Lethem Reading Assignment

“The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnered with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing” (Lethem 224-225).

This quote can be found in the section “Give All” of Lethem’s essay, lifted originally from a letter from Mark Twain to Helen Keller. Keller had been accused of plagiarism in her writings, and Twain wrote this to support and console her, saying that all human thoughts were inherently influenced by outside sources—and thus “plagiarized.” Lethem uses the quote to further his point that the idea of completely “original” writing, and all other mediums of art, is impossible, and to argue against the idea of contemporary copywriting. When we learn, we are taking in the ideas of those who came before us. Our thoughts are merely constructions of many different ideas strung together. While we may claim “originality” on our work and seek to claim the rights to their origins, the fact stands that the amount of influence leading up to our work is too significant to ignore. Lethem points out that the original intention of copyright was to “[assure] authors the right to their original expression, but [encourage] others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work” (Lethem 224). Our modern concept of copyright thus becomes paradoxical; if no one is allowed to create something even remotely related to the original work, then what was the point of sharing the work in the first place? We put ideas out into the world so that the rest of the world may see them and become inspired. And while the modern copyright does have a time limit on the monopoly of its idea by its creator, we cannot ignore the fact that this monopoly exists in the first place. Many of our discoveries have occurred over the course of history, carefully constructed by layering ideas one on top of the other until we create a complete product. From the model of the atom to the exploration of the universe, we have relied upon the proposals of our predecessors to give us a foundation to work off of. Lethem points to Keller’s work an excellent example of a new construction of thoughts derived from many influences by others. There are many ways to look at the same idea, and a million opinions can originate from a single one—it should not be our job to bar people from being influenced by others. Our “secondhand” thoughts can become something great, and there should be no shame in building off of the thoughts of someone else.