Intelectual Ownership

The concept of plagiarism is based upon the assumption that the individual is of primacy and that they act alone. There are of course many individuals that are denoted as having come up with great ideas and 'theories'. But, each one of these individuals is only singularly set within one interdependent, yet whole, social system. People don't create work on their own and aren't the originators of these ideas that are attributed to them. Ideas are in fact universal collections that are only communicated through that one individual. They are not ‘their’s’, but ‘ours’. Our history’s, our culture’s, our society’s, our civilization’s, etc. Collective knowledge has evolved throughout time and cannot be credited to one singular place or individual. How is it that one person can claim intellectual property rights to the historical accumulation of thought? What one person was taught in school and seems commonsensical to them today but may have been revolutionary 2000, 500, or maybe even 100 years ago. Thus someone else’s ideas are in fact our collective community’s ideas, not mine for my own intellectual profit.

'Plagiarism' as a term maybe 'a crime' in today's perception of reality, but a crime 'against intelligence, honesty and authorship'? I would argue with this notion and say it is more of the opposite. It think it is dishonest to claim my ideas for myself knowing full well that I am just a conduit for information - an interpreter of social existence - and a socially constructed interpreter at that. Perhaps we can start arguing structure v. agency now, but I don't think it can be argued that our information comes from anywhere within ourselves, or that as academics we tend to keep it for ourselves. We 'need' to publish or we will perish as the old moniker goes. The real question is, do we claim lordship over our thoughts and seek to profit from these ideas (financially, status-wise, professionally, or egotistically), or do we recognize them for what they are - simple ideas based on a common history. Try to take a step outside the world as we are taught it is, and assess things on separate terms.

Now obviously, the principle of plagiarism is the foundation of modern academia and if you want to be a part of it you are required to follow the principles outlawing 'plagiarism' in order to graduate, publish, have a job, etc. But this does not make the principle 'right'. I think it should be our jobs as academic minded individuals to assess all of the principles that we view the world with as well as what we see within it. And the individualistic idea that my ideas are somehow my own property, based on singular experiences, and should be recourse to some form of individual profit is one that I strongly disagree with.

Obviously though, if you want to 'succeed' in academia, I am probably not your best model to follow ;) but it is worth thinking about exactly where you believe your ideas come from, where those ideas in fact came from, and exactly who's property they really are - if anyone's at all. If you come to the conclusion that they do in-fact come from your social surroundings, your experiences within society, and that these ideas are ultimately for the benefit of society, then why would you ever claim them to be your own?

We are simply momentary caretakers of those ideas. They are not mine, his, hers, or those two's; but they are ours, all of ours, and it is a sad state of the only recently dominant 'self-interested' world that we all claim something as simple and arbitrary as 'a thought' to be our own property.

The Sixth Sense

Do human beings have a ‘sixth sense’ that we have simply rationalized away? Animals – of which we are of course included – tend to be thought of as having a ‘sixth sense’ that alerts them to various circumstances or scenarios and causes them to react to various changes, anomalies, dangers, etc. Birds, will feed if it will rain all day, but not in short storms – how do they know? Dogs, cats, whatever, sensing fear, etc. We all are pretty familiar with these types of scenarios… but what about humans? There are people that claim to read minds: psychics, shamans, what-have-you. They are right often enough to have still have enough followers to exist after several millennia; so is there truth to this? Is this simply an untapped human sense that we have not learned to use, or is it something that we have ‘rationalized’ away?

If the theory of evolution is correct and we did evolve from animals, then it would seem that we would have once had these abilities, or at least enough of an understanding of them to use them. With the rise of ‘man’ and his/her capacity for rational thought, is it possible that we have chosen to explain this sensation away because it is not so easy to quantify, grasp, or master? I mean, it is no secret that there is a great deal of skepticism regarding this type of thing. So are we today still doing the same thing? Pushing it further away with the increased value of rationality, and even further away with the decreased belief in spiritual existence?

There are at least two possible lines of thought here. One is that a hard to understand sixth sense exists along the lines of Daoist/Budhist concepts of energy flow and animist practices that can be harnessed through meditation, rituals, and other internal practices. The second scenario to explain this ‘unexplainable’ situation is that of western religions were spiritual life was used to explain ‘unexplainable things’ and the focus and ritual remained external in nature. Either way, there was a path towards allowance and acceptance of possibly ‘unexplainable’ events, experiences, and powers.

This possible sixth sense, was able to find a home in both of these types of religious traditions, but today, with the decline of religion in its all-powerful/believing form in the face of the concept of the truly ‘rational’ actor, is there no longer a place for the exploration of a sixth sense?

As ‘rational’ beings things tend to follow fairly logical – even mathematical – lines of explanation. And while we have been able to diagram the workings of other senses, this possible ‘sixth sense’, seems to be elusive. So claim its existence, some think of it as absurd and simple illusion. Is it that it does not exist, or that science has just not discovered a way to ‘prove’ its existence as of yet?

I guess in the end, animals are animals. So why would virtually all animals seem to have an ‘awareness’ that one other animal does not? Is this because perhaps humans are the anomaly – the one with the capability of ‘rational’ thought? Did humans ‘trade-in’ a sixth sense for ‘rational’ thought – only to leave a few lingering anomalous practitioners? But what if humans are not different? What if the one anomaly of all animals – humans – are simply using that one anomalous feature – rationality – to make this simple sense ‘disappear’? Are humans so focused on the quantification of logical rational thought that they have imagined these unquantifiably mysterious capabilities away?

Can Power be a Manifestation of Energy in Social Form?

This is really not a sound/completed thought, but worth a mention as it came up today...

Many theories of power are generally applied to our social world and the ability of individuals and group/class actors to maintain power over others. I would expand upon this to go beyond ‘social’ form to include any entity as having power. It seems to me that ‘power’ is actually a simple ‘quantification’ of comparative energy use. It is obvious that all things in existence have some sense of power affixed to them, a rock, gravity, a mind, a strong person, a social norm, etc. There is always interplay between entities – both of singular or plural composition – that can be defined as power relationships to do any number of infinite things in relation to another entity.

I always find it interesting that people (i.e. academics) spend so much time arguing over trivial things. I mean is it not common sense to think of power as an ability to do something in relation to another thing? Yet books and books are written about things that seem to be common sense. I mean there is always someone attempting to order pathways and sequences of where power rests within society and even causality. But how is this ever possibly definable? It’s like doing an infinite number of equations where infinity is used in an infinite number of variables an infinite number of times. How does one diagram and/or map the complexities of society’s every actor – human or otherwise – and honestly think that they can define anything? Power is completely subjective to time, space, and EVERY possible factor weighing on said scenario – I.e. infinitely. There can be no definition of a power system; it is indefinable, yet so thoroughly ingrained within our social fabric as to be indefinable. So why do we spend so much time trying to diagram patterns that ‘explain’ it all rather than just running with it?

Can We/Society be Different?

Russian girl...

My point here is about the behavior (not the horrible treatment of this girl - though this is tremendously saddening). That a human child - living primarily with animals - ends up behaving socially as an animal. Think about what this illustrates of the human susceptibility to our socio-cultural environment. If all you see is 'dog social behavior', this becomes your social interaction; if all you see is to focus on our own individual self-profit, then that is how you will act in society - for ourselves.

Imagine if we as human being were all socialized in a different way as this young girl was? What would/could we become as individuals and as a society if we were socialized to think in ways more conducive to cooperation and support of all and others, rather than being individually motivated?

The point is, that we can be whatever we are taught to be or learn to be. The problem with this though is that it is confined by our imaginations and the social realities/prisons that we live in. When will we become different? How will we become different? Who will make us different? Is it You??

The Imperial Tiger

So I understand the situation is tenuous here, but is it really the ‘right’ thing to do to ‘destroy’ the animal? And yes, why don’t you just say ‘kill’ it? I realize the effort at political correctness, but ‘destroy’ sounds even worse. What did you do, drop a giant cement block on it and squash it like a grape? Of course, I guess this analogy is exactly the point: ‘it’.

This Tiger does not deserve to die. It is taken and encaged in a zoo. Away from its natural habitat, outside its realm of instinct and comfort, and then chastised and killed for acting, well… like a Tiger. As this blog will come to show, it is the belief here that all living things are of equal worth and should be of equal importance in our eyes. This Tiger is no different. It should not die for acting out against enslavement, yearning for its natural life. Come on people, stop seeing things through imperialist eyes, and start realizing that true ‘civilization’ requires compromise, constraint, and cooperation with our environment and everything in it. Tigers or any other living entity does not deserve to die at the hands of arrogance, ignorance, or stupidity, especially for simply being themselves.

An Analogy of Today’s Individual

An Individual’s ability to make their own decisions rests on their social existence. Their upbringing, their life experiences, those surrounding them, etc. A good analogy for this is to think of American football. Take one great player on a team full of average players. No I am not going to talk about how the team is only as good as its weakest link, or one great player doesn’t make a team – though this concept of team is important to keep in mind. The thing that I want to elucidate is that this one player may be great or may not be great depending upon their utilization within the ‘system’. If the ‘system’ was of no importance, then why would there be offensive and defensive playbooks or coaches? It is the system that can bring a player’s skills to light. A good receiver on a team that runs the ball 75% of the time may never be seen as a great player unless the offensive system accentuates that individual’s skill set – thus they are beholden to the system they play in. Its easy to say in football that they can go play for another team, yet in the team game that is life, we can’t just decide to go play somewhere else, we are in this game and this offensive system whether we like it or not.

The problem that we face today is that the social system we are in produces societal ‘players’ solely focused on themselves. We are taught about individual freedoms, personal choice, individual rights, private property, etc. All of these are valuable and admirable things, but on the whole, self-based motives and actions – Me. Mine. Ours.

So how does a self-obsessed player like this translate to the analogous football field? They are the ‘pre-madonna’ wide receivers that whine when they don’t ‘get the damn ball’. We all know them and we love watching them make plays, but then chastise them for what they say and do otherwise. Imagine a football team with nothing but flashy pre-madonna wide receivers at every position? That is what our world is turning into. Some of us have been on those teams, even been those players, but that is not what makes successful team chemistry. Why then should we pretend that what doesn’t work in the most obvious team sports we’ve seen will work in the largest and most indefinable team sport we play – life?