demand plagiarism be allowed across the board with little to no penalty to the offender. And we thought Harvard fucked up its response to anti-Israeli protests on campus!
The Left’s response to Claudine Gay’s frequent plagiarism reveals fundamental flaws that benefit no one. Unless there is protection of intellectual property, we might as well start emulating China. Oh, wait…
Either way, Ms. Gay doesn’t have much to worry about. After all, she may not be President of Harvard anymore, but she’s already built up quite a resume to run for President of the United States.
