Much Ado About Plagiarism: Fox vs. Malhotra

Using a big word like ‘plagiarism’… always causes some damage. It will always do lasting damage, like accusations of racism.
– Michel Houellebecq

“Errors are regrettable as they are unavoidable … no amount of textual criticism or typographical nitpicking can disprove a view. The fact that Courtright holds this view, and that apparently many of his reviewers and peers in the academy find it illuminating, productive or insightful, cannot be undermined by philological fault-finding. It is possible to disprove a fact by presenting a counter-fact, but interpretations and opinions are not subject to proof or disproof.

“It is difficult enough to acquire fame. It is impossible to change its nature once you’ve acquired it. No, you can never ruin an architect by proving that he’s a bad architect. But you can ruin him because he’s an atheist, or because somebody sued him, or because he slept with some woman, or because he pulls wings off bottleflies. You’ll say it doesn’t make sense? Of course it doesn’t. That’s why it works. Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the unreasonable? The trouble with you, my dear, and with most people, is that you don’t have sufficient respect for the senseless. The senseless is the major factor in our lives. You have no chance if it is your enemy.”