Wow. I am a plagiarist.
Mar. 7th, 2006 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sepdetI finally remembered why plagiarism is a push-button issue for me, something I simply don't tolerate. It's yet another lesson in the Unconscious: a textbook case of repression.
When I was six, I failed to write a book report for King of the Wind, because I got partway through the book and the painful angst happening in that story was too much for me to take. Instead, I wound up writing a book report that paraphrased the blurb on the back cover.
Stupid, as well as dishonest.
Frighteningly enough, the teacher failed to notice, and gave me a good grade.
That grade haunted me for years. I am a weak person, but very strong in the forces of guilt.
I had managed to forget this, but it has come back now. So, here and now,let me come clean to the universe: I AM SORRY, I PLAGIARIZED A BOOK REPORT FOR MISS GOMBA'S CLASS in 1977.
Bah.
Silly, and yet it isn't.
It's wrong. Copyright violations where you don't pay the piper are bad, but you're still not claiming someone else's creative work, their own unique creation, as something YOU did. That's where my trigger-point is.
When I was six, I failed to write a book report for King of the Wind, because I got partway through the book and the painful angst happening in that story was too much for me to take. Instead, I wound up writing a book report that paraphrased the blurb on the back cover.
Stupid, as well as dishonest.
Frighteningly enough, the teacher failed to notice, and gave me a good grade.
That grade haunted me for years. I am a weak person, but very strong in the forces of guilt.
I had managed to forget this, but it has come back now. So, here and now,let me come clean to the universe: I AM SORRY, I PLAGIARIZED A BOOK REPORT FOR MISS GOMBA'S CLASS in 1977.
Bah.
Silly, and yet it isn't.
It's wrong. Copyright violations where you don't pay the piper are bad, but you're still not claiming someone else's creative work, their own unique creation, as something YOU did. That's where my trigger-point is.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 08:48 pm (UTC)The harm you did was minimal; I am quite sure that the universe just said "That's all right. Now you've got that off your chest, you can stop losing sleep over it. Clean slate, honest."