Quote:
Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling
Mark, will you please stop doing that.
Talking like it is OK or a compliment that these creeps take other people's work and call it their own intellectual production. They are thieves, pure and simple (...)
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Dear Janice,
Please don't be too hard on Mark. After all, as our resident and officially sanctioned kleptomaniac, under the logical concept of reciprocity, he *must* make this argument. For if it is a 'good' to steal, even if it's from a person who's been dead for centuries, it must also be a 'good' to be stolen *from*. You may wish to point out here that theft from someone who passed on hundreds of years ago reduces him to the ethical status of 'grave robber,' but I would answer "Who does not have some artistic knick-knack on their mantlepiece from a millenia ago? I know I do, and the piece must either be authentic or inauthentic. If inauthentic, the idea was stolen and replicated for profit. If authentic, it must have been 'harvested' by a grave robber. And it would hardly behoove me to value the beauty of the piece and at the same time curse the person whose theft made my appreciation of its beauty possible! We must therefore, in the interests of Beauty (and what could be a higher and more noble calling!), support our local grave robbers, and therefore we must support Mark!
You may, at this juncture, desire to point out that thieves, in this life, enjoy an unjust gain from their actions. But you may take some small comfort in the concept of 'the equilibrium of opposites,' which holds that in the afterlife, thieves will be visited with a just punishment for their enjoyment of earthly profit. You are thus invited to pleasantly travel with me to view (in Aristotelian cathartic fashion) the following scene:
Setting: one of the various circles of Dante's Inferno. There is a long, slightly curved path through the dark, thorny branched leafless trees, upon which are perched giant, menacing vampire bats, who seem to be waiting, pointedly, for dusk. We see two figures walking slowly along the path. They are in no hurry, it's not as if they have anywhere to go: they'll be walking around this nightmarish circle for all eternity. One is John Donne, condemned to this fate for ruining his daughter's wedding day with a horrific, self indulgent sermon which featured, among other things, detached and mouldering body parts strewn across the landscape. The other looks very much like Mark, who snagged a passage from that very sermon. The audience understands they are thus deserving of each other's company. We can listen to their conversation:
Mark: Hmm, looks like the sun's getting ready to set!
Donne: Yes, and we will justly suffer for our separate actions!
Mark: But I did nothing wrong! My life was spotless!
Donne: You stole my material, and put it in a sonnet!
Mark: But my contemporaries praised me!
Donne: They were just trying to cover their own crimes! Besides, you were convenient, because you gave them someone to look down on. If someone pointed at them and said 'You stole that line,' they could say 'Yes, but at least I didn't steal the entire passage! At least I didn't do what Mark did!'
Mark: Do you hear the sound of beating wings?
Donne: And on top of it all, most people think I knew a little something about sonnets. If I wanted that materiel put in a sonnet, I would have put it there myself!
Just then, the sun finally sets. The giant vampire bats come flocking out of the trees, heading towards our two heroes. Even though there is no escape, Mark ducks, and tries to cover himself, tries to play dead. The bats aren't buying it, and they chomp at his neck and lap the resulting blood, ignoring his plaintive cries. Donne, with the advantage of having gone through this for hundreds of years, stands there stoically, allowing them to drink their fill. When they're completely sated, and beginning to drift away, Donne, in an act of generosity, tries to comfort Mark.
Donne: You think that's bad? Just be glad you're not Lantry! He's several circles below us, and he deserves whatever he gets! Have you seen his rhyme schemes?
Both our heroes shudder in horror, smile in the knowledge that there's someone even worse off than them, and begin again their slow walk around the long path.
(Curtain)
Thanks,
Bill
Linear Mode
