what it is to be human, A Human Strategy, Matt Berry, aphorism 254

254
Truth is what it is to be human.  If something is True, then it already belongs to us.  If it belongs to us from the beginning it cannot be plagiarized.  We should reserve the word “plagiarism” for those non-Me facts certified by others and which we paste together “with originality,” imitating a very precise method of association with another’s genius, all to secure our authority by appeasing those who have secured it themselves, in exactly the same way ... but in its stead we find the word “scholarship” and assign it to those who are ashamed of their own naked thought but somehow manage nonetheless to stand before us confidently, wearing only their caps of authority.



A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



Popular posts from this blog

A valuable book, A Human Strategy, aphorism 387

387 A valuable book may be torn to pieces without diminishing the human spirit, just so long as the words have already been read and understood.  To feel the loss of the book — at its material destruction, even though one had already digested its contents fully and had aligned oneself toward its overall direction — is evidence that one values the non-human being over human becoming , the static thing over the dynamic process .  In response to the fear of our unknowable future we would rather freeze ourselves into a single stage of growth at the expense of the entire metamorphosis. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism
Read more
The Ascetic Impulse: We think we deliberately hurt ourselves when it is simply that we do know which version of ourselves will satisfy our needs more fully. We try on a personality as if trying on new clothes. Bizarrely, the self we beat up has heretofore been a complete stranger.
Read more