I could have never imagined that there would be people willing to defend Zizek’s plagiarism. But here is somebody on Inside Higher Ed who thinks it’s OK to plagiarize because scholars are too busy to do actual scholarship and everybody plagiarizes anyway:
Yet this balance often conceals the fact that we rely on “secondary sources” all the time without necessarily citing them (who hasn’t looked up something on Wikipedia — without citing it — to get some bearings?).
I really love it when people use the “royal we” to project their weirdness onto others.
Conversely, we often pad our arguments with citations to things we haven’t read well or at all. Not only because that’s what’s expected but also because doing so allows us to cover our arguments with a supposed mastery of a literature that is virtually impossible for any one person to master. Whoever says that he or she hasn’t done as much either is lying or hasn’t published.
As I just said on Jonathan Mayhew’s blog:
I used to do this. And while I was doing it I kept getting article rejections. Then I realized that this was an idiotic way to work and started gaining the “impossible” mastery of my field. And then managed to get published.
The process of mastering the field and learning to find one’s way around what was said and when and by whom and in response to what is incredible fun. And people who miss out on that fun because it’s too hard or time-consuming are not really scholars.
You are supposed to live for this shit, snatching any moment you can to read that new article on the Spanish Civil War, or whatever your area of research is supposed to be. And if you see it as an impossible proposition and a drag, then you are in the wrong profession. I almost fell off the Stairmaster yesterday, for instance, because I was trying to underline something in an article I had received through Interlibrary Loan an hour earlier (not a good idea at all. Please do not replicate this experiment.)
The best part in the defense of plagiarism comes at the end, of course:
We’re all mere mortals, so perhaps it would be best to lower our expectations with regard to what we do, really acknowledge our debt to others, and allow practice to catch up with theory.
Of all the inventive excuses I have received from students who have plagiarized, “I’m a mere mortal, Professor, so please lower your expectations” is not one I have ever heard before.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment