CG wrote:Lemmie wrote:I grew up in the LDS church as well, and while you could find truth in other peoples writings, no, it was never taught that that meant you could represent their work as your own.
Oh, ok I understand your position better now. Your objection isn't over the content but the identification of the catalyst for the content.
that is hands down the most b.s. excuse I have ever heard for stealing someone else's intellectual property and representing it as your own.
No, my objection isn't over 'identification of the catalyst for the content'! My objection is exactly what I said it was, Joseph Smith misrepresented someone else's work as his own. Saying God did it is no more an actual explanation than saying the dog ate my homework. And far less reasonable.
CB wrote:To that I can but say that a person who apparently didn't even have formal grade school education let alone an university education such notions almost certainly would have been alien. To him it's much more of a question of Clarke or related texts as catalysts.
You have absolutely no way of knowing that. Why would a lack of formal education imply a lack of honesty, to the extent that he would define stealing someone's words as 'catalytic' to his process?
CB wrote:That might include emendation of the text largely following Clarke but without identifying Clarke since to Joseph the main issue is the Holy Ghost confirming it. If that makes sense.
No it doesn't. It sounds like using your conclusion that God inspired Joseph Smith as your starting assumption is once again forcing you to twist circumstances into an extremely unlikely telling. It's not a logical way to evaluate a situation.
CB wrote:Lemmie wrote:Clarke, you use the rhetorical technique above quite a bit to avoid answering a question. I specifically pointed out your errors in defining plagiarism, explained why, and asked you specifically if you were excusing using someone else's work without attribution, because it wasn't done in every instance.
I'm the no 'e' Clark. <grin> I understand what you are saying better now. Again I'd just say that just as in the ancient and medieval world that wasn't a rule people typically followed, I'm not sure applying it to the ignorant Joseph Smith is applicable. It presupposes that normative rules of academia apply here which I don't think they do. Even in the late 18th and early 19th century unattributed quotes was fairly ubiquitous. Ben Franklin is probably the best known example with his almanac. While copyright and related issues certainly were known, the idea that short phrases ought to be attributed in probably more than a little acontextual to the rural environment in question. I don't know the nuances of attribution and copyright in the 1830's, but I know it typically was far more open than today. So while "plagiarism" has an obvious rhetorical effect, I'm not sure it's terribly helpful in understanding what's going on.
Actually, I was not using plagiarism as a 'rhetorical effect,' nor was I comparing plagiarism definitions across the centuries in order to identify a generational bias. And yes, I think it IS terribly helpful to look at the available information regarding the commentaries to note that while Joseph Smith represented his work as inspired by God, it was in this case actually plagiarized from a contemporary.
Bringing in Ben Franklin is irrelevant, as the two cases bear no relationship to each other. Joseph Smith was not compiling quips and sayings, He was representing his work regarding the commentaries as coming from God, knowing full well he had actually just copied another human person's work without giving them credit. Also known as plagiarism.